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Anneli Xie
Profs. Pat Berman & Alice Friedman
ARTH 322: The Bauhaus
2019/03/20

Small Worlds and Big Ideas: Concerning the Spiritual in Kandinsky’s Kleine Welten IV


Fig 1. Wassily, Kandinsky. Kleine Welten IV, 1922. Lithograph. 33.6 x 28.9 cm. Boston,
Museum of Fine Arts. https://www.mfa.org/collections/object/kleine-welten-iv-166700.

Although being showcased as only a part of Wassily Kandinsky’s 12 works portfolio Kleine Welten (Small Worlds), Kleine Welten IV (fig. 1) is an alluring work that stands out on its own. Framed on a 34.3 x 28 cm passe-partout, Kleine Welten IV, together with the rest of the works in the portfolio, occupy an entire wall in the dimmed-lit exhibition hall at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston as part of the show “Radical Geometries: Bauhaus Prints, 1919-33.” Exhibited in chronological order, Kleine Welten IV is positioned in the upper right corner of the wall and depicts, much like the name reveals, a small world. Not only working on a self-contained level, however, Kleine Welten IV also reveals a utopian vision of a harmonious reality when related to the other works of the portfolio. Created within six months of Kandinsky’s teachership at the Bauhaus in Weimar, where he was appointed head of the mural workshop in 1922, (Poling 1983, 41) the 12 prints that make up Kleine Welten (Small Worlds) are all significant pieces in Kandinsky’s career as they combine figurative representation, more common in Kandinsky’s impressionist past (see fig. 2), with the complex geometric abstractions that later became his trademark. (Guerman 1997, 10) Although Kandinsky’s move towards abstraction started already in the 1910s, with an added momentum from his theories on non-figurative art and his 1911 publication “Concerning the Spiritual in Art,” Kandinsky produced prior and after Kleine Welten (Small Worlds) are significantly different. Kleine Welten (Small Worlds) and Kandinsky’s appointment at the Bauhaus can thus be seen as a turning, – or maybe rather a self-realization – point for the rest of Kandinsky’s career, after which Kandinsky’s concerns with the spiritual were much more heavily reflected in his art, as can be seen in his theories on color, form, and his turn towards the geometric and the abstract. As part of this chronicle, Kleine Welten IV, the fourth in the portfolio series, is a good representation of Kandinsky’s attempt in doing so, making use of the relationship between color, forms, and composition to translate his works of art into a spiritual domain.


Wassily, Kandinsky. Der Blaue Reiter, 1903. Oil on Cardboard. 55.0 × 65.0 cm. Zurich, Private Collection.
Accessed March 15, 2019. https://www.wassilykandinsky.net/work-81.php.

Fig. 3. Wassily, Kandinsky. Soft Pressure, 1931. Oil on Plywood. 99.5 x 99 cm. New York, Museum of Modern Art.
Accessed March 15, 2019. https://www.moma.org/collection/works/80496.

Even though the works of Kleine Welten (Small Worlds) all relate and complement each other as part of a cohesive series, they simultaneously contradict and oppose one another – much like the world we live in is one cohesive unit that yet contains so much conflict and chaos. The series consists of images printed using different techniques: lithography, wood cutting, and etching – three mutually exclusive techniques that yet fall under the umbrella of printmaking – with six of the works being polychrome and the remaining six being monochrome. By these choices, of using different techniques and shifting the presence or absence of color, Kandinsky seems to suggest several conflicting counter-parts that come together to create a cohesive piece: the portfolio, a collection of works supposed to showcase an artist’s style, ideas, and versatility. Conflicting yet complementary, the works of Kleine Welten (Small Worlds) come together to hint at an essence of sorts, blending Kandinsky’s past and present styles, with his placed importance on the relationship between form and color, in a mastery of composition and technique. (Kandinsky 2008, 106)  The name of the collection, Kleine Welten (Small Worlds), also declares a showcasing of alternative worlds, introducing Kandinsky’s thoughts on urban planning movements and the utopian vision of viewing the world as a kingdom, as suggested in Karen Koehler’s essay “Kandinsky’s Kleine Welten and Utopian City Plans.”  The conflicts within the works themselves and in the plates in relation to each other also suggest a symbolic interpretation of the inevitable chaos that exists in the world – especially considering the reason for Kandinsky’s consecutive moves between Russia and Germany, forced to emigrate by war and conflicting political ideologies. (Koehler 1998, 432)  

Fig. 4. Kandinsky, Wassily. “Circles on Black,” 1921. Oil on Canvas, 136.5 x 120 cm. (The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York).
In Kandinsky, Russian and Bauhaus years by Clark V. Poling. New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1983. p.118, fig. 42.

