Kandinsky, Improvisation 28 (second version), 1912

Vasily Kandinsky, Improvisation 28 (second version), 1912, oil on canvas, 111.4 x 162.1 cm (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York)

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

We're at the Solomon
R. Guggenheim Museum

in New York City.

We're looking at a painting
by Wassily Kandinsky.

This is Improvisation
28 (Second Version.)

It's interesting to start off
by thinking about that title

because it's not the
title of something that's

being represented.

It's the kind of notation
that a composer uses.

Right.

Normally in art history
we have paintings

with titles of stories
from the Bible,

or from history, or from
mythology, or landscapes

that have the name of a place.

But here we have
improvisation which

is the name of a kind
of musical composition.

So the immediate question is,
why is Kandinsky doing that?

Well, because he's
composing here.

He's composing with
form but this is still

rooted in the
stories of the Bible

and of his particular
historical moment.

But he's clearly trying to
associate painting with music

to suggest that, like
music, painting can signify.

It can mean things.

It can take us places without
representing anything concrete.

Actually, he would
go further than that

and say that you
could hear color,

that you could see music.

This idea, which is
called synesthesia,

is something that Kandinsky
was very interested in.

The idea that there could be a
kind of crossing of the senses.

So, looking at this,
he may have wanted

us to actually hear something.

And, in fact, we know that
Kandinsky was very influenced

by Arnold Schoenberg, a
turn-of-the-century composer

who was jettisoning the familiar
Western harmonies to create

a new kind of difficult,
atonal music for the beginning

of the 20th century.

And I see something atonal, I
see something difficult here.

What would this
painting sound like?

For me, it would sound
like a cacophony.

It would sound like chaos.

It would sound like a very
dangerous, but also brilliant,

moment.

We have brilliant color,
a kind of hazy atmosphere

through which that
color pops, we

have these black
diagonal lines that

crisscross with each other that
almost feel like weapons moving

through space.

And it's appropriate that the
analogy that you're drawing

is one of war.

This is 1912.

It's just two years before
the First World War begins.

And early 20th-century
Russian history

is filled with political chaos.

We're clearly on the
verge of abstraction.

And, in fact, when we first
look at this painting,

it looks entirely abstract.

That is, we don't
immediately recognize

the things of the world.

But this isn't
what we would call

a completely abstract painting.

Right.

So one might not call this
painting an abstract painting

but call it an
abstracted painting.

So, therefore, we
should still be

able to recognize some
elements of the natural world.

Kandinsky was concerned that
if we could recognize things

too clearly that our conscious
minds would take over

the interpretation and we would
close off our emotional ability

to respond to the
pure color and form.

In the upper right, I
seem to see a mountain

with some buildings on it.

Maybe with chimney stacks or,
perhaps, a church on a hill.

An ideal city, a kind
of heavenly Jerusalem.

Kandinsky was deeply
influenced by biblical imagery.

And so, even though this is a
tremendously modern painting,

it is still rooted in
this ancient tradition

of representing
Christian stories.

So it makes sense that
we have a battle field.

Forces at war.

In fact, art historians have
looked at these paintings

as a kind of representation
of an apocalypse,

of a moment when the
sins of the world

are going to be washed away.

In the lower left, you
have a great flood,

you have a wave, this idea
of the way in which God

in the Old Testament had
wiped man from the earth,

except for Noah and his family.

Just above that wave,
cannon are being fired.

The atmospheric effect
almost reads like the smoke

on a battlefield.

Down at the bottom,
art historians

sometimes recognize
the manes and the arcs

of the necks of horses.

And we know that
Kandinsky was really

interested throughout his
career in the idea of the horse

and rider.

Symbolizing a number
of different things,

having overlapping
meanings, referencing

the four horsemen
of the apocalypse

but also the idea of redemption.

This was also utopian.

The idea that we could wash
away the old world, a world that

was about to be destroyed, not
only by the Russian Revolution,

but also by the First World War.

Kandinsky, at this
moment, was convinced

that he could help lead that,
at least in the visual realm.

Many artists at this time
in the early 20th century

had a sense that the artist
could play an important role

in the new civilization
that was going

to emerge in the 20th century.

So here we have a
painting that is using

color in a radically new way.

This is color for its own sake.

Not to mimic, not to describe.

We have line that is being
used for its own sake.

Lines that are abstractly
moving across the surface

to create a sense of rhythm,
to create a sense of staccato.

Musicality in this painting
it is absolutely new.