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Artl@s Bulletin Artl@s Bulletin Volume 6 Issue 2 Migrations, Transfers, and Resemanticization Article 5 2017 Nothing to Do with Politics, Only Art? On Wassily Kandinsky's Nothing to Do with Politics, Only Art? On Wassily Kandinsky's Work in Paris, from 1934 until the Outbreak of the War Work in Paris, from 1934 until the Outbreak of the War Kate C. Kangaslahti Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/artlas Part of the Modern Art and Architecture Commons Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Kangaslahti, Kate C.. "Nothing to Do with Politics, Only Art? On Wassily Kandinsky's Work in Paris, from 1934 until the Outbreak of the War." Artl@s Bulletin 6, no. 2 (2017): Article 5. This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. This is an Open Access journal. This means that it uses a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access. Readers may freely read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles. This journal is covered under the CC-BY-NC-SA license.

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Page 1: Nothing to Do with Politics, Only Art? On Wassily

Artl@s Bulletin Artl@s Bulletin

Volume 6 Issue 2 Migrations, Transfers, and Resemanticization

Article 5

2017

Nothing to Do with Politics, Only Art? On Wassily Kandinsky's Nothing to Do with Politics, Only Art? On Wassily Kandinsky's

Work in Paris, from 1934 until the Outbreak of the War Work in Paris, from 1934 until the Outbreak of the War

Kate C. Kangaslahti Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, [email protected]

Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/artlas

Part of the Modern Art and Architecture Commons

Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Kangaslahti, Kate C.. "Nothing to Do with Politics, Only Art? On Wassily Kandinsky's Work in Paris, from 1934 until the Outbreak of the War." Artl@s Bulletin 6, no. 2 (2017): Article 5.

This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information.

This is an Open Access journal. This means that it uses a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access. Readers may freely read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles. This journal is covered under the CC-BY-NC-SA license.

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Nothing to Do with Politics, Only Art? On Wassily Kandinsky's Work in Paris, from Nothing to Do with Politics, Only Art? On Wassily Kandinsky's Work in Paris, from 1934 until the Outbreak of the War 1934 until the Outbreak of the War

Cover Page Footnote Cover Page Footnote This essay began life as a paper presented at the International Symposium "Avant-Garde Migrations" at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon in November 2015 and my thanks go to David Cottington, Begoña Farré Torras, Eva Forgacs, Naomi Hume, Nicholas Sawicki, Isabel Wünsche and Foteini Vlachou for their useful suggestions at that time. I would also like to thank the two anonymous readers for their instructive remarks, which were invaluable in revising this text.

This article is available in Artl@s Bulletin: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/artlas/vol6/iss2/5

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NothingtoDowithPolitics,butOnlyArt?

OnWassilyKandinsky’sWorkinParis,from1934untiltheOutbreakoftheWar

AbstractFollowing his move to Paris at the end of 1933, Wassily Kandinsky clung to hisconvictionthatartmustremainfreeofpolitics.ThepurposeofthisessayistoconsiderthelimitationsandadvantagesofthispositioninthepolarizedpoliticalclimateoftheFrench capital and to chart the aesthetic path the painter embarked upon after hisarrival, with particular reference to the personal ties and artistic alliances that heforged (or not) in this complex cultural terrain. Far from having nothing to dowithpolitics, the transformation his painting underwent in Paris, during the period hedubbed“synthetic,”wastheresultofboththematurationofhis ideasonabstractartandhisadaptationtoarockypoliticalandculturallandscape.

KateKangaslahti *KULeuven

*KateKangaslahtiisaResearchFellowandVisitingProfessorinthegroup“CulturalHistorysince1750”atKULeuven,studyingtherelationshipbetweenartandpolitics inEurope inthe interwarera,withreferencetoculturalconstructionsofnational identity,thesituationof foreignartists inculturalcapitals,andtheroleoftheartpress.

