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Lot Essay
Kandinsky's, Etude pour L'Ensemble was executed in Paris, where he moved when the Nazis closed the Berlin Bauhaus in 1934 and remained with his wife Nina until 1944, the year of his death. They took an apartment in Neuilly-sur-Seine, marking the beginning of the artist's final creative phase, his so called Paris period.
An important characteristic of Kandinsky's late style was his interest in basing his abstract forms on biomorphic shapes so that they often resemble deep sea organisms as seen under a microscope. Various publications which Kandinsky may have seen have been proposed, including Ernst Heinrich Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, published as far back as 1904. Newspaper and magazine clippings kept by the artist also attest to his fascination with the biological sciences.
The technique of using dark paper as a backdroup for his colorful gouaches which he himself called "dessins coloriés" was a medium which was inspired by his early Art Nouveau years. Kandinsky would either use dark paper or he would prepare it himself with a dark tone before applying the bright gouache tones which makes the composition vibrate, as in the present work.
Another influence on Kandinsky's pictorial vocabulary during this period is his growing acquaintance with the leading figures of the Paris art world, especially the Surrealists and artists associated with the movement. The works of Jean (Hans) Arp and Joan Miró have often been cited by critics as having had an impact on Kandinsky's painting after 1934. Although the artist was quick to play down the extent of this influence--he was not drawn to the automatism, myth or dreams--he clearly absorbed their ideas in a manner that is entirely his own.
The present work is recorded in the artist's Hand List of watercolors as no. 634 of the year 1940. This gouache is a study of the larger oil painting Ensemble, painted the same year (Roethel and Benjamin, no. 1109).
An important characteristic of Kandinsky's late style was his interest in basing his abstract forms on biomorphic shapes so that they often resemble deep sea organisms as seen under a microscope. Various publications which Kandinsky may have seen have been proposed, including Ernst Heinrich Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, published as far back as 1904. Newspaper and magazine clippings kept by the artist also attest to his fascination with the biological sciences.
The technique of using dark paper as a backdroup for his colorful gouaches which he himself called "dessins coloriés" was a medium which was inspired by his early Art Nouveau years. Kandinsky would either use dark paper or he would prepare it himself with a dark tone before applying the bright gouache tones which makes the composition vibrate, as in the present work.
Another influence on Kandinsky's pictorial vocabulary during this period is his growing acquaintance with the leading figures of the Paris art world, especially the Surrealists and artists associated with the movement. The works of Jean (Hans) Arp and Joan Miró have often been cited by critics as having had an impact on Kandinsky's painting after 1934. Although the artist was quick to play down the extent of this influence--he was not drawn to the automatism, myth or dreams--he clearly absorbed their ideas in a manner that is entirely his own.
The present work is recorded in the artist's Hand List of watercolors as no. 634 of the year 1940. This gouache is a study of the larger oil painting Ensemble, painted the same year (Roethel and Benjamin, no. 1109).