Wassily KANDINSKY "Study for Panel for Edwin R. Campbell No.4 (Carnival, Winter)"

”Study for Panel for Edwin R. Campbell No.4 (Carnival, Winter)”

Wassily KANDINSKY (1866-1944)
1914, 69.8 x 48.4cm, Oil on cardboard

Like the literati of his native Russia, Kandinsky hoped for the fall of materialistic society and the birth of a new spiritual world. After 1910 he sought to show that such a world was near through his painting, but never by expounding directly on the theme. Rather, he sought to express the meaning of his subject as an inner resonance produced by means of color, thus hiding the meaning of the motif. This gave birth to a kind of "non-objective painting".
Although they are few in number, Kandinsky also created murals on this theme. This work is a study for a mural consisting of four panels that the artist created on commission from an entrepreneur in New York. The work was not titled by Kandinsky himself, but later on it came to be called Carnival, Winter based on the interpretation of one art historian who said the four panels represented a seasonal quartet. However, hidden within this work is a Christian-type apocalyptic world that has nothing to do with a seasonal quartet. The scattering and ascending colors resonate on a grand scale.

©ADAGP, Paris & JVACS, Tokyo, 2002.