This document provides information on several paintings by Wassily Kandinsky from 1908 to 1925. It summarizes Kandinsky's time spent in the town of Murnau in Germany from 1908-1914 where he was inspired by the landscapes. During this time his style evolved from representational landscapes to abstract dream-like visions using color and form to express inner spiritual ideas rather than depicting objects. The document also notes several important abstract paintings Kandinsky created in the 1910s that marked his transition to non-representational art and establishment of the abstract painting movement.

1. Wassily KandinskyWassily Kandinsky

2. Kandinsky.-Murnau. Casas en el Obermarkt. 1908Kandinsky.-Murnau. Casas en el Obermarkt. 1908
Óleo sobre lienzo. Museo Thyssen.Óleo sobre lienzo. Museo Thyssen.
Para Kandinsky, los años comprendidos entre 1904 y 1908 fueron años de
viajes, la mayoría de los cuales realizó en compañía de la joven artista
alemana Gabriele Münter, a la que había conocido en Múnich en 1902.
Durante 1904 y 1905 visitaron Holanda, Italia y el norte de África. La pareja
se encontraba en París a partir de 1906-1907, y pasó seis meses en Berlín
durante el invierno de 1907-1908, regresando finalmente a Múnich en el
invierno de 1908. A partir de entonces, pasaron unas temporadas en la
capital bávara y otras en el pueblo de Murnau, a unos ochenta kilómetros al
sur de Múnich, que visitaron por primera vez juntos en el transcurso de una
breve excursión que realizaron a mediados de junio de 1908. A ambos les
encantó el lugar y, a instancias de Kandinsky, Münter compró una casa allí en
agosto de 1909. A partir de esa fecha y hasta que en 1914 estalla la guerra,
ella y Kandinsky, a menudo en compañía de otros artistas entre los que se
encuentran los compatriotas de Kandinsky, Alexei Jawlensky y Marianne von
Werefkin, pasan buena parte del año en Murnau, en particular los veranos.
En el pueblo y sus alrededores (Murnau tiene un enclave pintoresco, al pie de
los Alpes bávaros) Kandinsky halla un repertorio de temas en los que se
inspira constantemente durante esos años cruciales que son igualmente
testigos de su creciente evolución radical hacia una concepción abstracta de
la pintura.Aunque Casas en el Obermarkt no está fechada, la evolución
estilística del artista durante esos años es tan rápida y decisiva que es casi
seguro que se trate de una obra de 1908, ejecutada en un momento en el
que todavía se detecta la influencia de la pintura fauve que había visto en
París. El hecho de que el cuadro -que pasó desapercibido durante muchos
años en el último piso del pintor en Neuilly-sur-Seine, volviéndolo a descubrir
la viuda del artista- estuviera envuelto en un ejemplar de 1908 del periódico
muniqués Münchner Neueste Nachrichten aporta una pista más para esta
datación. Sin embargo, el título no es original y la obra no figura en las listas
de mano del artista, en las que anotaba sus principales cuadros. Casas en el
Obermarkt es simplemente el título que aparece en el catálogo razonado
redactado por Roethel y Benjamin, y con el que se le ha denominado
posteriormente.El cuadro representa la calle mayor de Murnau, vista desde
una calle lateral en sombra al lado de la Griesbräu Inn. El pueblo ha
cambiado tan poco que, incluso hoy, se puede identificar con toda exactitud
el punto en el que el artista debió de plantar el caballete. A juzgar por las
dimensiones del lienzo y la libertad en el manejo del medio, es posible que la
composición se ejecutara al aire libre, tal vez en una sola sesión. Peter Vergo
www.museothyssen.org

3. Kandinsky.-La Calleja Grün en Murnau. 1909Kandinsky.-La Calleja Grün en Murnau. 1909
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich.Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich.
La emoción suscitada por el color se impone
aquí sobre los aspectos anecdóticos del asunto
(Ramírez dr., “El mundo contemporáneo”).

4. Kandinsky.-Improvisación nº 9. 1910Kandinsky.-Improvisación nº 9. 1910
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart.Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart.
Un extraño mundo de ensueño, con algo de
cuento infantil, aparece evocado en esta obra
pintada el año crucial en que nació oficialmente
la pintura abstracta (Ramírez dr., “El mundo
contemporáneo”).

