Q.
Why did the remarkable Kandinsky so favour circles?

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Well, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy (1866-1944) was also a prolific writer, so he serves up his own answers. In a 1930 letter to art critic and historian Will Grohmann, Kandinsky wrote:

‘Why does the circle fascinate me? It is (1) the most modern form, but asserts itself unconditionally, (2) a precise but inexhaustible variable, (3) simultaneously stable and unstable, (4) simultaneously loud and soft, (5) a single tension that caries countless tensions within it. The circle is the synthesis of the greatest oppositions. It combines the concentric and the eccentric in a single form, and in balance. Of the three primary forms (triangle, square, circle), it points most clearly to the fourth dimension.’

In 2022, New York’s Guggenheim museum mounted Vasily Kandinsky: Around The Circle, which included 80 pieces from their extraordinary collection of Kandinskys – paintings, illustrated books, watercolors, woodcuts …

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Around The Circle. 1940

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Capricious Forms. 1937

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Striped (Rayé). 1934

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Gloomy Situation. 1933

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Several Circles. 1926

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Composition 8. 1923

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Black Lines. 1913

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Painting with White Border. 1913

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Small Pleasures. 1913

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Pastorale. 1911

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Landscape with Factory Chimney. 1910

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Group in Crinolines. 1909

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Here’s a peek at at an earlier Kandinsky exhibit at the Guggenheim, and curators discussing the museum’s remarkable collection of the Russian artist.

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www.justcurious.ca

Header: Kandinsky. Dominant Curve. 1936