Matisse, Kandinsy, Dix, Duchamp, Dali Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Matisse, Kandinsy, Dix, Duchamp, Dali - Essay Example Composition VII is a complex painting on a grand scale. The abstract name suggests how the painter is attempting to draw parallels to musical symphonies. Kandinsy’s close friendship with music composer Schoenberg further bears out this hypothesis. Just as Schoenberg’s music is typified by its atonality, Kandinsy’s work creates a similar mood. This affective mood is achieved through the use of dissonant colors, shapes and object orientations. This very abstract work raises suggestions of chaos and doom. Produced before the break of the First World War, it could be taken as a harbinger of events to unfold. But the underlying message seems to be that destruction is followed by renewal. Invoking Christian symbolism, Kandinsy is perhaps implying the great hope that lies beyond impending apocalypse. In sum, the painting is intriguing and intellectually satisfying. No other painter captured the horrors of war as Otto Dix had done. Based on his first hand experiences dur ing the First World War, Dix produced some of the most vivid, graphic and provocative war sceneries ever. Where it suits him, Dix abstracts the idea of destruction into various manifestations. Though his images belong to what he saw during the Great War, it could equally apply to any war ever fought. This is so because human suffering is a constant across wars of various epochs. As one of the paintings sadly conveys, it is worms which are the real winners in any war. Dix also captured the cultural atmosphere during the inter-war years.