5. Kandinsky.- Primera acuarela abstracta. 1910Kandinsky.- Primera acuarela abstracta. 1910
París, colección Nina KandinskyParís, colección Nina Kandinsky
Signed and dated on the back, this painting
belonged to the collection of the artist’s wife,
Nina, in Neuilly-sur-Seine. As the title reveals,
this watercolor was Kandinsky’s first abstract
painting and was shown at the second
International Salon in Odessa – the city that
played an important role in his artistic training.
Kandinsky made the transition to abstraction
gradually, and went through a phase that did not
entirely annul the object – at least as a
reference. Even in the abstract paintings some
shapes maintain the associative perception that
replace the realistic portrayal. It was around this
time that the artist completed his fundamental
theoretical treatise Über das Geistige in der
Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) that
would only be published in 1913. In the treatise
he elaborates on the principles of abstraction
and a new theory of color that we can see in the
dynamics of this painting: a manifestation of a
dramatic and interior interpretation of the world.
http://www.artonline.it

6. Kandinsky.- Improvisación II. 1910.Kandinsky.- Improvisación II. 1910.
Óleo sobre lienzo. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscú.Óleo sobre lienzo. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscú.

7. Kandinsky.- Invierno II. 1910.Kandinsky.- Invierno II. 1910.
Óleo sobre cartón.Óleo sobre cartón.
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, MunichStädtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich

8. Kandinsky.-Impresión nº 5. 1911Kandinsky.-Impresión nº 5. 1911
Óleo sobre lienzo.Óleo sobre lienzo.
Centro Georges PompidouCentro Georges Pompidou
No hay ninguna forma concreta (ni círculo, ni
cuadrado, ni triángulo) que imponga límites al
color. Las manchas se desarrollan libremente
por la superficie del cuadro, lo mismo que las
líneas; nada está encerrado por nada. No hay
objetos ni formas reconocibles. Kandinsky,
como venía haciendo desde 1910, se ha alejado
de la realidad y el cuadro es un paisaje de
formas y colores armoniosamente dispuestos,
que traducen su visión espiritual.
http://www.artehistoria.jcyl.es

9. Kandinsky.-Composición V. 1911.Kandinsky.-Composición V. 1911.

10. Kandinsky.- El jardín del amor. Improvisación número 27.Kandinsky.- El jardín del amor. Improvisación número 27.
1912. Metropolitan, N.York.1912. Metropolitan, N.York.
The Russian-born artist Wassily Kandinsky moved to
Munich to study painting in 1896. There, he became
one of the founding members of Der Blaue Reiter ("The
Blue Rider"), a loose association of artists formed in
1911 to promote a new art, one that would reject the
materialist world in favor of the world of emotion and
the spirit. The following year, when he painted The
Garden of Love, Kandinsky also published his
influential book, On the Spiritual in Art. In accordance
with his belief in the primacy of the inner, spiritual
world, Kandinsky's art was abstract, meant to express
our preconscious selves, before the intervention of
reason. By dematerializing the external appearance of
his subject, without eliminating all visual reference to
it, he could reveal the subject's essence. Kandinsky
often used musical terminology to describe his work,
and in the subtitle of this painting, the word
improvisation suggests "a largely unconscious,
spontaneous expression of inner character, the
nonmaterial nature.“ The specific source for the
imagery in The Garden of Love is most likely the
biblical story of Paradise and the Garden of Eden, one
of several Old and New Testament themes addressed
by the artist. The imaginary landscape revolves around
a large yellow sun in the center of the composition,
which pulses with rays of red. The garden is occupied
by three abstract pairs of embracing figures: a reclining
couple above the sun, another at the lower right, and a
third, smaller pair seated at the left. Surrounding them
are several animals—certainly a snake and perhaps a
grazing horse and sleeping dog. Kandinsky, who was a
master watercolorist, successfully achieved a similar
effect in this oil painting.The Garden of Love has had
an illustrious exhibition history. Shortly after its
completion, it was included in the important Blaue
Reiter exhibition held at Herwarth Walden's newly
opened Der Sturm gallery in Berlin (1912), and in 1913
it was Kandinsky's single entry in the Armory Show
(New York), where Alfred Stieglitz saw it and promptly

11. Kandinsky.- Improvisación nº 26. 1912.Kandinsky.- Improvisación nº 26. 1912.
Tela. Munich, Städtische GalerieTela. Munich, Städtische Galerie

12. Kandinsky.-Paisaje con manchas rojas. 1913.Kandinsky.-Paisaje con manchas rojas. 1913.
Guggenheim, Nueva York.Guggenheim, Nueva York.
From 1908 Vasily Kandinsky often stayed in the town of
Murnau in upper Bavaria, where his companion Gabriele
Münter bought a house in 1909. The landscapes inspired
by these Alpine surroundings developed from the flattened,
densely colored views of 1908 to the luminous, antimaterial
dream visions of 1913, such as this canvas and the closely
related Landscape with Red Spots, No. 1 (Collection
Museum Folkwang, Essen). The motif of the church in a
landscape recurs often in Kandinsky’s paintings of 1908–
13. In examples of 1908–09 the particular design of the
Murnau church makes identification possible, though the
local topography may not be accurately reflected. By 1911
there is little specifying detail, and the tower, which serves
to divide the composition, has taken on a generalized,
columnar appearance. In Landscape with Red Spots, No. 2
the tower is replaced by a mysterious elongated vertical
form that seems to continue beyond the canvas edge into
another realm. Like the nineteenth-century German
Romantic painters, Kandinsky presents the landscape as
an exalted, spiritualized vision. He achieves the sublimity of
the image by freeing color from its descriptive function to
reveal its latent expressive content. The chromatic
emphasis is on the primary colors, applied thinly over a
white ground. The focal point, the red spot that inspires the
picture’s title, bears out Kandinsky’s appraisal of red as an
expanding color that pulses forward toward the viewer, in
contrast to cooler colors, particularly blue, that recede.
Kandinsky indicates the naturalistic content of subject
matter with abbreviated signs, emphasizing the purely
pictorial aspects of color and form, and thus is able to
dematerialize the objective world. Lucy Flint
http://www.guggenheim.org

