Vasily Kandinsky: Abstraction and ImageAuthor(s): Daniel RobbinsSource: Art Journal, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Spring, 1963), pp. 145-147Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/774438 .

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Daniel Robbins

VASILY KANDINSKY: ABSTRACTION AND IMAGE

In criticism and scholarship, the greatest emphasis on

Kandinsky's work has always fallen on the early period. This is particularly true of the Murnau-Munich years just before World War I when Kandinsky made the transition from

figurative, or objective, paintings to paintings where object references no longer appear. There has long existed a distinct

preference for these paintings which are both visually pleas- ing, because of their brilliant collor and lyrical feeling, and

historically exciting, because in their formal vocabulary they were almost entirely unique at that point of time. They were

distinctly different from the work of most contemporary painters, even though some of those contemporaries- Delaunay, Picabia, and Kupka for instance-were also travel-

ing the path toward abstract painting. Thus, one reason that the pre-1914 works stand out is because Kandinsky's pioneer style had not yet been absorbed into the mainstream of a

rapidly developing modernism. The paintings of the Russian period (1916-21), on the

other hand, are frequently discussed as having been influenced

by the growth of Constructivism. Similarly, the Bauhaus

period (1922-33) recalls a wealth of parallel activity (too loosely categorized as geometric abstraction) with the result that it is submerged in a flurry of period style. From 1916 on, Kandinsky's contemporaries had accepted and were in-

creasingly to absorb his innovations. In short, during the twenties, if Kandinsky were to have maintained the unique position he had held in 1913, he would have had to con- centrate more on innovation than on personal artistic develop- ment. This problem (under which many a talented and original twentieth-century painter has been crushed by self-

consciously choosing innovation rather than development) apparently did not bother Kandinsky. It is one of the meas- ures of his confidence and certainty that he was content to let his art generate itself. It is also a measure of our general lack of awareness that, simply because they participate in a gen- eral style, these works should appear "dated" to some of us, even though they specifically and organically grow out of the individual nature of the earlier pictures.

The last period of Kandinsky's work, from 1933 until his death in 1944, has also been set apart as an entity (or style). Because he fled the Nazis to live in Paris, these last

years are reasonably called the French period, but when this designation is assumed to imply more than geographical or chronological boundaries, another artificial break is fabri- cated and emphasized. It must be remembered that the Bauhaus or French periods are merely words of quick identi- fication and it must not be assumed that they define stylistic periods genuinely dependent on the Bauhaus or on France for their content or characteristics. For the casual or the un-

Mr. Robbins who received his training in the history of art at Chicago, Yale, and the Institute of Fine Arts was a teaching fellow at Indiana University and is now on the staff of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

wary, biography often confounds art. In these late paintings we will note the same preoccupations that existed earlier; we find solutions to problems posed before; we even see, as Dr. Kenneth Lindsay has pointed out, a continuation of the same

iconography. Before going on to illustrate some of these factors of

Kandinsky's artistic continuity, I would like to discuss one critical problem that has received a great deal of attention. When did Kandinsky first create an abstract painting? At-

tempts to settle this question are currently facilitated because of the last-minute-inclusion in the Guggenheim exhibition of seven important works from the Soviet Union. None of these seven works has ever been seen in this country nor have

any been publicly displayed since a 1919 Moscow exhibition. Included among these Soviet works is the fabulous Composi- tion VII, of 1913 (fig. 2), a painting which the artist de- scribed in a letter of 1935 to J. B. Neuman as his earliest large abstract painting. (Measuring 783/4" X 1181/8", it is, in fact, Kandinsky's largest painting). Fortunately, while it is on loan at the Guggenheim, Composition VII hangs in direct confrontation with the famous untitled watercolor from Madame Kandinsky's collection (fig. 1). This watercolor

