Lot Essay
This astonishingly vibrant watercolour Ohne Titel was executed during turbulent times for Kandinsky. In 1910 he had set out on the route to total abstraction. In early 1911 the group that he had formed two years earlier, the Neue Kunstlervereinigung München (NKVM) of which he was then president, was on the verge of breaking up due to the artistic differences of its members. Originally the artists, who included Jawlensky, Kübin, Münter and Marc, desired to find expression through painting of their external impressions and inner experiences - aiming at an artistic synthesis of senses. In January 1911 Kandinsky resigned from the presidency of the NKVM, and in the following December, having had Composition VII rejected by the NKVM jury, he, Marc, Münter and Kübin resigned from the society. Kandinsky felt that the group had strayed too far from their original aims by becoming too decorative. To him they were no longer sufficiently independent of those artists from whom they had originally formed the society to distance themselves artistically. Kandinsky believed that traditional representative art was dead, but that abstract art still needed a subject to survive. The subject had to be an experience or emotion which should be communicated through an abstract language. Music seemed to be the perfect answer.
After resigning from the NKVM, Kandinsky and Marc immediately established the first exhibition by the Redaktion der Blaue Reiter. They had been working on the publication of the Blaue Reiter almanac since June of that year (1911). Contributors included Auguste Macke and Arnold Schönberg. Kandinsky had been corresponding with the composer after attending one of his concerts in Munich in January 1911. He had recognised strong similarities between Schönberg's creations and his own works. This was a friendship which was to result in a direct relationship between the two individuals and their respective forms of artistic expression.
The present picture derives directly from this association between music and painting. In Uber das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art), written in 1910 but not published until December 1911, Kandinsky gives his ideas about relieving painting of its traditional confines: "A painter who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, however artistic, in his desire to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non-material of today's art forms, achieves this end. Naturally, he looks for a way to apply the methods of music to his own art, and from this results that modern desire for rhythm in painting, for mathematical, abstract composition, for repeated colour notes, for setting colour in motion."
This picture has strong links with the abstract landscapes Improvisation 33 (Orient I) [H. K. Roethel and J. K. Benjamin, no. 461, Stedelijk Museum], and Improvisation 34 (Orient II), [H. K. Roethel and J. K. Benjamin, no. 469, location unknown], both painted in 1913. However there is no female nude depicted in this watercolour as there is in the foreground of both these Improvisations. Kandinsky executed five studies for the two paintings. All five show elements which he had already developed in the present work. The dark blue, which for Kandinsky is a celestial colour reminiscent of a deep organ note giving rise to a desire for purity, is contrasted here with a sharp, bright yellow; the latter creating an "intense trumpet blast" in Kandinsky's words. The drooping lines are a pictorial expression for melancholic sentiments, suggestive of sombre low notes, contrasted on the opposite side of the work by quick red brushstrokes and earthy brown and green spots. These, together with the sharp aggressive blue brushstrokes, correspond with the dissonant musical elements which characterise Schönberg's music. In addition to this, though, is the comparatively harmonious area where the red circle has around it a ring of orange, which is itself surrounded by a sweeping yellow band. These related colours are a small oasis of coherance in a mass of incoherance, just as passages of harmonious music are to be found in Schönberg's compositions.
Klee and Kandinsky first met in Munich in 1911 through the artist Louis Moillet, a childhood friend of Klee. Prior to their introduction, Moillet would sometimes act as an intermediary, showing Klee's works to Kandinsky, and vice versa. Klee initially thought Kandinsky's paintings to be "sehr merkwürdige Bilder" ("very curious pictures"), but was certainly relieved to have found in Kandinsky (and later the other Blaue Reiter members) an artist who was working towards similar artistic goals.
