Returning to the mythical couple of modern art Gabriele Münter and Vassily Kandinsky is to constantly re-embroider the theme of unequal love and the harsh condition of artists at the beginning of the 20th century.
And follow day by day the intimate chapters that founded the history of art on the way to the Blue Rider, this group from Munich who revolutionized the very definition of art and wanted to dissolve the borders of all cultures.
The film written and directed by Catherine Aventurier,
Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter.
Passion and Revolution
, does not have the vigilante accent of
Gabriele Münter, pioneer of modern art
, Florence Mauro's film which portrayed the companion of Vassily Kandinsky, the one who shared his bohemian life in Murnau, but not his legend.
Like the justice of Saint Louis under his oak tree, he is halfway between the two lovers.
communion of spirits
It's always exciting to find these two characters, brand new, fresh, in what will become the modern epic.
The German Gabriele Münter and the Russian Vassily Kandinsky were among the 40 "modern couples", such as Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, brought together in the major exhibition at the Center Pompidou Metz in 2018 , then exported to the Barbican Center in London.
Rightly, the Münter-Kandinsky couple illustrated this exploration of the
“creative process through the prism of the romantic, complex, even subversive relationships that united avant-garde artists from the end of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century”
.
It begins with the communion of spirits, it ends with the betrayal of mortals.
Beyond an exalted love
With seriousness, this documentary questions the specialists as one would bring the witnesses to the bar to establish the merits and the shortcomings of each one.
"To paint is to unleash storms"
, launches the young Gabriele Münter, whom Brigitte Hermann, biographer of Kandinsky, considers as
"a simple woman, just wanting to paint, to get married, to start a family".
He is Russian, flamboyant in his passions, eager for a fresh eye, hence this affair with his young pupil Gabriele.
She will be judged as the naive artist, gifted as a child, by the masters of the Blue Rider.
Beyond this exalted love, she is colder, even restive, systematically corrects Vassily's mistakes in German, puts order in their life together, gives up for him.
“to the idea of what a home can be”
.
The enchanted parenthesis of Murnau will give masterpieces.
And the bitter memory of a lost happiness.