"Munich New Artist's Association" ("Neue Kunstlervereinigung Munchen")
At the end of the 1900 th, after the self-dissolution of ”The Phalanx”, Kandinsky had mainly lived and worked in Murnau. But here he comes back in Munich - and there he is waiting for a new stage of active creative and public activities. His energy is limitless. He is engaged in many projects: takes to write a book, which reveals his understanding art in, writes critical articles for magazines and, of course, constantly writes paintings. He visited salon of his good friend Marianne von Werefkin, and that is where the idea was born of a new artistic Union.“Munich New Artist's Association” ("Neue Kunstlervereinigung Munchen") was created in January, 1909. It was composed of friends Kandinsky - Munter, Verevkina, Jawlensky, Kubin, artists Adolf Erbsle, Alexander Kunoldt, Paul Baum, Moses Kogan, Vladimir Behteev and others, as well as art historians Henry Schnabel and Oscar Wittgenstein.
It was a really active period of creative searching for Kandinsky, but he could also engage in exhibitions of ”The New Association”. The first exhibition was organized in December, 1909, and gathered 128 works of 16 artists, as members of the Association, and invited guests. The second exhibition held in the autumn, 1910, gathered interesting international team of masters: Georges Braque, David and Vladimir Burliuk, Kees van Dongen, Andre Derain, Pablo Picasso, Anrey Le Fokonje, Georges Rouault, and Maurice de Vlaminck. Conservative and sleepy Munich became temporarily the center of avant-garde art.
Wassily Kandinsky presented to the audience the four paintings and six woodcuts. The most significant of the painting, written at that time of Kandinsky, was “Composition II", lost during the World War II. It became a demonstration of how the artist was released from the perspective, how he freely used the colors and lines. Group of figures, elements of a landscape - everything was blurry, all dynamically and uneven. Perhaps, this was the state of mind of the artist, who felt that the time comes decisive step forward.
The reaction of the art critics of Munich was predictable. All with one accord sentence: the author was mad or “intoxicated with opium or hashish”. In defense of the exhibition were the only two: the Director of the Bavarian State Art collections- Hugo von Hop, and unknown at the moment anyone painter Franz Marc from Munich, who was a close view of Kandinsky in color and form. Later with him Kandinsky subsequently linked close friendship.
The further evolution of the Kandinsky as an artist soon became a cause rejection of colleagues to unite. Many critical reviews of his work poured oil on the fire. When one of the exhibitions of “The Association” was canceled, the growing tension within the group led to the fact that Kandinsky had to leave his post as a Chairman. The guide association passed to Erbsle and Кunoldt, which showed a tendency to moderate cubism.
The further aggravation of the relations within the group came owing to the pamphlet Karl Finnen “Protest German artists”, in which was expressed dissatisfaction with conservative figures of art pernicious influence of the foreign art (implied French and Russian). And the culmination of all was the third exhibition of “The New Art Association” (December 1911), its jury rejected the painting by Kandinsky “Composition V” on the grounds that his painting didn’t conform to the size established by the rules. The answer to that could only be output from “The Association”. Kandinsky made it and with him together - Franz Marc, Munter and Кubin. A little later “The Association” left Marianne von Werefkin and Jawlensky, and the organization had ceased to exist. Kandinsky and Marc to such outcome were ready. In the summer of 1911 they built already plans for the establishment of a new artistic Manifesto - in the future “The «Blue rider”. Soon on its basis a new Association will be created, on which Kandinsky will impose new creative hopes and which will mark for his breakthrough in abstract art.