Small Worlds VII 1922

Wassily Kandinsky made this small painting in watercolor, ink, and gouache, on paper. Just imagine him there, brush in hand. The sharp lines and flat planes in yellow, white, and blue suggest an artist who is in total control. But there’s also the feeling of something improvised. It’s like he’s trying to find the painting, or maybe the painting is finding him, and we get to watch that process unfold right before our eyes. Kandinsky’s paintings are like little worlds, made of colors, shapes, and feelings. He was really interested in how music and painting could be combined, and he wanted to make paintings that felt like music. The relationship between color and shape, the texture, it’s like he’s improvising a melody. It reminds me that all artists are in an ongoing conversation, inspiring each other across time, and that painting is just a form of expression, embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations and meaning over fixed readings.