RésuméAprèssonarrivéeàParisà la finde1933,VassilyKandinskycontinuaàmaintenirquel'artdevaitrester indépendantdelapolitique.Lebutdecetessaiestdeconsidérer leslimites et avantages de cette position, dans le climat politique polarisé de la capitalefrançaise. L’article retrace l’évolution artistique du peintre après son arrivée, et enparticulierleslienspersonnelsetlesalliancesartistiquesqu'ilputounonforgerdanscemilieuculturelcomplexe.Loindecontrediretoutlienaveclapolitique,latransformationque sa peinture subit à Paris, pendant cette période qu’il nomma «synthétique», futautantlerésultatdelamaturationdesesidéessurl'artabstraitquedesonadaptationàunpaysagepolitiqueetcultureltortueux.

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Evenbeforethewar,Itraveledveryoften…Ilivedabroadatonetimeforfourconsecutiveyears(inFrance,Belgium,TunisiaandItaly).Consequently,myneartwo‐

yearabsence[fromGermany]hasnothingtodowithpoliticalreasons,butexclusivelyartisticones.1

‐WassilyKandinskytoAlexandreKojève,c.1935

WhenWassilyKandinskyrelocatedtoParisattheendof1933,attheageof67,itwasthelast,butbynomeansthefirst,occasionthattheRussian‐bornartist,aGermancitizensince1928, foundhimselfuprooted; the various moves he had undertakenover the course of his life, up until and includingthis one, ran the gamut of experiences that“migration” comprised in the first half of thetwentieth century.2 He chose to leave Russia forMunich in 1896 to pursue a career in painting,from where, as he later reminded his nephew,Alexandre Kojève, he freely and frequentlytraveled.Thedeclarationofwarin1914,however,broughtanabruptendtothewatershedperiodofDie Blaue Reiter, when Kandinsky was forciblyrepatriated. He returned to Moscow viaSwitzerland, only to lose his private fortune andthe luxury of his financial independence in theRevolution of 1917, but, heeding the call of theSoviet government and the Russian avant‐garde,he worked tirelessly within the new proletariancultural institutions. Once he realized that anyspiritualunderstandingofartwastobesacrificedon theBolshevik altar ofConstructivist utility, hehappily embarked on an official visit to Germanyat the end of 1921, later accepting WalterGropius’s offer of a permanent position at theBauhaus, moving with the school to its newpremises in Dessau in 1925, and, less happily, toBerlin in1933.Here,onceagain, thestatewas toplay an active role in inducing, if not strictlycompelling, his departure. “I was ‘given the coldshoulder,’” he explained to Hilla Rebay. “The

1KandinskytoAlexandreKojève,undated,c.1935,inVassilyKandinsky.CorrespondancesavecZervosetKojève,ed.byChristianDerouet,LesCahiersdumuséenationald’artmoderne,hors‐série/archives(Paris:CentreGeorgesPompidou,1992),173.Unlessotherwiseindicated,alltranslationsaremyown.2Formoreonthecomplexnatureofmigrationinthisperiod,theblurredlinesbetweenforcedandvoluntarymovement,betweentheartisticmigrantandtheexile,seeSabineEckmann,“Considering(andreconsidering)ArtandExile,”inExilesandEmigrés:TheFlightofEuropeanArtistsfromHitler,ed.byStephanieBarron(LosAngeles:LosAngelesCountyMuseum,1997),30‐42.

museums placed my paintings instorage…Exhibitions, even in private galleries,became impossible for me. Therefore the artdealers also could no longer represent meenergetically.Isattherewithmyhandstied.”3

