Wassily Kandinsky

Hugo Erfurth, Dresden (a gift from the artist)
Otto Ralfs, Braunschweig
Sale: Kornfeld & Klipstein, Berne, May 28, 1964, lot 526
Berggruen et Cie., Paris
Paul Haim (Galerie Europe), Paris
Marlborough Gallery, New York

Kandinsky’s deep theosophical interests necessitated his desire to create a renewal of the arts. Championing the autonomy of color, the painter believed that all arts were capable of attaining an equal level of spirituality, achieving thus a synthesis of universal content.  Fascinated by the effect of color and form, Bildung fully encapsulates the style of his Bauhaus period with its abstract geometric language and color palette, while still bearing an element of symbolism in its composition. Kandinsky reduced the pictorial vocabulary as he furthered his investigations into form, with an increasing stylization and complexity. Bildung is the product of such a synthesis, containing circles and arcs in a layered pattern, which invite the viewer to explore the relationship between the forms themselves and their own relationship to the picture plane.

Kandinsky was preoccupied with both the physical and psychological effects of color upon the viewer, in producing a harmony between the color as well as the forms. While teaching at the Bauhaus, he experimented with the technique of spraying with watercolor, which is beautifully exhibited in the present work. The luminous blue dissolves as it edges away from the yellow orb. As Jelena Hahl-Koch noted, “…he was ‘annihilating’ the background so that it would look as if it had been pulled open, looking not only onto infinity, but also out to the observer. He wanted the forms to appear as if they were floating in space” (Jelena Hahl-Koch, Kandinsky, New York, 1993, p. 284).  The spheres advance toward the viewer, while the other areas of color either lend themselves to a feeling of recession, or support the heightened sensation of this work. The circle, which became the most iconic motif of his Bauhaus period, is well represented in this work. On the circle as a composition element, Kandinsky comments that it is: “1. the most modest form, but asserts itself unconditionally, 2. a precise but inexhaustible variable, 3. simultaneously stable and unstable, 4. simultaneously loud and soft, 5. a single tension that carries countless tensions within it. The circle is the synthesis of the greatest oppositions” (ibid.).