After the Bauhaus moved from Weimar to Dessau in 1925, Kandinsky began to perfect his theories of geometric abstraction, reflecting developments within the Bauhaus and the burgeoning constructivist movement in Germany. "The Bauhaus provided a context in which a range of artistic points of view were allowed to flourish, within the parameters of a commitment to geometric forms and structural principles. Here, as elsewhere in Europe where abstract art was developing in the teens and twenties, it was believed that geometry provided a universal language" (C. Poling, Kandinsky: Russian and Bauhaus Years, New York, 1983, p. 49).

In Zeichen mit Begleitung Kandinsky uses as his base an additive assemblage of squares articulated by a network of strong horizontal and vertical black lines. The somewhat muted tones of these squares contrast to their crisp, black outlines. This chequerboard pattern is clearly the 'accompaniment' referred to in the title whilst 'the sign' is provided by the confrontation between converging diagonals of pure red and blue. "Overlapping or transparency or, as Kandinsky called it 'the crossing of one form by another' are used extensively in the later Bauhaus works ... When Kandinsky overlaps one form with another he creates the illusion that the overlapping form is semi-transparent because the colour of the form is modified by the form that overlaps it...Kandinsky deliberately does not make the resulting colour always that which one would expect according to the principles of mixture of colour pigments. The overlapping form acts as a sort of filter rather on the principle of filters used in photography, but the colours are not arrived at according to any known rules. We are made to feel that Kandinsky's imaginary pictorial world works according to physical laws that are different from those of the visual world, or even the visual field" (Paul Overy, Kandinsky, The Language of the Eye, London, 1969, p. 108).