At first Klee, a solitary and shy figure, was in awe of the dynamic Kandinsky who introduced him to the members of the Blaue Reiter (Marc, Campendonk, Jawlensky, Münter) in 1911, and whose numbers he joined at the end of that year, exhibiting in the second Blaue Reiter exhibition at Galerie Hans Goltz in Munich. The two soon became close friends, and were to share a house while at the Bauhaus in Dessau in 1926. The exchange of works between the two artists continued until 1933 when Kandinsky was forced to leave Germany for Paris, and Klee for Berne - this due to the rise of the National Socialists to power in Germany.
In a 1925 photograph this watercolour is to be seen hanging in Klee's apartment in Weimar, but it is not known exactly when Kandinsky gave the work to Klee.
After resigning from the NKVM, Kandinsky and Marc immediately established the first exhibition by the Redaktion der Blaue Reiter. They had been working on the publication of the Blaue Reiter almanac since June of that year (1911). Contributors included Auguste Macke and Arnold Schönberg. Kandinsky had been corresponding with the composer after attending one of his concerts in Munich in January 1911. He had recognised strong similarities between Schönberg's creations and his own works. This was a friendship which was to result in a direct relationship between the two individuals and their respective forms of artistic expression.
The present picture derives directly from this association between music and painting. In Uber das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art), written in 1910 but not published until December 1911, Kandinsky gives his ideas about relieving painting of its traditional confines: "A painter who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, however artistic, in his desire to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non-material of today's art forms, achieves this end. Naturally, he looks for a way to apply the methods of music to his own art, and from this results that modern desire for rhythm in painting, for mathematical, abstract composition, for repeated colour notes, for setting colour in motion."
This picture has strong links with the abstract landscapes Improvisation 33 (Orient I) [H. K. Roethel and J. K. Benjamin, no. 461, Stedelijk Museum], and Improvisation 34 (Orient II), [H. K. Roethel and J. K. Benjamin, no. 469, location unknown], both painted in 1913. However there is no female nude depicted in this watercolour as there is in the foreground of both these Improvisations. Kandinsky executed five studies for the two paintings. All five show elements which he had already developed in the present work. The dark blue, which for Kandinsky is a celestial colour reminiscent of a deep organ note giving rise to a desire for purity, is contrasted here with a sharp, bright yellow; the latter creating an "intense trumpet blast" in Kandinsky's words. The drooping lines are a pictorial expression for melancholic sentiments, suggestive of sombre low notes, contrasted on the opposite side of the work by quick red brushstrokes and earthy brown and green spots. These, together with the sharp aggressive blue brushstrokes, correspond with the dissonant musical elements which characterise Schönberg's music. In addition to this, though, is the comparatively harmonious area where the red circle has around it a ring of orange, which is itself surrounded by a sweeping yellow band. These related colours are a small oasis of coherance in a mass of incoherance, just as passages of harmonious music are to be found in Schönberg's compositions.
Klee and Kandinsky first met in Munich in 1911 through the artist Louis Moillet, a childhood friend of Klee. Prior to their introduction, Moillet would sometimes act as an intermediary, showing Klee's works to Kandinsky, and vice versa. Klee initially thought Kandinsky's paintings to be "sehr merkwürdige Bilder" ("very curious pictures"), but was certainly relieved to have found in Kandinsky (and later the other Blaue Reiter members) an artist who was working towards similar artistic goals.
At first Klee, a solitary and shy figure, was in awe of the dynamic Kandinsky who introduced him to the members of the Blaue Reiter (Marc, Campendonk, Jawlensky, Münter) in 1911, and whose numbers he joined at the end of that year, exhibiting in the second Blaue Reiter exhibition at Galerie Hans Goltz in Munich. The two soon became close friends, and were to share a house while at the Bauhaus in Dessau in 1926. The exchange of works between the two artists continued until 1933 when Kandinsky was forced to leave Germany for Paris, and Klee for Berne - this due to the rise of the National Socialists to power in Germany.
In a 1925 photograph this watercolour is to be seen hanging in Klee's apartment in Weimar, but it is not known exactly when Kandinsky gave the work to Klee.