Wassily Kandinsky

 

Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (1866-1944), was a Russian painter widely credited as the pioneer of abstract art. He felt that art should have no recognizable objects or forms, but rather should destroy reality in order to arrive at the underlying truth of existence. He called his spiritual desire for art “inner necessity”. Kandinsky studied law and economics at the University of Moscow and was offered a professorship at the University of Dorpat, but he abandoned his career in 1896 at the age of 30 and went to Munich to study art. But before leaving Moscow, he saw an exhibit of paintings by Monet. It had a profound effect on him and may have influenced his later venture into abstract art.

In 1896 Kandinsky settled in Munich, studying art at the Academy of Fine Arts. But he returned to Moscow in 1914. After the Russian Revolution, he seemed to have been involved with Russian Marxist revolutionary Anotoly Lunacharsky, becoming an insider in the cultural administration. However because “his spiritual outlook was different to the argumentative materialism of Soviet society” he returned to Germany in 1920. There he taught art at the Bauhaus School until Hitler closed it down in 1933. He then moved to France producing some of his most prominent work until his death a few days before his 78th birthday. Wassily Kandinsky was an early champion of abstract painting and believed that abstract art could be used to express the “inner life” of the artist. His favorite color was blue, and he believed that the circle was the most peaceful shape and represents the human soul. (Shown below is a painting by Wassily Kandinsky together with a painting by me that was inspired by it).

The Magic of Art

 

For me Art has always been synonymous with magic, so one day I wondered whether there was some theory that when applied would lead to interesting paintings. Unfortunately there is no such theory, for some reason some paintings are pleasing while others fail to satisfy the mind. For many years I believed that composition was the most important element in a painting, later I felt color was equally important.

So I analyzed the paintings of famous artists and found that the most interesting paintings had an element of crudeness in them. Take Vincent van Gogh’s “The Church at Auvers” for example, the whole building is crooked and the colors unnatural. But what would have happened if he painted it straight using natural colors, then it would be like a million other architectural drawings, competent but boring.

This was good news for me because I am one one those people in this world who is too lazy or too incompetent to draw buildings perfectly. I felt that the real secret behind a really good painting was a certain ugliness mingled cleverly with a really impressive element. The impressive element makes the painting realistic while the ugliness energizes the painting making the whole painting interesting. I used this theory to paint and came up with some eerie paintings. Of course not everyone was impressed some people called some of my buildings childish, others called them crude. But the important thing was for the first time in many years I felt like painting again.

Ekala - Travel Memoir

 

When I was a kid this village near Ekala was filled with fireflies. Now there were hardly any. Actually, there seem to be much less insects now than there were a few decades ago. In just half a lifetime a lot seems to have changed. Maybe it was my imagination, so in one of my foolish ventures, I decided to find out more about insects.

Insects seem to be as different from human beings as it is possible to be. To begin with, they don’t have a heart, lungs, blood as we know it, a skeleton, or much of anything else. They are clearly built very differently. They have a tough exoskeleton to which muscles are attached and six legs. They were the first creatures to fly. You don’t have to be an expert to realize that they took a very different evolutionary line very early on. But what they are is they are essential to all life on earth. They are the food for birds and fish, every terrestrial and freshwater ecosystem relies on them. Oddly out of the millions of different varieties of insects, only about a few hundred have taken to the sea. (The sea is dominated by other kinds of arthropods like crustaceans.) Even plants rely on insects for pollination. It seems that they are declining at an unprecedented rate that some scientists call the global Insect Apocalypse. But there are so many varieties of them that scientists don’t know exactly by how much. Some scientists estimate that they are disappearing at the rate of 2% per year. That is a lot in 20 years.

To begin with, bees are in peril, and so are another order of insects, butterflies and moths (order Lepidoptera), and beetles (Coleoptera), and freshwater insects like dragonflies and damselflies. Loss of habitat, insecticides, climate change, and pollution are thought to be the reasons. It is believed that if insects go so will their predators.

Colombo - Travel Memoir

 

The landscape changes quickly when traveling in Colombo. One minute you are surrounded by skyscrapers, the next you are near the sea, and then near a lake filled with Pelicans. In a suburb near Colombo, there was a lake that I found mysterious and slightly menacing. Lakes like this one are actually essential for wildlife on the island and are true treasures, but are still a disconcerting presence. Even in a lake thought to be safe, it is still possible to imagine that a crocodile might have “walked in” from another distant lake. But what worries most experts are not crocodiles, but invasive fish. For example, it is believed that Alligator gars which grow to be 10 feet long and are native to North America are found in this lake. The clown knifefish native to Southeast Asia, one of the world’s most invasive freshwater fish are also found here. So how did they get here? People purchase it from pet aquariums when they are small, but when the fish outgrows the tank they are released into a nearby lake. Maybe some people get bored with the hobby and release the fish. There are said to be 30 introduced species of freshwater fish in the island's freshwater habitats. However not all are invasive, but the trouble is some really are. It’s odd when you think of it. Some fool releases some fish into an isolated water body, and in no time it is teeming with it because it has no natural enemies. It is found maybe only in that water body for a long time, but when it floods it spreads everywhere else.

The tank cleaner (suckermouth catfish), is the most widely distributed and harmful invasive species in Sri Lanka. It can survive several hours outside water. The knife fish that directly feeds on the lava of other species is the second worst invasive fish. The aggressive Mayan cichlids that attack other fish have spread from a water body in Colombo to several other wetlands. The guppy, native to the Caribbean region which was introduced to feed on mosquito larvae, has become more carnivorous feeding also on amphibian eggs. They are even found in the Sinharaja Rainforest.