As an artistKandinskyhadalwaysbeen adamantthat artmust transcend the demands ofmaterialreality and “the coarser emotions, such as terror,joy, sorrow,” that it inevitably excited.4 Yetdramatic external events had a way of intrudingpainfully and inconveniently throughout hisworkinglife.BoththetitleandthesombertonesofEntwicklung inBraun (Fig.1), the lastoilpaintingKandinsky finished on German soil, unavoidablyevoke the ominous presence of Hitler’sBrownshirtsonthestreetsofthecapital,followingthe rise to power of theNational Socialists. Evenbefore completing this work in 1933, while onholidaythatsummerinFrance,KandinskyandhiswifeNinahadbegun toplot theirdeparture fromGermany. Once back in the tense atmosphere ofBerlin, the prospect of Paris, however unsettling,surely seemed a window of opportunity, thechance tocontinue topaintashewished topaintwhenprofessionaldoorsaroundhimwereclosing,much as the dark, overlapping planes in hispaintingconvergeupontheluminouscenterofthecanvas. To quote the words of Christian Zervos,the editorwho had long supported Kandinsky inthepagesoftheFrenchreviewCahiersd’Art,here“in the middle, [was] an opening as clear ashope…[that]whichmakesusdreamoftheinfinitethatourlifelimitsfromallsides.”5Thereisnohintin Entwicklung in Braun of the fanciful, writhingbiomorphs the artist was to bring into being inParis, in a newly liberated range of colors, but,seen in light of the changes to come, the sharptrianglesandblackcrescents that retreat throughthis recessed window bid farewell both toGermanyand to thegeometricorthodoxiesof theBauhaus.

3KandinskytoHillaRebay,1February1934,reproducedinJoanM.Lukach,HillaRebay:InSearchoftheSpiritinArt(NewYork:GeorgeBrazier,1983),115.4WassilyKandinsky,“OntheSpiritualinArt”(1912),inKandinsky:CompleteWritingsonArt,ed.byKennethC.LindsayandPeterVargo(NewYork:DaCapoPress,1994),128.5ChristianZervos,“NotessurKandinsky:ÀproposdesarécenteexpositionàlaGaleriedes‘Cahiersd’Art,’”Cahiersd’Art5/8(1934),154.

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Given the rich readings to which Entwicklung inBraunlends—andeventhenlent—itself,givenhisaccountofeventstoRebay,forKandinskytoinsistas he did to Kojève that his decision to leaveGermanyhadnothingtodowithpoliticsbutonlyartseems,ifnotdisingenuous,thenwillfullynaïve,certainly in the face of a regime that repudiatedsuch distinctions. What he meant, however, wasthatthemovedidnotreflectanyabidingpoliticalconviction on his part, beyond, of course, theessentialtenetofhisownartisticideology,namelythat art, in dreaming of the infinite,must remainfree of such worldly concerns. Throughout the1930s Kandinsky adhered to this article of hiscreativefaiththemoresorelyitwastested.The

artist must always remain “above the complexpolitical, social and moral‐economic problems oftheday,”hewrotein1936,evenastheimpendingpolitical storm gathered momentum acrossEurope;histask“demandscompleteinundationintheworldofart.”6

Myintentionhereistwo‐fold:toexaminesomeofthe limits and limitations, versus the advantages,ofthisposition,especiallyinthepolarizedpoliticalclimateof theParisianmilieu inwhichKandinskyhad chosen to live; and to chart the aestheticcourseheembarkeduponfrom1934upuntil the

6WassilyKandinsky,replytoaquestionnaireinGacetadeArte.Revistainternacionaldecultura38(1936),8.Reproducedas“ReplytoGacetadeArte”(1936),inCompleteWritingsonArt,791.

Figure1.WassilyKandinsky,EntwicklunginBraun,1933,oiloncanvas,101x120.5cm,muséeCantini,Marseille.PhotoCentrePompidou,MNAM‐CCI,Dist.RMN‐GrandPalais/Jean‐ClaudePlanchet.

