Художник: Кандинский Василий Васильевич

История продаж доступна подписчикам

1908

Живопись

Доска; масло

70×70

(Вероятно) Нина Кандинская (вдова художника).
Galerie Maeght, Париж (вероятно приобретена у вышеуказанного в 1951).
Fernand Graindorge, Льеж.
John Schulte, Нью-Йорк.
Otto Gerson Gallery, Нью-Йорк.
Mr. & Mrs. Charles R. Lachman, Нью-Йорк (до 1970).
Felix Landau Gallery, Лос-Анджелес.
Частная коллекция, США приобретена у вышеуказанного в 1970.
Продажа: Sotheby's, New York, ноября 16, 1998, лот 61.
Частная коллекция, США (продажа: Sotheby's, New York, май 8, 2007, лот 23).
Приобретена на вышеуказанной продаже нынешним владельцем.

Подпись "Kandinsky" внизу справа.
Выставки:
Берлин, Secession, 1909.
Гаага, 1909.
Дрезден, Galerie Arnold; Берлин Galerie Neumann and Nierendorf, юбилейная выставка, 1926, № 1.
Париж, Galerie Maeght, Кандинский, 1951, № 31.
Базель, Kunsthalle, Collection Fernand Graindorge, 1954, № 57.
Нью-Йорк, Музей современного искусства; Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum;
Сан-Франциско, Museum of Art, The "Wild Beasts": Fauvism and its Affinities, 1976.
Нью-Йорк, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Кандинский в Мюнхене, 1896-1914, 1982, № 265.


LITERATURE

Will Grohmann, Wassily Kandinsky, Life and Work, New York, 1958, p. 330; no. 14, illustrated p. 350
Hans K. Roethel, Kandinsky, Das graphische Werk, Cologne, 1970, no. 113
Peg Weiss, Kandinsky in Munich, The Formative Jugendstil Years, New Jersey, 1979, no. 78, illustrated
Hans K. Roethel and Jean K. Benjamin, Kandinsky, Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, 1904-1915, vol. I, New
York, 1982, no. 189, illustrated p. 193
CATALOGUE NOTE
Kandinsky's symphony of color, Weisser Klang (White Sound), exemplifies the development of the Russian
artist's distinctive style, which would eventually lead to abstraction. The bright, vibrant palette and the fluidity of
brushwork evoke music, which is also evoked in the title of the work. In his celebrated treatise Concerning the
Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky devoted an entire chapter to "color-language", discussing at length the relationships
between colors and musical instruments, rhythms and tones, and establishing a link between music and colorful
imagery. "The studied geometrical composition and the subtle color harmony convey the effect of a musical chord or
Klang, a word Kandinsky used to characterize the effect by which the successful work of art communicates its inner
meaning. The work of art, he said, must klingen, or resonate, so that the soul of the viewer vibrates with the same
resonance" (Peg Weiss, op. cit., p. 51).

Of particular significance for Kandinsky, and for the present work specifically, was the poetry of the German Symbolist
Stefan George. At the turn of the century, George had a following of poets and artists that became known as the
George-Kreis, or Circle of George. There are direct parallels between Kandinsky's art and the imagery of George's
Jugendstil poetry which was characterized by the sound of the words rather than their specific meaning. The visual
harmony of their design on the page was as important to the poet as their sound. Evidently Weisser Klang and a later
woodcut of the same subject from 1911 (fig. 3), which appeared in the publication Klänge, illustrate George's poem
Weisser Gesang (White Song):

If I could envision the white dream for her...
It would seem to me in the castle that bitter rays permeated
And pale blossom-trees only embraced
So the dream could run away with two children's early daydreams

Each of them seeming to embrace a slender bouquet
Brightly flickering like a gentle quaking aspen
A silver sash as a pennant
Would swing high above their weak foreheads

And both would come slowly to the pond
Sometimes swaying on the broad marble steps
Until at the beat of the nearby herons' wings
Their arm's soft burden heavily swaying

Scented mists swirling in from cool naiads
With whom the united ones became lighter and lighter
Floating upwards towards higher realms –
Until they were one with the pure ether-down.

Peg Weiss suggests that the "reclining figure on the right may be the 'dreamer' referred to in the poem, the figure on
the left - the woman, and the floating form to the right above them is the 'white dream, like a white cloud touching
earth'" (P. Weiss, op. cit., pp. 89-90). Other possible references to the poem include the 'quaking aspens,' the "two
children" (here one might take the two figures on the right as the two children; on the other hand, it has been
suggested that one figure seems to carry a child, which might refer to the "soft burden" in the third verse); the "castle"
or churchlike structure in the background, and the "pond" (which is evident in the foreground of the woodcut). "At the
conclusion of the poem, in a cloud of sweet vapors, the dreamy forms rise and fade into the ether. The painting
particularly has the same amorphous quality; the forms seem to fade into one another while the `white sound,' or
dream, or song dominates the whole" (ibid., p. 90).

Pictorially, the present work reflects the important influence of Fauve painting on Kandinsky. During his stay in Paris
from May 1906 until June 1907, pictures by artists including Braque, Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck and Van Dongen were
exhibited and received extraordinary attention in the press. The following year Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter spent
their first summer in Murnau, a small Bavarian village south of Munich, where they began to incorporate an
expressive, Fauve-like use of color (figs. 1 & 5). Their impact on Kandinsky is visible here in the bold chromatic
combinations, as well as in the use of strong, unmodulated color applied in broad brushstrokes. The Fauves'





approach to painting represented for Kandinsky a natural extension of his own visual and theoretical explorations,
based on the Russian folk art and icons characterized by a similar use of color and form (fig. 2). In Weisser Klang,
Kandinsky juxtaposed the bright yellow, pink and orange with cooler blue, green and purple tones, producing the
effect of a symphonic explosion of color.
Fig. 1
Wassily Kandinsky, Weisser Klang, 1911, woodcut, Städtische
Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich
Fig. 2
Wassily Kandinsky, Winterlandschaft I, 1909, oil on canvas, The
State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
Fig. 3
Wassily Kandinsky, Colorful Life, 1907, oil on canvas, Städtische
Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich
Fig. 4
Wassily Kandinsky, Improvisation 4, 1909, oil on canvas, State Art
Museum, Nizhny Novgorod
Fig. 5
Kandinsky in his home at Ainmillerstrasse 36, Munich, on June
24, 1911. Photograph by Gabriele Münter. Gabriele Münter and
Johannes Eichner Foundation, Munich

Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale
New York | 02 Nov 2011, 07:00 PM | N08789