13. Kandinsky.- Composición VI. 1913.Kandinsky.- Composición VI. 1913.
Óleo sobre lienzo.Óleo sobre lienzo.
Hermitage. San Petersburgo, Rusia.Hermitage. San Petersburgo, Rusia.
Kandinsky worked and studied in Munich from
1896 to 1914. In 1911, together with the German
painter Franz Marc, he established a group of
innovatory German artists called The Blue Rider
(Der Blaue Reiter). Kandinsky's work evolved
towards non-representational painting. Initially,
Kandinsky wanted this painting to be entitled
Flood. Swirling piles of matter run riot like
waves; lit up by flashes of lightning and soaked
in thundery showers, they create an impression
of universal catastrophe.
http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/

14. Kandinsky.- Composición VII. 1913.Kandinsky.- Composición VII. 1913.
Óleo sobre lienzo.Óleo sobre lienzo.
Galería Estatal Tretjakov. Moscú.Galería Estatal Tretjakov. Moscú.

15. Kandinsky.- Pintura nºKandinsky.- Pintura nº 201. 1914.201. 1914.
Óleo sobre lienzo.Óleo sobre lienzo.
Nelson A. Rockefeller Fund. The Museum of Modern ArtNelson A. Rockefeller Fund. The Museum of Modern Art
New York. U.S.A.New York. U.S.A.

16. Kandinsky.-Cuadro con mancha roja. 1914Kandinsky.-Cuadro con mancha roja. 1914
Óleo sobre lienzo.Óleo sobre lienzo.
Centro Georges PompidouCentro Georges Pompidou

17. Kandinsky.- Pequeño mundo. 1922.Kandinsky.- Pequeño mundo. 1922.
LitografíaLitografía
Museum of Modern Art, New York.Museum of Modern Art, New York.

18. Kandinsky.- Composición VIII.Kandinsky.- Composición VIII. 19231923
Óleo sobre lienzo.Óleo sobre lienzo.
Salomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York)Salomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York)
A diferencia de Klee, Kandinsky prescindió en
su pintura de toda relación con el mundo de las
cosas visibles. Su aportación pionera al arte de
vanguardia había sido la pintura sin tema, con la
que instó a la abstracción. Pero cuando
Kandinsky se integró en la Bauhaus su pintura
ya no guardaba fidelidad a lo que había sido su
primer expresionismo abstracto, como se lo
denominó. Durante su estancia en Rusia (1915-
21) había reorientado su imaginería. Encontró
afinidades con Malevich y asumió algunos
principios constructivistas. En los años veinte su
reto pictórico seguía siendo la unidad interna de
la imagen sobre la base de acordes formales y
cromáticos, pero buscó una determinación más
exacta de la forma, el compromiso constructivo
propio de la abstracción geométrica. El orden
intelectual se hizo más acusado. Abundó en las
equivalencias entre vivencias ópticas y
vivencias musicales.
http://www.artehistoria.jcyl.es

19. Kandinsky.- Verde abierto. 1923.Kandinsky.- Verde abierto. 1923.
Norton Simon Foundation, Los Ángeles.Norton Simon Foundation, Los Ángeles.
Las formas geométricas con contornos precisos
predominan en estos cuadros pintados tras sus
contactos directos con la vanguardia soviética.
(Ramírez dr., “El mundo contemporáneo”).

20. Kandinsky.-Sobre el blanco II. 1923Kandinsky.-Sobre el blanco II. 1923
Centro Georges Pompidou de ParísCentro Georges Pompidou de París

21. Kandinsky.- Girando. 1925.Kandinsky.- Girando. 1925.
Óleo sobre tabla.Óleo sobre tabla.
Tate Gallery.Tate Gallery.
Kandinsky was one of the pioneers of abstract
painting and worked with geometrical forms from
the mid 1920s. Although it makes no reference
to the outside world, his work summons up the
exciting rhythms of contemporary life. The title of
this painting conveys a sense of dynamic
movement. Ironically, Kandinsky’s move into
abstraction came in response to his feelings of
revulsion at the materialism of modern life. An
art freed from the depiction of objects seemed to
offer a solution to his spiritual crisis.
http://www.tate.org.uk

22. Kandinsky.- Puntas en el arco. 1927.Kandinsky.- Puntas en el arco. 1927.
Óleo sobre cartón.Óleo sobre cartón.
París, colección privada.París, colección privada.

