Study for Painting with White Form

1913

Wassily Kandinsky Russian, 1866-1944

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About the Artwork

Wassily Kandinsky made this painting in preparation for a larger and more abstract work entitled Painting with White Form. Nonrepresentational shapes, colors, and lines dominate, although there are vestiges of the tangible world. In the upper right, outlines of golden domed buildings on a steep hillside recall landscapes in the Bavarian countryside where Kandinsky was living and the architecture in his native Russia. The arrangement of horizontal and vertical lines in the lower right evokes a recurring motif in Kandinsky’s works: the rider on the horseback who leaps toward blue and white forms, symbolizing the spiritual. The artist rejected rationalism and materialism as symptoms of the decline and alienation of modernity; instead, he searched for the revelation of inner aspects of the world through form and color.

Title Study for Painting with White Form

Artwork Date 1913

Artist Wassily Kandinsky

Life Dates 1866-1944

Nationality Please note: Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events. Some definitions include: Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation. Russian

Culture Please note: Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group. ----------

Medium Oil on canvas

Dimensions Unframed: 39 1/4 × 34 3/4 inches (99.7 × 88.3 cm) Framed: 41 11/16 × 36 15/16 × 2 1/8 inches (105.9 × 93.8 × 5.4 cm)

Classification Paintings

Department European Modern Art to 1970

Credit Gift of Mrs. Ferdinand Moeller

Accession Number This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection. Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings. For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups. 57.234

Markings

Signed Signed and dated, lower left: KANDINSKY 1913

Provenance

Galerie Ferdinand Möller (Berlin, Germany).
April 1938, by agreement between Ferdinand Möller and William R. Valentiner, stored at Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA) during WWII.
Collection of Maria Möller-Garny.
1957-present, gift to the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

For more information on provenance, please visit:

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Exhibition History

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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.

We welcome your feedback for correction and/or improvement.

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