Wassily Kandinsky

Mme Wassily Kandinsky, Paris
Galerie Maeght, Paris
Acquired from the above by the present owners in 1964

Erfurt, Angermuseum, Kunstverein, Wassily Kandinsky, 1925
(possibly) Dresden, Graphisches Kabinett Hugo Erfurth, Sieben Bauhausmeister, 1925
Barmen (Wuppertal), Ruhmeshalle; Stuttgart, Kunsthaus Schaller; Hanover, Kestner-Gesellschaft & Hamburg-Altona, Kunstsalon Maria Kunde, Meister des staatlichen Bauhauses in Weimar, 1925-26
Zurich, Kunsthaus, Georges Braque, Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, 1946, no. 49
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum & The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, Kandinsky, 1947-48, no. 32
Venice, XXV Biennale Internazionale d'Arte di Venezia, 1950, no. 16 
Boston, Institute of Contemporary Art; Cleveland, Museum of Art; New York, M. Knoedler & Co., Inc.; San Francisco, Museum of Art & Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, Kandinsky Retrospective, 1952, no. 15
Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Kandinsky, 1958, no. 22
London, Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., Painters of the Bauhaus, 1962, no. 58, illustrated in the catalogue 
New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum & Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Vasily Kandinsky: A Retrospective Exhibition, 1963, no. 109

The Artist's Handlist, no. 284
Will Grohmann, Vassily Kandinsky, Sa vie, son œuvre, Cologne, 1958, no. 172, illustrated p. 363
Kenneth C. Lindsay, 'Kandinsky et la vie spirituelle', in Cahiers d'Art, no. 27 'Centenaire de Kandinsky', December 1966, illustrated p. 51
Hans K. Roethel & Jean K. Benjamin, Kandinsky: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil-Paintings, London, 1984, vol. II, no. 727, illustrated p. 680
Ramon Tio Bellido, Kandinsky, London, 1990, illustrated in colour p. 105

‘The contact between the acute angle of a triangle and a circle has no less effect than that of God’s finger touching Adam’s in Michelangelo’ Wassily Kandinsky

Berührung is painted in Kandinsky's most eloquent abstract manner, incorporating a contrast between delicate geometric precision and vibrant colour. Created in a period that saw an important development in both his artistic practice and theory, the present work exemplifies the bold new aesthetic the artist pioneered at the Bauhaus school of art and design. Having returned to Germany from Moscow after World War I, Kandinsky started teaching at the Bauhaus in Weimar in June 1922. He was surrounded by old friends, such as Paul Klee, and became an integral part of the academic community. He quickly became re-engaged in the German art world by participating in a number of exhibitions, and his teachings and writings were crucial to the development of abstract art internationally.

In Russia Kandinsky had become well acquainted with the revolutionary avant-garde. Whilst he never committed himself to the constructivist cause, his role at the Department of Visual Arts (IZO) within the People’s Commisariat of Enlightment brought him into close contact with their ideas and aesthetic. The startlingly advanced abstraction used by Kasimir Malevich in the 1910s, in works such as Dynamic Suprematism (Supremus no. 57) (fig. 1) continued to inspire Kandinsky a decade later. The artist’s limited resources during his time in Moscow made it difficult for him to obtain the materials needed for oil-painting. Preferring to hone his ideas using watercolour, it was not until Kandinsky took up his teaching post at the Bauhaus that the full impact of his time in Russia became fully evident in his oil paintings.

During the Bauhaus period Kandinsky produced a number of  important works based primarily on the circle, in which he explored its inherent values, as well as its interaction with other forms (figs. 2 & 3). Clark Poling comments: 'Basic shapes and straight and curved lines predominate in these paintings, and their black lines against white or light backgrounds maintain a schematic and rigorous quality. The large size and transparency of many of the forms and their open distribution across the picture plane give these compositions a monumentality and an expansiveness despite their relative flatness. Whereas certain abstract features of the series derive from Russian precedents, their vertically positioned triangles and planetary circles refer to landscape [...]. Nevertheless, the transparency of forms, their rigorous definition and floating quality maintain the abstract character of the works' (C. Poling in Kandinsky: Russian and Bauhaus Year, 1915-1933 (exhibition catalogue), The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1983, p. 51).

Kandinsky further developed his theories about the spiritual in art at the Bauhaus, and his ideas found a fresh expression in the paintings of the period. In 1923 Kandinsky published his book Punkt und Linie zu Fläche (Point and Line to Plane), which outlined his theories of the basic elements of artistic composition, which are evident in the dynamic counterpoint between the geometric forms of the present work. Most notably, he developed his Theory of Correspondences, which emphasised a systematic study of pictorial elements, both in combining the forms of triangle and circle, considered by the artist to be 'the two primary, most strongly contrasting plane figures' (W. Kandinsky quoted in ibid., p. 52). In the present work the dynamic relationship between the triangles, symbolising stability and ascension, and the circular forms, representing freedom from gravity, is further accentuated by the repetition of the major shapes in smaller, more brightly, coloured forms that enliven the outlying composition.