This picture was painted in December 1922 in Weimar, where Kandinsky was invited as a teacher at the Bauhaus. He left Russia with the “constructivist baggage” of new Russian art, anticipating interesting work in the most advanced school of design in post-war Europe. During this transitional period, the artist progressed toward geometric abstraction, with straight lines, a more subdued color palette, and a thoroughly thought-through composition. Although some organic shapes and landscape themes can still be seen quite distinctly in the painting (they will continue to emerge in his much later work as well), this work marks an entirely different era in his creativity. His expressionist aesthetics remained in the past, and the idea of Constructivism that he absorbed from the post-revolutionary Russian environment resonated quite nicely with the newest European trends of the time.

Timeline

1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944