Black-Red 1928

Wassily Kandinsky made this painting, Black-Red, with oil on canvas, and the colours look like they were put down with the confidence of a house painter, but with the mind of a mystic. The thing that's so cool is that Kandinsky embraced artmaking as a process. Look at how the thick red paint creates a surface that feels almost velvety, contrasting with the stark, graphic quality of the black shapes. The paint is built up in layers, giving the whole thing a real physical presence. See that cluster of small, brightly coloured squares over there? It's like a little city block, a microcosm of the larger composition, and it draws you in, keeps your eye moving. There's something of Miro in this too, in the way that simple shapes carry so much weight. Kandinsky invites us to embrace ambiguity and find our own meanings in the dance of colour and form.