signed and dated 1910, is often cited as the first abstract

painting. Viewing both works simultaneously, an observer can

entertain no doubt that the watercolor is a sketch for Composi- tion VII. A comparison of black and white photographs re- veals the underlying similarity of the two compositions and this relationship is strengthend when both works are viewed in color. This fact leads us to suspect that the watercolor's date of 1910 might be too early. Credit for first suggesting a later date goes to Lindsay who, on stylistic grounds, has dated it around 1913. In this opinion, he has been supported by Dr. R6thel of the Stidtisches Gallery in Munich, who was the first to link the watercolor with Composition VII, and by Dr. Peter Selz of the Museum of Modern Art. It should be stressed, however, that there is no implication that Kandinsky might have backdated the watercolor, for it is well known that he often signed and dated his work at some interval after its completion-and his memory was not infallible. Instances of similar conflict can occasionally be found in com- paring Kandinsky's own houselist with the paintings he signed and dated. Such a case occurs with Improvisation 8, where its placement as number 99 in the houselist has led Grohmann to date the work 1910 despite the clear presence of the date 1909 on the canvas in the artist's writing.

In the case of the watercolor, however, there are addi- tional considerations: the most important is that Kandinsky made at least three important large oil sketches for Composi- tion VII. Needless to say, these important oil sketches, quite finished, are more similar to the big Composition VII than the small watercolor is, thus inevitably forcing one to ask two related questions. First, with such extensive preparation

145 Robbins: Vasily Kandinsky: Abstraction and Image

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Fig. 2. Composition VII, No. 186, 1913, 783/4 X 1181/8". Lent by the Tretiakov

Gallery, Moscow.

Fig. 1. Untitled Watercolor, 191/4 X 25", Lent by Nina Kandinsky, Neuilly- sur-Seine, France. All illustrations are from paintings in the Kandinsky Retrospective Exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum, New York City, January 24-April 7, 1963.

and considering the fact that as late as 1935 Kandinsky still

emphasized the importance of Composition VII, could he

really have misdated the watercolor by so much as three

years? And secondly, since the three major oil studies (all undated) are all considerably more advanced than the water- color, and certainly come between it and Composition VII, could any of them perhaps be earlier than 1913? Obviously, although we are tempted to answer "No" to the first question, such an answer is insufficient evidence to justify adhering to the earlier date. Similarly, a positive response to the second

question simply establishes the possibility that the watercolor, as well as any of the oil sketches, might antedate 1913.

Fortunately, however, the watercolor as exhibited in the

Guggenheim was also in convenient juxtaposition with an- other major painting, the Study for Composition II (fig. 3) signed and dated 1910. A close comparison between the watercolor and the 1910 painting clearly reveals important compositional and color similarities, similarities which can be overlooked only if one insists on being blinded by the

subject matter of the Study for Composition II. If the organi- zation of forms is read in terms of shape, direction and color, one perceives a marked identity between the two works. The central white area, partially bounded by curving orange and blue, that rises in the watercolor is comparable to the leaping white horse in the Study; the upper white area rising mountain-like in the Study and flanked with red-orange is echoed in the watercolor by a similarly placed shape flanked with orange; the bending figures of the right center in the

Study reappear as curved linear shapes in the same position of the watercolor. The proportions and principal directional movements are strikingly duplicated, as are the general con-

figurations in each of the four corners and even certain de- tails, such as the domed city of the left, upper-center of the

Study, are repeated in similar position in the watercolor, but translated into abstract spots of color and line. Thus, while there is not the least question that the abstract watercolor is a

Fig. 3. Study for Composition II, 1910, 383/8 X 513/4". The Solomon R. Guggen- heim Museum.

preliminary notation for the 1913 Composition VII, there is a strong likelihood that the work which is also related to the 1910 Study for Composition II could have been made as early as 1910 or 1911.

The chief importance of establishing this date rests on the fact that the watercolor is Kandinsky's first completely abstract work. If 1910 is the date accepted, one cannot help but wonder why the artist waited three years to make paintings that were consistently in the same vein. A possible answer to this important question-and one which tends to minimize the

importance of specifically dating the water-color-is sug- gested by the artist's conception of painting and by looking carefully at his chronological development.

