Improvisation 28 (Second Version)

Munich

Wassily Kandinsky

Improvisation 28 (Second Version)

1912

Oil on canvas, 112.6 × 162.5 cm. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Black lines slash across bursts of color in a scene of disaster and rescue. By 1910 many of his canvases drew on the Book of Revelation, the Bible's vision of the world's end.

  • Look left for a boat in the waves, a serpent and possibly cannons; on the right the museum finds an embracing couple, a sun and candles.
  • Smarthistory's Steven Zucker calls it "abstracted" rather than abstract: objects are blurred, not removed, so color and line strike first.
  • The museum's essay ties his horse-and-rider motif, also on the cover of his book On the Spiritual in Art, to a campaign against conventional art and toward a more spiritual future.
  • Part of the Guggenheim's founding collection.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · PD-Art

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