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outbreak ofwar,with particular reference to thepersonal ties and artistic alliances that he forged(or not) in this complex cultural terrain. In sodoing,ImeantounravelthewaythatKandinsky’sapolitical stance, his attempts to find a place forhimself in the city’s entrenched artistic networksand theuncertaintyof his situation, financial andotherwise,wereinterwoveninthetransformationhis painting underwent following his arrival inParis, the period of his career he dubbed“synthetic.”7 What meaning and significance didKandinskygivetotheideaof“synthesis”andwhatpurchase did the term holdmore broadly at thistime and place? By examining examples of thecanvaseshepaintedinParis,aswellashiswrittentexts and other contemporary sources, I willconsiderhowtheartistrespondedtothedifferentavant‐garde idioms then visible in the city andtheir cultural valence: biomorphism, Surrealism,Futurism’s second wave, and, Kandinsky’s ownbête‐noire, Cubism. The issue here is not one ofsimple “influence,” but rather the exchange oreven melding of multiple artistic currencies,currencies that the artist himself valued inambiguousandambivalentways.

Kandinsky moved to France expecting to find aready reception for his work, his misplacedconfidence fueled partly by Christian Zervos,whose review, Cahiers d’Art, had been giving thepainterapublishedpresenceontheParisianscenesince 1928: Zervos had reproduced Kandinsky’spaintings and texts on several occasions; he hadissuednoticesof theartist’sexhibitions inFranceand beyond, including sizable reviews of twoshowsinParisthattheeditorhimselforchestratedforthepainter,firstattheGalerieZakin1929andthen again the following year at the Galerie deFrance; and, in late 1930, he had publishedWillGrohmann’sfirstmonographontheartist.8Zervos 7InalettertoAndréDezarrois,directoroftheMuséeduJeudePaume,KandinskyreferredtoParisashis“syntheticperiod.”KandinskytoAndréDezarrois,15July1937,9200‐1514a,FondsKandinsky,BibliothèqueKandinsky,CentrededocumentationetderechercheduMNAM,CentreGeorgePompidou,Paris(hereaftercitedFondsKandinsky).8WillGrohmann,Kandinsky(Paris,Cahiersd’Art,1930).SeealsoGrohmann’searlierarticleinthereview,whichfeatured16reproductionsoftheartist’spaintings,“WassilyKandinsky,”Cahiersd’Art7(1929),322‐329,aswellasKandinsky’sown“Réponseàl’enquêtesurl’artabstrait,”Cahiersd’Art7‐8(1931),350‐353.Twosmall

wasperhapsthemostimportant,butcertainlynotKandinsky’s only point of contact with the city’sprogressive artists and cognoscenti. The painterhad lenthis support toCercleetCarré, the short‐lived international group and review that MichelSeuphorestablishedinParisin1930,participatinginthegroup’sfirstandonlyexhibitioninAprilthatyearatGalerie23;attherequestofAlbertGleizesand Hans Arp, he had also added his name toAbstraction‐Création, the association that grewfromtheruinsofCerleetCarré in1931,althoughhis links to the group were to remain slight.9André Breton had showed his early appreciationfor Kandinsky’s “admirable eye” by purchasingtwo watercolors from the artist’s show at theGalerie Zak, and Kandinsky had in turn acceptedthepoet’sinvitationtoexhibitwiththeSurrealistsat the Salon des Surindépendants in late 1933.10From this perspective, the artist’s permanentrelocationtoParisattheendofthatyearwasnotmerelytheworkofthehistoricalmoment,butalsoconcluded a period of transition that arguablybegan when Zervos first traveled to Dessau tomeet him in 1927, a passage Kandinsky(unknowingly)plottedintheinterveningyearsasheregularlyreturnedtoFranceonholidayandforwork, and as he kept abreast of developmentsthrough Cahiers d’Art and other forums.11 WhilestillbasedattheBauhaus,however,theartisthadenjoyedthebenefitsthatdistanceandacertainairofmysterybroughthimintheFrenchcapital,andhehad,asaresult,beenabletomovemoreorlessfreely between groups that, in critical terms,assumed antithetical positions, between theSurrealists, on the one hand, and abstract artistson the other, who were united against “the