By 1910, Kandinsky had already formulated his theories of inner necessity and was entirely convinced that content could be communicated by line, color, movement, and direc- tion-in short, by abstract means. Those well-known images in his early work, horse and riders, domed cities, entablature and columns, sailboats, oars, guns, smoke, lightning flashes,

ART JOURNAL XXII 3 146

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Fig. 4. Little Pleasures, No. 174, 1913, 431/2 X 471/4". The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

mountains, and steeples, were by 1910 so far removed from

perceived reality that even today most spectators find them

unrecognizable. The concord of expert opinion is that after 1913 these images no longer exist; but, as Lindsay has sug- gested, they do. Less and less direct in their relationship to

perceived reality, these images exist even in Composition VII. In this painting, however, the transformation from outer shell to inner meaning is so complete that one does not want- indeed it would be false-to point out specific images such as "horse and rider" in the lower left corner, "lightning flash" in the upper right and center, or "domed city over hill" in the upper left of center. This transformation is

Kandinsky's magic; this is his conception of painting. It is

possible to point to such images across Kandinsky's entire pro- duction: a veritable iconography! Between his abstract paint- ing and his non-abstract painting there is only a difference in degree and a highly refined intention.

Thus, the domed city, always behind or on top of a hill as in Riding Couple (1905-07) appears in the Archer (1909), in Composition II (1910), in The Cow (1910) where, inci-

dentally the blue arch of the hill becomes the Black Arch

painting of 1912, and in Improvisation 30 (Cannon) (1913). In Little Pleasures of (1913) (Fig. 4), it becomes so refined that it should perhaps be known as the "City of Little Pleas- ures." We should not be surprised to find such continuity across a close span of feverishly active years, for it is only natural that certain motifs should rise and then gradually fall off as others assume importance. But an observer at these retrospectives will find certain key configurations used throughout all of the so- called periods and styles. Not only will he find the "City of Little Pleasures" repeated in the 1922 Klein Welten series, but he will also find the entablature and columns of Impression III (Torchlight Parade) (1909) repeated in the Soviet Im-

provisation 11 (Fig. 5) of 1910, and even carried through to

Fig. 5. Improvisation 11, No. 102, 1910, 383/8 X 417/8". Lent by the Russian Museum, Leningrad.

Composition 10 (1937) and Reciprocal Accord (1942)! In the dazzling wealth of forms and colors that is Kandinsky's whole production, these themes can be traced, they could even be counted and classified according to frequency as they rise and fall over the years. If observations such as these lead only to a game of identification, however, they are worthless and

misleading. If, on the other hand, their significance is weighed in an attempt to penetrate not only the way in which Kandin-

sky worked but also the very nature of his mental and artistic

development, they can provide valuable clues to our under- standing of his art.

The extraordinary metamorphosis is simply this: that a recognizable domed city of 1909 has ceased to require identi- fication as "domed city." We see an image that is an objective translation, often line for line, but which makes what we call "dome" or "city" a superfluous identification. The painting becomes all content, becomes Kandinsky's inner feeling about the subject. It was possible for Kandinsky to achieve this feeling when the degree of abstraction was less, but the less abstract a form the more difficult was the artist's translation. What is most important, however, is that these images reveal an extraordinary continuity and a conception of abstract paint- ing that is both simple and human. Keyed to the artist's con- ception of inner necessity is the notion that between a paint- ing where objects are still described and one where they are not described, there is only a difference in degree. In neither case, for Kandinsky, is the form of primary importance; it is always the poetic or spiritual content that counts. Hence, Kandinsky arrives at his particular kind of abstraction in 1910 and 1911, and from that moment until his death pur- sues it in paintings that may vary in quality, poetic content, or refinement of means, but never in fundamental intent. It was a conception of art unlike that of any other painter of his time.

147 Robbins: Vasily Kandinsky: Abstraction and Image

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