Kleine Welten Xi 1922

This is Kleine Welten XI, made by Wassily Kandinsky, and I’m going to guess it’s an etching, made with a metal plate and acid. Look at the marks, almost like they’re floating, untethered, on the surface! It’s a process of removal - biting the plate away with acid to create the design. Kandinsky’s got this amazing way of making marks that feel both chaotic and totally precise. See how he uses different types of lines, like thick, bold strokes and delicate, scratchy ones? There’s this one little sun-like shape near the top, made of tiny radiating lines and a textured centre. It feels so light, like it could just float away. Everything looks weightless! That single mark makes the whole piece feel less static and more alive. It puts me in mind of Klee’s playful way of working. But Kandinsky is totally his own thing. He’s not trying to tell us a story, but to take us somewhere in our minds. Art is about so much more than what we see.