Fig. 5. Kandinsky, Wassily. “Composition #224 (On White) ” 1920. Oil on Canvas, 95.0 × 138.0 cm. St. Petersburg, The Russian Museum.
Accessed March 13, 2019. https://www.wassilykandinsky.net/work-548.php.
Kleine Welten IV is the fourth of Kandinsky’s portfolio and a good representation of the blend of styles, conflicts, and ideologies discussed above. The work – a lithograph in violet, green, yellow, and black, printed on white wove paper – presents a microcosm of lines, shapes, points, and colors, slowly revealing the presence of recognizable objects – a process described by Rose Carol Washton Long as the “veiling of [images.]” (Washton Long 1975, 227) Similar to the planetary composition of Kandinsky’s 1921 work Circles on Black (fig. 4), Kleine Welten IV appears from the thick black outline of a circle, starting in the left corner and stretching across two-thirds of the vertical page. From this circle, several undistinguishable forms, lines, and shapes – but also recognizable motifs and associations, such as what appears to be a representation of a boat propellor, ship funnel, and waves of water, as well as a patch of grass and a black and white checkerboard – emerge. The cosmic compositions of Kleine Welten IV and its references to water and nature can be connected to the utopian planning ideas of satellite cities and the garden city movement (with its anarchist ideals), possibly introduced to Kandinsky by the theories of Russian writer and anarchist Peter Kropotkin, who believed humans were happiest in small communities and who sought to restructure society in such a way. (Koehler 1998, 432) As someone describing himself as “anarchistic,” there is no doubt that Kandinsky was familiar with Kropotkin’s writing, even referring to him in a correspondence with Serbian writer Dimitri Mitrinovic. (Koehler 1998, 439) Kropotkin’s emphasis on the collective and cooperative effort was later adopted by Walter Gropius and put into play at the birth of the Bauhaus. (Poling 1983, 42) It will thus be suggested that Kandinsky, surrounded by these utopian ideals both before and after his move from Russia to Germany in 1922, derived ideas from both Kropotkin and Gropius to influence his creation of Kleine Welten (Small Worlds). As for the checkerboard, it was a recurring element in Kandinsky’s works, first used in his 1920 Composition #224 (On White) (fig. 5) and frequently seen during his early Bauhaus years – not only in Kleine Welten IV, but also in later works such as Orange (fig. 6) from 1923 and Contrasting Sounds (fig. 7) from 1924. Whereas the use of the checkerboard was drawn from the Russian constructivist movement, whose first chairman was Kandinsky, (Giovannini 1990) it also aligned with the forms of the Bauhaus and was frequently employed “as devices for designs and formats for student exercises” (Poling 1983, 38) – an indicator of how both Kandinsky’s Russian heritage, as well as his teachership and students at the Bauhaus continued to influence his work. Combining the recognizable features of the built environment in play with the unrecognizable forms of the rest of the plate in a cosmic composition, conveying the utopian ideals of Kropotkin and Gropius, Kleine Welten IV suggests a hovering conflict between the realistic and the ideal. Furthermore, the majority of objects protrude from the circle, sometimes covering both the outline of the circle, as well as objects crossing its path – such as a black diagonal line cutting across the circle, left to right, at an approximately 25 degree angle – conveying a sense of depth in a flattened perspective. The clashing of objects adds an element of conflict by challenging the centripetal force of the enclosed circle with the centrifugal forces of the protruding objects, perhaps hinting at an equilibrium of power in play; the spiritual and the earthly in harmony.

Fig. 6. Kandinsky, Wassily. “Orange,” 1923. Lithograph, 48 x 44.2 cm. New York, Museum of Modern Art.
Accessed March 13, 2019. https://www.moma.org/collection/works/70099.

