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Lot Essay
Painted in 1930, Zersetzte Spannung (Disintegrated Tension) demonstrates the growing compositional complexity of Wassily Kandinsky’s paintings during the final years of the Dessau Bauhaus, as he continued to push the boundaries of his art to new levels of innovation. Combining a variety of strict geometrical shapes with intentionally loose colour patches, textured surface effects and discordant shades of non-primary colours, the painting is one of a small number of experimental works dating from the years 1929 to 1932 which sought to achieve unexpected spatial and illusory effects through the dynamic play of forms and colour. Often resulting in works which straddled the boundary between abstraction and figuration, these experiments were strongly shaped by the stimulating artistic dialogue Kandinsky shared with his close friend, colleague and neighbour, Paul Klee, during this time.
Kandinsky and Klee’s friendship had entered a new phase following their move to Dessau, as they came to live alongside one another in their adjoining Master’s houses at the Bauhaus. Kandinsky gave an account of their closeness during these years in 1931, as he reminisced about his friendship with Klee: ‘the Bauhaus flew from Weimar with a rapidity that a Zeppelin might have envied. To this flight Klee and I owe our third and closest period of proximity: for more than five years we have been living right next to one another, our apartments separated only by a fire-proof wall. But despite the wall, we can visit one another without leaving the building, by a short walk through the cellar… But our spiritual proximity would have existed even without access through the cellar’ (W. Kandinsky, ‘Tribute to Klee’, in bauhaus, 1931, quoted in K.C. Lindsay & P. Vergo, eds., Kandinsky: Complete Writings on Art, New York, 1994, p. 753). The two developed an intimate rapport as a result of this proximity, discussing their work and experiments with one another during the daily walks and afternoon cups of tea they shared. Their paintings also became increasingly similar as a result, with the affinities between the two artists’ work reaching an all-time high during the closing years of the 1920s.
For both, the figurative potential of different combinations of squares, rectangles, triangles, and circles held a particular fascination, leading this theme to become a dominant feature in their art. The physiognomic potential of abstract geometry had long intrigued Klee, influencing such works as Senecio (Baldgreis) from 1922, in which the artist manipulated a series of geometric elements through slight alterations and additions to produce a human face amongst the squares and rectangles of colour. At the Dessau Bauhaus, Klee developed these ideas further, using stacks of clearly delineated squares, cubes and triangles to build an impression of a figure. Drawing inspiration from Kandinsky’s use of geometry, as well as aerial photographs taken by the nearby Junkers aircraft and engineering company, the arrangement of these sharply angled bodies often evokes a sense of motion in their form. Kandinsky, meanwhile, began to introduce small accents and subtle combinations of form in his paintings, to suggest objects drawn from nature. In the present work, the inclusion of the single red circle in the upper left hand corner of the ovoid shape suggests an eye, transforming the constellation of shapes into a face or head, an effect which led the artist’s biographer, Will Grohmann, to compare the painting to ‘an electronic brain,’ invoking impressions of a cyborg or robotic figure (W. Grohmann, Wassily Kandinsky: His Life and Work, London, 1959, p. 211).
Spatial illusions and their contradictions were of particular fascination to Klee and Kandinsky at this time, with Gestalt psychology and its theories regarding perception becoming a topic of numerous discussions between the pair. Kandinsky’s experiments with these concepts are evident in Zersetzte Spannung, as he introduced subtle details which complicate our reading of the pictorial space. For example, the diamond shaped element in the bottom right corner of the composition appears alternately three dimensional and flat, depending on where the viewer’s attention is fixed. Kandinsky was fascinated by the interrelationships among colours and forms, and the ways in which the shape, size and placement of varying hues within a composition could affect the reading of normative spatial effects. In this case, as the eye focuses on each of the colours in the diamond form separately, the planes seem to shift, with some appearing to recede and others moving towards the front of the picture plane, altering the formal qualities of the shape in the process. In introducing this visual device, Kandinsky emphasises the immeasurable and dynamic character of pictorial space, while also encouraging an awareness of the viewer’s own perceptual process in viewing the painting.
