Kandinsky’s Animated Page: The Almanac The Blue Rider as a Work of Art'

Abstract

This chapter will argue that the almanac 'De Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider)' edited by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc and published in Munich in 1912 by R. Piper & Co, can be interpreted on terms established in Kandinsky’s art theory as not merely a book, but as a work of art. The terms for this claim are found in his theory of synthesis of the arts, in which diverse mediums are unified into an artistic whole. In particular, I shall locate the almanac in the context of Kandinsky’s essays that examine ways in which apparently prosaic text can move beyond its conventional meaning and begin to function on such terms by exploring the relationship between text and image in the volume. Finally, I shall argue that other aspects of 'Der Blaue Reiter' influence this relationship in order to form what Kandinsky called a 'synthetic' work of art, in which diverse media are brought together to work as a whole. In this process, forms of signification become 'animated' as they exceed their purely conventional roles.