Fig. 7. Kandinsky, Wassily. “Contrasting Sounds,” 1923. Oil on Cardboard, 70.0 × 49.5 cm. Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou.
Accessed March 13, 2019. https://www.wassilykandinsky.net/work-237.php.
For Kandinsky, the relationship between color, form, and humanity was the most important. (Kandinsky 2008, 59) In his 1911 publication “Concerning the Spiritual in Art,” he extensively mentions the human connection to color, stating that colors “produce a spiritual vibration” to the sensitive human soul. Regarding the palette of Kleine Welten IV, Kandinsky asserts that “orange is like a man, convinced of its own powers, [...] violet a cooled red, [...] rather sad and ailing” and green is “the most restful color that exists.”  About the two monochrome colors, black and white, Kandinsky writes poetically: “[White] is not a dead silence, but one pregnant with possibilities. [...] A totally dead silence, on the other hand, a silence with no possibilities, has the inner harmony of black.” Kandinsky’s relationship to form was similarly spiritual, with a belief that an artist’s goal should not be mastery of form, “but rather the adapting of form to its inner meaning,” and that “each form which goes to make up a composition has a simple inner value, which has in its turn a melody;” (Kandinsky 2008, 84-89) a circle deemed to be the most stable yet unstable form (Kandinsky 1979, 81) and a symbol of eternity. According to Susan J. Soriente, the circle is also “an important symbol in many cultures, often representing [...] the unity of opposites into oneness,” (Soriente 2010, 4) which relates back to Kleine Welten IV’s opposing yet balanced centripetal and centrifugal forces. The black diagonal line cutting through the circle, on the other hand, has “a greater inner tension [than vertical and horizontal lines],” (Kandinsky 1979, 65) and further emphasizes the dynamic tension present between the two. With Kandinsky’s thoughts on form and color in mind, it can be derived that Kandinsky “created mysterious shapes and provided lucid explanation behind their working to inculcate through his shapes the ultimate good of spirituality,” as Syed Gowhar Andrabi suggests in his essay “Concerning the Spiritual in Kandinsky’s Shapes;” and that Kandinsky’s use of geometric circles, especially in contrast with his more melodious organic forms and the vivid dynamism of his diagonal lines, are suggestive of a harmony between an earthly chaos and an idealized spiritual domain.

Kleine Welten IV and its interplay in Kleine Welten is a significant example of Kandinsky’s application of his theories on spirituality and art. Inspired by utopian visions of both the Bolshevik Russia that Kandinsky left and the community at the Bauhaus which he entered, Kleine Welten IV showcases both Kandinsky’s emerging abstract geometric style, as well as his versatility and mastery of different techniques, colors, and compositions. As a composite collection, too, Kleine Welten (Small Worlds) addresses the self-contained singular work and its participation in a compound, displaying a harmony between the singular and the collective; and even though many of the portfolio plates seem to oppose and contradict each other, they all form a harmonious whole. This balance, of earthly chaos and spiritual divine, can be seen as an attempt to translate art into a spiritual dimension for his audience; and to Kandinsky, this is what art was all about – transcending the souls of peoples by combining the language of color and line as a spiritual teacher of the world. With a belief of each form having a color and a melody of its own, Kandinsky viewed himself as an artist merely replying to these, acting as “the hand which plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.” (Kandinsky 2008, 62)  As those to whom his art has spoken, we bear his testimony.


References



Andrabi, Syed G. “Concerning the Spiritual in Kandinsky’s Shapes.” 2013. https://www.academia.edu/6472706/Concerning_the_spiritual_in_Kandinskys_shapes.


Giovannini, Joseph. “Modern Long Ago: The Comeback of Russian Constructivism.” New York Times, December 30, 1990. https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/30/books/modern-long-ago-the-comeback-of-russian-constructivism.html.


Guerman, Mikhaïl. Wassily Kandinsky. New York: Parkstone Press, 1997.


Kandinsky, Wassily. “Circles on Black,” 1921. Oil on Canvas. 136.5 x 120 cm. (Collection The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY). In Kandinsky, Russian and Bauhaus years by Clark V. Poling. New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1983, p. 118


Kandinsky, Wassily. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Translated by Michael T. H. Sadler. Auckland: The Floating Press, 2008.


Kandinsky, Wassily. Point to Line to Plane. Translated by Howard Dearstyne and Hilla Rebay. New York: Dover Publications, 1979.


Koehler, Karen. “Kandinsky’s Kleine Welten and Utopian City Plans.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 57, no. 4. (December 1998): 432-47.


Long, Rose-Carol W. “Kandinsky's Abstract Style: The Veiling of Apocalyptic Folk Imagery.” Art Journal 34, no. 3 (Spring 1975): 217-27.


Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Museum label for Wassily Kandinsky, Kleine Welten (Small Worlds). Boston, MA, February 24, 2019.


Poling, Clark V.  Kandinsky: Russian and Bauhaus Years. New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1983.


Soriente, Susan J. “Divine Abstractions: Spiritual Expressions in Art.”  Sheldon Museum of Art Catalogues and Publications, 25 (2010): 1-13.