On white II

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On White II (Sur blanc II) (Wassily Kandinsky)
On White II ( Sur blanc II )
Wassily Kandinsky , 1923
Oil on canvas
105 × 98 cm
Musée National d'Art Moderne in the
Center Georges-Pompidou , Paris

Auf Weiß II ( French Sur blanc II ) is a painting by Wassily Kandinsky from 1923. It was created at the time when the artist was a teacher at the Weimar Bauhaus . As a gift from Nina Kandinsky, it has belonged to the collection of the Musée National d'Art Moderne in the Center Georges-Pompidou in Paris since 1976 , where it bears the inventory number AM 1976-855 .

Description and interpretation

The composition of the picture consists mainly of diagonals. Geometric shapes such as lines, circles, semicircles, triangles, squares, checkerboard patterns and a black surface in the center of the crossing figures, as well as a larger brownish-gray trapezoid, are reminiscent of Kazimir Malevich and his Russian Suprematism since 1915, which Kandinsky understood and valued. The white background of the painting creates the impression that the geometric shapes and the main axes they create with the emblems of Suprematism in the center of the picture are floating freely in an endless space and thus appear weightless. Kandinsky often integrated the trapeze into his pictures at that time. Kandinsky mainly used the primary colors , which, however, also create other color tones through overlapping. The motif of elongated, pointed lance-like elements in the shape of St. Andrew's cross appears several times and points to the holy dragon slayer Georg . He had painted this motif several times since the 1910s and continued to abstract it .

The painting initially hung in the dining room of Wassily and Nina Kandinsky’s apartment in the Bauhaus master house settlement in Dessau . On December 22, 1922, Kandinsky made a preliminary study in watercolor technique and Chinese ink on paper in the format 45.4 × 40.4 cm (Center Pompidou, AM 1976-1324), which is smaller but has identical shapes in the final execution. Kandinsky completed the painting between February and April 1923. The almost square canvas is the revision of an older picture from 1920, also with a diagonal composition. As early as 1910 he was painting lines and colors that seem to form a tangle, but still reveal the lance of St. George and elements of the figure. The diagonals are in tension with one another, because Kandinsky saw his work as a struggle against the initially “unruly nature” of the canvas, which the brush “conquered wild virgin nature like a European colonist”. In this picture, art historian Vanessa Morisset sees a vortex of centripetal forces emanating from its surface. The white understood as clarity and simplicity creates the feeling as if Kandinsky's “fight with the canvas” had ended in this realization of his wishes.

In the opinion of the art historian and curator at the Center Pompidou in Paris, Macha Daniel, the center of the picture is dominated by a massive form that ignores gravity. Originally in Kandinsky's works until 1920 existing landscape elements, such as conifers and rock pinnacles, he replaced here with triangles and sharp points.

Reception and exhibition

The 1985 artwork “Scheuer Machine” by Dick Raaijmakers was influenced by the painting by Kandinsky.

  • July 15 to September 18, 1955: documenta 1 Kunst des XX. Century. in the Museum Fridericianum in Kassel (Documenta 1955, No. 249).
  • 0August 9 to September 23, 1984: Wassily Kandinsky. Russian period and Bauhaus years 1915–1933. Bauhaus Archive , Berlin.
  • June 18 to August 20, 1989: Wassily Kandinsky. The first Soviet retrospective. Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (Catalog No. 137 and p. 268).
  • 0April 2 to June 27, 1999: Kandinsky. Major works from the Center Georges Pompidou Paris. Kunsthalle Tübingen (catalog no.74, pp. 93 and 123).

Catalog raisonné

  • Hans Konrad Röthel, Jean K. Benjamin: Kandinsky. Catalog raisonné of the oil paintings . tape 2 : 1916-1944. (there number 694). Beck, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-406-08892-9 , pp. 634 .

Web links

Commons : On White II  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ On Weiss II. Center Pompidou, accessed on January 2, 2019 (French).
  2. ↑ Etude pour Auf Weiss II. Center Pompidou, accessed on January 2, 2019 (French).
  3. ^ Clark V. Poling: Bauhaus Archive Museum of Design (ed.): Kandinsky. Russian period and Bauhaus years 1915-1933. Exhibition catalog Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-89087-011-2 , p. 14
  4. ^ Wassily Kandinsky: Retrospectives . In: Hans Konrad Röthel, Jelena Hahl-Fontaine (ed.): Kandinsky, the collected writings . tape 1 . Benteli, Bern 1980, ISBN 3-7165-0354-1 , p. 41 .
  5. ^ Vassily Kandinsky. mediation.centrepompidou.fr, accessed January 2, 2019 .
  6. ^ Macha Daniel in: Kandinsky's return to Russia: The drawings of the years 1915 to 1921. In: Kandinsky. Major works from the Center Georges Pompidou Paris. Exhibition catalog, Dumont Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-7701-4991-2 , p. 93
  7. ↑ Arjen Mulder, Joke Brouwer: Dick Raaymakers: A Monograph . V2_publishing, Rotterdam 2008, ISBN 978-90-5662-600-6 , p. 206 ff . ( books.google.de ).
  8. ↑ Monograph van kunst- en muziekpionier Dick Raaijmakers on moors magazine (Dutch, explanation of the concept).
  9. ^ Documenta. Art of the XX. Century; international exhibition in the Museum Fridericianum in Kassel . Prestel, Munich [u. a.] 1995, ISBN 3-7913-1629-X , pp. 45 (Unchanged reprint of the original edition from 1955).
  10. ^ Peter Hahn : Kandinsky. Russian period and Bauhaus years 1915–1933 . Bauhaus Archive, Museum of Design, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-89087-011-2 , p. 69 .