catalogueswereproducedforhisexhibitionsinParis:thefirst,Expositiond’aquarellesdeWassilyKandinsky:GalerieZak,Paris,du15au31janvier1929(Paris:GalerieZak,1929)includedashortprefacebyTériade;thesecond,ExpositionKandinsky,du14au31mars1930(Paris:GaleriedeFrance,1930),includedtextsbyTériade,Zervos,FanninaHalleandMauriceRaynal.9MarieGispertthoroughlydetailstheartist’sdifferentengagementsintheFrenchcapitalleadinguptohismovein“Kandinskyetle‘labelparisien,’”LesCahiersduMNAM125(2013),82‐110.10SeeAndréBreton.Labeautéconvulsive(Paris:CentreGeorgesPompidou,1991),209.BretoncongratulatedhimselfonhavingbeenthefirsttowelcomeKandinskyuponhisarrivalinthecityattheendof1933.11VivianEndicottBarnett,“KandinskyandScience:TheIntroductionofBiologicalImagesintheParisPeriod,”inKandinskyinParis:1934‐1944(NewYork:SolomonR.GuggenheimFoundation,1985),61.

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Surrealistdepravation.”12Onceresidentinthecity,finally privy to the “dirty intrigues around everyone of its street corners,”13 the terms of thisengagement changed and Kandinsky faced theproverbial contempt that proximity bred on anumber of fronts: his relationship with Zervosdeteriorated; he negotiated awkwardly amongdifferent artistic factions and émigré groups; andhestruggledtofindthesortofcriticalaudienceormarketforhisworkthathehadbeenanticipating.

Inhermemoirs,NinaKandinskyimplicitlyblamedZervos for the false hopes she and her husbandhadshareduponmoving,althoughtheeditorhadalways been entirely frank about the collapse oftheartmarket,theclosureofgalleries,thedemiseof reviews, and his own financial distress.14Despite these difficulties, he and hiswife Yvonnewere the first to exhibit the new directionKandinsky had begun to pursue following hisarrival in Paris, mounting a show of the artist’swork in the small gallery they ran alongside thereview’seditorialoffices in lateMay1934,which,accordingtoNinaherself,attracteda“gratifyinglystrongresponse.”15Sincethenewyear,Kandinskyhad been happily ensconced in a bright newapartmentwithuninterruptedviewsoftheriverinNeuilly‐sur‐Seine, but, overwhelmed by the lightandnaturalsurroundingsofhisnewhome,hehadstoppedpaintingfornearlytwomonthsinorderto“manage [his impressions].” When he picked uphis brushes again in early March, as he laterexplained to Alfred Barr, director of theMuseumof Modern Art in New York, “Paris, with itsmarvelous light (both strong and soft), hadexpandedmypalette.Othercolorsappeared,otherforms, radically new, or that I had not used for

12MauriceRaynalattributesthisdescriptionandmotivetothe“apostles”ofCerleetCarréinhisreviewoftheexhibitionin1930,“Onexpose,”L’Intransigeant,30April1930,7.13KandinskytoBernesecollectorHermannRupf,citedbyNinaKandinsky,Kandinskyundich(Munich:Kindler,1976),184.14NinaKandinsky,Kandinskyundich,161.InblamingZervos,shealsoglossedoverthefactthatKandinskyhadfirstcontemplatedtravelingtoAmerica,onlytobedissuadedfromundertakingthelong,expensivejourneybyhisfriendandpatronessGalkaScheyer,whohadyettofindasteadydemandfortheartist’sworkontheAmericanmarket.GalkaScheyertoKandinsky,2August1933,reproducedinGalkaE.ScheyerandtheBlueFour:Correspondence,1924‐1945,ed.byIsabelWünsche(Wabern:Benteli,2006),217.Furthermore,fromtheoutsetKandinskyhadhopedtoreturntoGermany,wherehisroots,asheexplainedtohisconfident,Grohmann,wenttoodeeptoconsiderleavingforgood.KandinskytoWillGrohmann,4December1933,citedinGrohmann,WassilyKandinsky:LifeandWork(NewYork:HarryN.Abrams,1959),221.15NinaKandinsky,Kandinskyundich,181.