23. Kandinsky.- Composición 31. 1931.Kandinsky.- Composición 31. 1931.
Óleo sobre lienzo.Óleo sobre lienzo.
National Gallery Washington.National Gallery Washington.
The title "Improvisations" refers to a series of works
that Kandinsky painted between 1909 and 1913
which was, according to the artist, "a largely
unconscious, spontaneous expression of inner
character, non-material nature." Although the
amorphous shapes and colorful washes of paint in
Improvisation 31 (Sea Battle) may at first appear
entirely abstract, they form a number of recognizable
images the artist invented to represent his often
biblical subject matter.The central motif of
Improvisation 31 (Sea Battle) is a pair of sailing ships
locked in combat, their tall masts appearing as
slender black lines. Cannons blast as the ships are
tossed upon turbulent waves, and, at the upper left, a
city of white towers appears on the verge of toppling.
Kandinsky's subject, found in a number of the
Improvisations, was probably inspired by the
apocalyptic imagery of the Book of Revelations.
Although this work was painted on the eve of the
First World War, Kandinsky denied that his paintings
referred to any specific war but rather to "a terrible
struggle . . . going on in the spiritual atmosphere."
Kandinsky, who fervently believed that humanity
stood on the brink of a new spiritual era, avowed that
art could help to sever human attachment to the
material world and usher in the new age
http://www.nga.gov

24. Kandinsky.-Curva dominante. 1936.Kandinsky.-Curva dominante. 1936.
Óleo sobre lienzo.Óleo sobre lienzo.
The Salomon R. Guggenheim Museum. N. York.The Salomon R. Guggenheim Museum. N. York.
Although Kandinsky was forced to leave Germany in 1933 due
to political pressures, he did not allow the mood of desolation
pervading war-torn Europe to enter the paintings and
watercolors that he produced in France, where he remained
until his death in 1944. His late works are marked by a general
lightening of palette and the introduction of organic imagery;
breaking away from the rigidity of Bauhaus geometry, he turned
to the softer, more malleable shapes used by Paris-based
artists associated with Surrealism, such as Jean Arp and Joan
Miró. Kandinsky’s late, often whimsical, paintings were also
influenced by the playful, intricately detailed compositions of his
longtime friend and Bauhaus colleague Paul Klee.During his
first years in France, Kandinsky experimented with pigments
mixed with sand, a technical innovation practiced during the
1930s by many Parisian artists, including André Masson and
Georges Braque. Although Kandinsky utilized this method only
until 1936, he created several paintings with rich, textured
surfaces such as Accompanied Contrast, in which the
interconnected colored planes and smaller floating patterns
project slightly from the canvas. Always attentive to and
appreciative of contemporary stylistic innovations, Kandinsky
inevitably brought his own interests to bear on any aspects he
would borrow. As art historian Vivian Barnett has pointed out,
his employment of biomorphic forms—a motif favored by
Surrealist painters as well as by Klee—attests more to his
fascination with the organic sciences themselves, particularly
embryology, zoology, and botany. During his Bauhaus years,
Kandinsky had clipped and mounted illustrations of microscopic
organisms, insects, and embryos from scientific journals for
pedagogical purposes and study. He also owned several
important sourcebooks and encyclopedias from which depictions
of minuscule creatures found abstract equivalences in his late
paintings. A schematized pink-toned embryo, for instance,
floats in the upper-right corner of Dominant Curve, while the
figures contained within the green rectangle in the upper-left
corner resemble microscopic marine animals. Various Actions is
imbued with similar organic figures hovering above a celestial
blue field. These buoyant, biomorphic images, often presented
in pastel hues, may be read as signs of Kandinsky’s optimistic
vision of a peaceful future and hope for postwar rebirth and
regeneration. Nancy Spector
Elementos flotantes de inspiración
biomórfica, próximos al surrealismo, se
aprecian en el último estilo de Kandinsky
(Ramírez dr., “El mundo contemporáneo9

25. Kandinsky.- Composición X. 1939.Kandinsky.- Composición X. 1939.
Óleo sobre lienzo.Óleo sobre lienzo.
Kunstsammlung. Nordrhein-Westfalen. Dusseldorf.Kunstsammlung. Nordrhein-Westfalen. Dusseldorf.

26. Kandinsky.- Sobre el tema del Diluvio.Kandinsky.- Sobre el tema del Diluvio.