Page 26 - Studio International - January 1967

Improvisation 1911
Watercolour and pencil on paper
11* x 18+ in.
In this watercolour, although all sense of
illusionistic space has disappeared, the forms
themselves are still obviously ciphers for some of
his favourite naturalistic subject-matter: the sun,
mountains, trees and hills, for example.
Although in his Improvisations Kandinsky was
aiming at an almost automatic, direct and
uninhibited means of expression, these landscape-
derived forms still remain their dominant feature.

Opposite
Pink oblong 1923
Oil on canvas
41 1/2 x 38 1/2 in.

interesting to note that Joyce's inner monologue, the spective. Kandinsky was a great innovator, but to over-
central device in Ulysses, belongs to the same historical look his theoretical sources is to do him, as well as them, a
moment. Just as modern physics had demanded a grave and damaging injustice. q
complete reversal of traditional thinking, a new orien- 1. For a description of Kandinsky's appearance and bearing
tation of the senses, as it were, and of the evaluative see: Ursula Schuh, Im Klassenzimmer Kandinskys, catalogue,
faculty itself, so Kandinsky realized that a similarly Bauhaus, Frankfurt 1964.
radical approach to the problems of painting alone could 2. Unpublished letter of 10.1.39. Copy in Bauhaus-Archiv,
Darmstadt.
bring off the creation of a non-figurative art.
3. See, for example, a letter from Oskar Schlemmer to Otto
Moholy-Nagy claims that Kandinsky was 'the great
Meyer-Amden, 21.10.23, quoted in E. Roters, Maler am
initiator of abstract painting, whose theoretical work Bauhaus.
represents the beginning of a new art history'.2° This is 4. Planck's paper on the law of radiation, the most important
an exaggerated claim. Kandinsky in fact represents the single statement of his Quantum Theory, was published in
1901. Einstein published a number of articles concerning
culmination of an historical process which could not be
his general theory of relativity during the years 1902-8. The
averted. But his background, the circumstances of his
most vital of these was the paper entitled Zur Elektrodynamik
birth and of his later life assured that it was he who bewegter Korper, published in 1905.
would not only declare the aims and nature of the new art 5. Wassily Kandinsky: Rückblicke 1901-13, Berlin 1913, New
but would also be able to put it into practice. These edition Baden-Baden 1955.
6. Kandinsky's activities during the Revolution are still not
notes have suggested some of the reasons for this. There
clear. Troels Andersen in an article just published in Artes
are of course, others, but it is hoped that what has been
sheds new light on Kandinsky's contribution to Revolution-
discussed will help put Kandinsky into his proper per- ary art thinking.