years. All of this, of course, in an unconsciousfashion.”16 The exhibition at the Galerie desCahiers d’Art, Kandinsky, peintures de toutes lesépoques,aquarellesetdessins,whichopenedon23May,includedsome45oftheartist’sworksdatingfrom 1921‐1934, a selection that showed, asZervos enthused in his own, contemporaryaccount, the way “the atmosphere of the Ile‐de‐France, its light, the lightness of its skies, [was]totally transforming the expressiveness of hisoeuvre.”17 Seen alongside canvases fromKandinsky’syearsinGermany,likeEntwicklunginBraun, thenewworksondisplayandreproducedin Zervos’s “Notes,” including Entre Deux andChacun pour soi (Fig. 2), certainly illustrated theway in which the strong, primary colors andgeometricsyntaxesoftheBauhausera—itscircles,squaresandtriangles—werecedingtowhatVivianEndicott Barnett documents as the artist’s “newiconography,” capricious and whimsical shapesthat conjured the world of biology, painted inmore nuanced, pastel hues.18 In the first work,twinembryonicforms,onelight,onedark,floatinthe upper half of the canvas, as small circlesmultiply in the red space between them, like somany new cells of life springing from theencounter of two beings. In the second, ninedifferent amoebic and geometric shapes arecompartmentalized within a three‐by‐three grid,each form encapsulated within its own ovum oruterinesac,furtherisolatedfromtheothersbythestraight white lines dividing each specimen.“Neverbefore,”wroteZervos,inresponsetothesenew paintings, “[had] the influence of nature onhisworkbeenasevidentasitwasinthecanvasespaintedinParis.”19

16KandinskytoAlfredH.Barr,16July1936,9200‐1501,FondsKandinsky.17Zervos,“NotessurKandinsky,”154.18EndicottBarnett,“KandinskyandScience,”63.19Zervos,“NotessurKandinsky,”154.

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Figure2.WassilyKandinsky,Chacunpoursoi,1934,oilandtemperaoncanvas,60x71cm,privatecollection.ReproducedasanillustrationtoWassilyKandinsky,“LineandFish,”Axis,no.2(1935),6.

For both Zervos and Kandinsky, the environs ofthecityitselfweretheclearimpetusforchange:“Idid not want to see,” Kandinsky insisted, “oneimage foreign to its light and natural setting,”words that struck a defensive note preciselybecause the artist had lit upon a formal pathalready well‐trodden in the French capital.20Biomorphism, with its plastic vocabulary ofsupple,organicforms,elaboratedbyanalogywithbiology,cosmology,intuitionandtheunconscious,was, by this time, a recognizably Parisian idiom,one associated especially with the work of HansArpandJoanMiró.21WhileKandinskyhadknownArp personally since 1912, he met Miró for the

20KandinskytoAlfredH.Barr,16July1936,9200‐1501,FondsKandinsky.21Theterm“biomorphism,”asJenniferMundypointsout,sitsawkwardlyinthelexiconofmodernism,andemergedatadistancefromthepersonalitiesand“traditionsoftheParisianavant‐gardeitsoughttolabel,”butIemploytheexpressionhere,inherwords,as“ausefulwayofdescribingthefluid,organicshapesintheartofsuchdiversefiguresas…HansArp…[and]JoanMiró.”JenniferMundy,“TheNamingofBiomorphism,”inBiocentrismandModernism,ed.byOliverA.I.BotarandIsabelWünsche(Burlington,VT:Ashgate,2011),61.

