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Details
KANDINSKY, Wassily (1866-1944)
Klänge (Roethel 71-4, 85, 95-140, 142-6)
the complete set of 56 woodcuts including 12 in colors, 1907-13, on Van Gelder laid paper, with title, text in German and justification, signed on the justification, copy number 290 of 300, published by Reinhard Piper, Munich, 1913, the full sheets, bound (as issued), pale moisture staining at the lower sheet edge (not affecting the images), otherwise in good condition, within the original red paper boards with gilt design, with a new blue cloth spine (pale moisture staining and wear to the boards) (portfolio)
Overall: 11 1/8 x 11 1/8 in. (283 x 283 mm.)
Literature:
Hans K. Roethel, Kandinsky - Das graphische Werk, Cologne, 1970.
Ralph Jentsch, Illustrierte Bcher des deutschen Expressionismus, Stuttgart, 1990, no. 9.
Frances Carey & Antony Griffiths, The Print in Germany 1880-1933, London, 1984, no. 240.
Kandinsky began work on the woodcuts for Klänge as early as 1907, exhibiting four proof impressions in the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1910. A number of studies for the prints are in the Gabriele Mnter Stiftung in the Lenbachhaus in Munich.
Kandinsky had long associated music and writing, and in a letter to Gabriele Münter from 1904 he wrote that a work of art must 'klingen' (sound/resonate). In the brochure published for Klänge Kandinsky wrote: "Ich wollte nichts als Klänge bilden, Sie bilden sich aber von Selbst. Das ist die Bezeichnung des Inhaltes, des Inneren. Es ist der Grund, der Boden, auf welchem allerhand, teils von Selbst, teils dank der Hand der berechnenden Gärtners wuchs" (cf. R. Jentsch, p. 60).
The book is a combination or synthesis of prose-poems and images. "Kandinsky's prose-poems are experimental in technique, but fully assured, and are characterized by strange juxtapositions and combinations of sometimes violent events, things seen and acts of seeing, feelings, abstracts, sounds and verbal encounters, the results being frequently grotesque and comic. The woodcuts range in style from Kandinsky's early fairy-tale idiom to fully-fledged abstracts of great power and beauty" (A. Griffiths and F. Carey, p. 246)
Frances Carey and Anthony Griffiths described Klänge as "one of the most beautiful books of the twentieth century."
Klänge (Roethel 71-4, 85, 95-140, 142-6)
the complete set of 56 woodcuts including 12 in colors, 1907-13, on Van Gelder laid paper, with title, text in German and justification, signed on the justification, copy number 290 of 300, published by Reinhard Piper, Munich, 1913, the full sheets, bound (as issued), pale moisture staining at the lower sheet edge (not affecting the images), otherwise in good condition, within the original red paper boards with gilt design, with a new blue cloth spine (pale moisture staining and wear to the boards) (portfolio)
Overall: 11 1/8 x 11 1/8 in. (283 x 283 mm.)
Literature:
Hans K. Roethel, Kandinsky - Das graphische Werk, Cologne, 1970.
Ralph Jentsch, Illustrierte Bcher des deutschen Expressionismus, Stuttgart, 1990, no. 9.
Frances Carey & Antony Griffiths, The Print in Germany 1880-1933, London, 1984, no. 240.
Kandinsky began work on the woodcuts for Klänge as early as 1907, exhibiting four proof impressions in the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1910. A number of studies for the prints are in the Gabriele Mnter Stiftung in the Lenbachhaus in Munich.
Kandinsky had long associated music and writing, and in a letter to Gabriele Münter from 1904 he wrote that a work of art must 'klingen' (sound/resonate). In the brochure published for Klänge Kandinsky wrote: "Ich wollte nichts als Klänge bilden, Sie bilden sich aber von Selbst. Das ist die Bezeichnung des Inhaltes, des Inneren. Es ist der Grund, der Boden, auf welchem allerhand, teils von Selbst, teils dank der Hand der berechnenden Gärtners wuchs" (cf. R. Jentsch, p. 60).
The book is a combination or synthesis of prose-poems and images. "Kandinsky's prose-poems are experimental in technique, but fully assured, and are characterized by strange juxtapositions and combinations of sometimes violent events, things seen and acts of seeing, feelings, abstracts, sounds and verbal encounters, the results being frequently grotesque and comic. The woodcuts range in style from Kandinsky's early fairy-tale idiom to fully-fledged abstracts of great power and beauty" (A. Griffiths and F. Carey, p. 246)
Frances Carey and Anthony Griffiths described Klänge as "one of the most beautiful books of the twentieth century."