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Look at the difference between the hard black strokes at the center and the soft gray wash around them, then find the handwritten notes at the lower right.
When war broke out in 1914 Kandinsky had to leave Munich for Moscow, and in 1915 he painted no pictures at all. In a June 1916 letter to Gabriele Münter he wrote that he suddenly sensed colors and forms coming together in harmony, and the Art Institute dates this ink drawing to 1 September that year. At the lower right he wrote notes in Russian naming colors, among them purple and a green background, though the sheet itself has only black ink, gray wash and a little pencil.
Pen and brush and black ink, gray wash, with touches of graphite, on cream wove paper · 25.3 × 34.2 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Abstract art · Expressionism
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Untitled
- Artist
- Vasily Kandinsky French, born Russia, 1866-1944
- Date
- September 1, 1916
- Medium
- Pen and brush and black ink, gray wash, with touches of graphite, on cream wove paper
- Dimensions
- 25.3 × 34.2 cm (10 × 13 1/2 in.)
- Credit line
- Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.