first time in Paris, when, serendipitously, MiróexhibitedattheGaleriedesCahiersd’ArtinMarch,rightbeforeKandinsky, andZervosdedicated thereview’sfirstissueof1934totheCatalanpainter.Evenpriortothisencounter,however,Kandinskywas familiarwith the work of both these artists,which Zervos had reproduced extensively in thepages of Cahiers d’Art.22 The two contrasting,embryonic shapes of the aforementioned EntreDeux closely resemble the undulating, woodenreliefs that Arp had produced throughout the1920s. And in Kandinsky’s Rayé (Fig. 3), fromNovember 1934, two fine, swirling white lines,reminiscentofArp’sficellescolléesfromtheturnofthe decade, weave their way among the marine‐like beings—quixotic seahorses, urchins andtentacledanemones—thatcalltomindtheworkofMiró, an artist whom Kandinsky openly grew toadmire. “This little man who always paints largecanvases is a real little volcano, constantlyerupting paintings. Fabulous strength andenergy.”23 Kandinsky’s arrangement of theseundeniably Miroèsque forms was neverthelessstriking and novel because he offset theirsubaqueous explosion across the canvaswith thesharpblack andwhite stripesof the title, playingthefreeagainstthefixedtodramaticeffect.Inhis1926 treatise Point and Line to Plane, Kandinskyhad already set forth theway inwhich the artistmight exploit tensionsbetween individuals formsand the picture plane in order to create spatialambiguities, and in this painting the fanciful,brightly colored shapes nudge forward as ifsuspended in frontof thepositive‐negativebandsthatdividethepainting’sfield.24Thissuggestionof“space” is heightened by the artist’s use of sand,which gives his aquatic biomorphs a perceptibletexture even as it also draws attention to thesurfaceof thecanvas;he furthermanipulatesthisrelationship of figure to ground by incorporatingsandintotheblack(negative)stripeswhileleavingthewhite(positive)areasflat.

22Zervos,forexample,reproducedeightofArp’sworks,aswellassevenbyMiróandfourbyKandinsky,toaccompanypartfourofTériade’s“Documentairesurlajeunepeinture,”Cahiersd’Art2(1930),69‐84.23KandinskytoGrohmann,2December1935,citedinLifeandWork,222.24WassilyKandinsky,“PointandLinetoPlane”(1926),inCompleteWritingsinArt,670‐672.

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Kandinskyhad longagoacceptedthe inevitabilityof “experiencing” others’ work, which, far fromundesirable, rendered one’s soul more sensitive,refined.“Experiencingtheworksofothers, inthissense, is the same as experiencing nature.”25 Yetwhentheartistwrote toAlfredBarrtostress theunconsciousfashioninwhichthelightandnaturalsetting of Paris had transformedhiswork, itwasprecisely to refute the director’s unsurprisingobservationthat“inthelastfewyears[Kandinsky]hasturnedtomoreorganic forms,perhapsunderthe influence of the younger Parisians Miró andArp,towhomhepointedthewaytwentyyears

25WassilyKandinsky,“Reminiscences”(1913),inCompleteWritingsonArt,380(myemphasis).

before.”26 The painter’s objection to Barr’s“dangerous” use of the expression “under theinfluence” did not stem from the charge of“influence” per se, but rather from the stateddirection—or reversal—of its flow.27 Kandinsky,however,must have been disappointed that Barrfailed to give any serious consideration to theaesthetic complexity of his recent work,particularly when his own pedagogical texts hadhelped to lay the theoretical foundations of anartistic path he was now described only as

26AlfredH.Barr,CubismandAbstractArt(NewYork:TheMuseumofModernArt,1936),68.27KandinskytoBarr,22June1936,9200‐1500,FondsKandinsky.Kandinskyfollowedthisfirstmissivewithasecondon16July1936,9200‐1501,FondsKandinsky.HewasnodoubtirkedthatBarremployedthephrasenotonce,buttwiceinthecatalogue,alsosuggestingthatduringtheartist’syearsintheSovietUnion,“hisstylechanged,apparentlyundertheinfluenceoftheSuprematists.”

Figure3.WassilyKandinsky,Rayé,1934,oilwithsandoncanvas,81x100cm,NewYork,SolomonR.GuggenheimMuseum,SolomonR.GuggenheimFoundingCollection,46.1022.Photo©TheSolomonR.GuggenheimFoundation.

