Durchsicht

When Kandinsky completed Durchsicht in 1930, he was one of the Bauhaus' longest serving masters and at the height of his career. A pioneer of abstract art, Kandinsky was drawn to non-referential subject matter by a belief in the ability of art to evoke an emotional response without imitating nature. "It does not preclude all connection with nature, but one must learn to see the content behind the unaccustomed form, just as we must look beneath nature's surface to grasp her essence" (W. Grohmann, Wassily Kandinsky, Life and Work, New York, 1958, p. 204). While his oil paintings are well known and widely studied on this account, it was in fact in his watercolors that Kandinsky first began to explore the possibilities of pure abstraction. His years at the Bauhaus in particular represented not only a growing use of watercolors but also a period dominated by geometric abstraction.

As in the present watercolor, form, color and tone were the central foundation of Kandinsky's style. Here, the bold shapes of Durchsicht deviate from the organic forms and narrative references evident in Kandinsky's earlier work; rather, he has paired a geometric precision of building-blocks with the organic and emotive hues of watercolor. In this manner Kandinsky has given visual manifestation to his belief that the best art is never produced by the head or the heart alone: "In general, the ideal balance between the head (conscious moment) and the heart (unconscious moment-intuition) is a law of creation, law as old as humanity" (quoted in "Art Today," Cahiers d'Art, 1935, p. 83). Given his fascination with color theory, each tint therefore has a specific resonance for the artist. Yellow symbolizes earthly warmth and red, the dominant color, represents life, energy, purposeful strength, and masculine maturity.

(fig. 1) The artist in 1936.