Waldrand

Waldrand exemplifies the important relationship between Kandinsky's early work and the Neo-Impressionist work of Vincent Van Gogh, whose paintings Kandinsky admired greatly at the 1903 Munich Secession. His use of rich impasto is clearly inspired by the Post-Impressionists, yet his approach to art was radically different: '[Kandinsky], certes, recourt à la technique divisioniste, mais d'une autre manière. Il ne cherche pas à parvenir à la sérenité, à obtenir cette uniformité de texture dans toutes les zones du tableau, qui caractérise les oeuvres de Signac, Cross ou Luce... Parfois, à la limite du "chrono", les petites esquisses à l'huile [de Kandinsky] sont le plus souvent des tentatives avortées de fixer moins le paysage que l'humeur du peintre à telle ou telle beauté naturelle. Elles sont tributaires de l'instant...' (C. Derouet, Oeuvres de Vassily Kandinsky. Les Collections du Centre Pompidou, Paris, 1984, p. 22).

Kandinsky met Gabriele Münter in 1902 when Münter was a student in his class at the Phalanx art school. In the summer of 1903, Kandinsky took his painting class to Kallmünz in the Upper Palatinate of eastern Bavaria. During this summer, he painted a number of small landscapes of the areas in and around Kallmünz, including the present work, which he gave as a gift to Gabriele Münter.