Waldrand (Waldlichtung)

Waldrand exemplifies the important relationship between Kandinsky's early work and the Neo-Impressionist work of Vincent Van Gogh, whose paintings Kandinsky admired greatly at the 1903 Munich Secession. His use of rich impasto is clearly inspired by the Post-Impressionists, yet his approach to art was radically different: '[Kandinsky], certes, recourt la technique divisioniste, mais d'une autre manire. Il ne cherche pas parvenir la srenit, obtenir cette uniformit de texture dans toutes les zones du tableau, qui caractrise les oeuvres de Signac, Cross ou Luce...
Parfois, la limite du "chrono", les petites esquisses l'huile [de Kandinsky] sont le plus souvent des tentatives avortes de fixer moins le paysage que l'humeur du peintre telle ou telle beaut naturelle. Elles sont tributaires de l'instant...' (C. Derouet, Oeuvres de Vassily Kandinsky. Les Collections du Centre Pompidou, Paris, 1984, p. 22).
Kandinsky met Gabriele Mnter in 1902 when Mnter was a student in Kandinsky's class at the Phalanx art school. In the summer of 1903, Kandinsky took his painting class to Kallmnz in the Upper Palatinate of eastern Bavaria. During this summer, Kandinsky painted a number of small landscapes of the areas in and around Kallmnz, including the present work, which he gave as a gift to Gabriele Mnter.