Kandinsky aimed at variety and nuance in his approach to colour at this stage in his career, using a range of intermediate tones to infuse his paintings with a visually arresting chromatic vocabulary. To this end, Zersetzte Spannung is dominated by an array of pastel hues, incorporating subtle variations of pink, blue, purple, and yellow, alongside richly layered darker shades, to create an intriguing interplay of colour. One of the most striking expressions of this is in the division of the picture into four distinct horizontal bands, which alternate between various chromatic polarities, shifting from warm to cold, light to dark, as they sit alongside one another. The artist explores these juxtapositions throughout the painting, often contrasting several shades within a single form, to demonstrate the ways in which subtle modulations of colour can alter the perception of different forms.
Kandinsky and Klee’s friendship had entered a new phase following their move to Dessau, as they came to live alongside one another in their adjoining Master’s houses at the Bauhaus. Kandinsky gave an account of their closeness during these years in 1931, as he reminisced about his friendship with Klee: ‘the Bauhaus flew from Weimar with a rapidity that a Zeppelin might have envied. To this flight Klee and I owe our third and closest period of proximity: for more than five years we have been living right next to one another, our apartments separated only by a fire-proof wall. But despite the wall, we can visit one another without leaving the building, by a short walk through the cellar… But our spiritual proximity would have existed even without access through the cellar’ (W. Kandinsky, ‘Tribute to Klee’, in bauhaus, 1931, quoted in K.C. Lindsay & P. Vergo, eds., Kandinsky: Complete Writings on Art, New York, 1994, p. 753). The two developed an intimate rapport as a result of this proximity, discussing their work and experiments with one another during the daily walks and afternoon cups of tea they shared. Their paintings also became increasingly similar as a result, with the affinities between the two artists’ work reaching an all-time high during the closing years of the 1920s.
For both, the figurative potential of different combinations of squares, rectangles, triangles, and circles held a particular fascination, leading this theme to become a dominant feature in their art. The physiognomic potential of abstract geometry had long intrigued Klee, influencing such works as Senecio (Baldgreis) from 1922, in which the artist manipulated a series of geometric elements through slight alterations and additions to produce a human face amongst the squares and rectangles of colour. At the Dessau Bauhaus, Klee developed these ideas further, using stacks of clearly delineated squares, cubes and triangles to build an impression of a figure. Drawing inspiration from Kandinsky’s use of geometry, as well as aerial photographs taken by the nearby Junkers aircraft and engineering company, the arrangement of these sharply angled bodies often evokes a sense of motion in their form. Kandinsky, meanwhile, began to introduce small accents and subtle combinations of form in his paintings, to suggest objects drawn from nature. In the present work, the inclusion of the single red circle in the upper left hand corner of the ovoid shape suggests an eye, transforming the constellation of shapes into a face or head, an effect which led the artist’s biographer, Will Grohmann, to compare the painting to ‘an electronic brain,’ invoking impressions of a cyborg or robotic figure (W. Grohmann, Wassily Kandinsky: His Life and Work, London, 1959, p. 211).
Spatial illusions and their contradictions were of particular fascination to Klee and Kandinsky at this time, with Gestalt psychology and its theories regarding perception becoming a topic of numerous discussions between the pair. Kandinsky’s experiments with these concepts are evident in Zersetzte Spannung, as he introduced subtle details which complicate our reading of the pictorial space. For example, the diamond shaped element in the bottom right corner of the composition appears alternately three dimensional and flat, depending on where the viewer’s attention is fixed. Kandinsky was fascinated by the interrelationships among colours and forms, and the ways in which the shape, size and placement of varying hues within a composition could affect the reading of normative spatial effects. In this case, as the eye focuses on each of the colours in the diamond form separately, the planes seem to shift, with some appearing to recede and others moving towards the front of the picture plane, altering the formal qualities of the shape in the process. In introducing this visual device, Kandinsky emphasises the immeasurable and dynamic character of pictorial space, while also encouraging an awareness of the viewer’s own perceptual process in viewing the painting.
Kandinsky aimed at variety and nuance in his approach to colour at this stage in his career, using a range of intermediate tones to infuse his paintings with a visually arresting chromatic vocabulary. To this end, Zersetzte Spannung is dominated by an array of pastel hues, incorporating subtle variations of pink, blue, purple, and yellow, alongside richly layered darker shades, to create an intriguing interplay of colour. One of the most striking expressions of this is in the division of the picture into four distinct horizontal bands, which alternate between various chromatic polarities, shifting from warm to cold, light to dark, as they sit alongside one another. The artist explores these juxtapositions throughout the painting, often contrasting several shades within a single form, to demonstrate the ways in which subtle modulations of colour can alter the perception of different forms.