Painting With White Border (1913)  by Wassily Kandinsky

Painting With White Border

Bild mit weißem Rand

1913

Oil on canvas

55.2 × 78.9" (140.3 × 200.3 cm)

New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

One center on the left: a combination of vertical forms reaching the second center through pure, powerful brushstrokes; red is rather agile, blue is withdrawn into itself (with a distinct concentric movement). Thus, the means employed are extremely simple, quite explicit and clear.

The second center, on the right: broad curving brushstrokes (which cost me a great deal of effort). Both outside and inside, this center has glowing (almost white) spikes that lend a sense of vigorous "inner boiling" to the rather melancholic arc-shaped form. This is dampened (even exaggerated a little) by dull blue tints, which only occasionally acquire a more garish hue and which (taken together) surround the upper form with a more or less egg-like background. It resembles a small, independent world — not a foreign body merely added to the whole, but rather a budding flower. Along the edges, I have elaborated this more or less egg-like shape so that it appears distinctly open, yet without creating overly abrupt or strident effects: for example, I made the edges more defined at the top and less distinct at the bottom. A viewer whose eye follows the edge experiences an inner sensation akin to rolling waves.

The two centers are separated and at the same time united by numerous more or less distinct forms, some of which are merely spots of green. The use of so much green paint was absolutely unconscious and, as I now feel, purposeful: I did not wish to add too much agitation to this clearly boisterous picture. I realized later that I had rather wanted to use agitation to express tranquillity. I even used too much green, especially Paris blue (a dull, sonorous cold tint), and as a result, it was only later that I managed to counterbalance and offset the excessiveness of these colors — which was arduous work.

2 comments

December 18, 2016
A Person from A Laptop: Thanks So Much This Helped With My Homework. It Is Nice To Find A Website You Can Rely On
December 04, 2016
A person from A place: This is cool I did it for art class

Your comment

Name


Message


Code



More from 1913