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following.28Theartisthadlongcopiedandclippedimages of nascent life, of microscopic organismsandgeological formations fromscientific journalsandencyclopedicvolumes,reproducinganumberofillustrationsdrawnfromthestudyofastronomyand biology inPointand Line toPlane, where hehadalsowrittenthatabstractartwassubjecttoitsown “natural laws” and would progress frommodest “to increasingly complex organisms.”29LisaFlormaninvokesthisreferencetoarguethatifKandinskywaspaintingaccordingtothedynamistprinciple he had described, then the free‐flowingshapes of his Parisian works functioned in asimilarly analogical mode, as so many diverseparts that, by means of their coordinatedinteraction, sustained a larger system, the“‘organic’ totality” of his composition.30 Zervosintuitively articulated the systemic nature of theartist’s paintingwhen, in describingChacun poursoitohisreadersin1934,heemphasizedthewayKandinsky had succeeded in giving these “nine,different entities—each living its own life—aunity, inorder tocreate thepainting…usingsignsand tones that bring his canvas into perfectbalance.”31 The contrast, however, between thefree form of Kandinsky’s amoebas and theirconstraint or segregationwithin a structural gridalso seemed to cast doubt upon this equilibrium,lending the work a friction—the free set againstthe fixed—that increasingly typified his Parisiancanvases, heightened here by the painter’ssuggestivetitle, thetruesenseofwhichremainedelusive. As a pictorial metaphor, these (self‐)contained, irregular forms accommodatemultipleinterpretations, from the sanctity of the artist’sautonomy to his lamentable isolation in a

28SeeGuitemieMaldonado’sdiscussioninLecercleetl’amibe.Lebiomorphismedansl’artdesannées1930(Paris:INHA/CTHS,2006),120‐126.Maldonadominesawealthofhistoricalmaterialpertainingtotheproliferationofbiomorphicformsinthelate1920sandearly1930s.29WassilyKandinsky,“PointandLinetoPlane”(1926),inCompleteWritingsonArt,628.30LisaFlorman,ConcerningtheSpiritualandtheConcreteinKandinsky’sArt(Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress,2014),133.FlormanquestionsEndicottBarnett’suseoftheterm“iconography,”andtheideathatKandinsky“depicted”identifiablybiological—ratherthanevocativelybiomorphic—forms.InthiswaysheechoesWillGrohmann’searliersuggestionthat“[t]hereisnorelationtothecompletedformsofnature,buttherearedefiniteanalogiestotheirlawsofgrowthandorganization.”Grohmann,LifeandWork,234.31Zervos,“NotessurKandinsky,”154.

materialistic society in which it was “every manforhimself.”32

When Kandinsky replied to an inquiry inCahiersd’Artaboutthestateofcontemporary“ArtToday”at thebeginningof1935,he in factexpressedhisconfident hope that this “nightmare ofmaterialisticideasthatturncosmiclifeintoasorryand aimless game” was slowly yielding what henominated as “the beginnings of a synthesis.”33Kandinsky was to put forward this idea withincreasing frequency inhiswritten texts inParis,both to conceptualize the “direction” of his workandexplain“itsdouble‐meaning”:

1.Itopensupanddevelopsthe“internalview”andtherebymakespossible:

2.Theexperienceofthesmallandgreat,themicro‐andmacrocosmic,coherence.

Synthesis.34

Kandinsky’s calls for a new synthesis explicitlydrew upon the artist’s own spiritual ideas aboutart:inrefininghisartisticmethods,hewasseekingnewpictorialmeans capable of arousing emotionand restoring a coherent, but multidimensionalvisionofmanandtheuniverse,themicrocosmandthemacrocosm. As hewrote in Zervos’s enquête,“Modernman”workedtocreatesynthesisinorder“torediscovertheforgottenrelationshipsbetweenindividual phenomena and between thosephenomena and greater principles,” the one surepath to reclaiming “a feeling of the cosmos.”35 Indeploying the term, however, the artist also,deliberatelyorotherwise, linkedhispractice toaspecific moment of the modern movement, onethat several scholars have identified according toits “post‐avant‐gardist and synthetic conscience,”in pursuit of art‐making thatmeaningfully unitedpureplasticformandsubjective,intuitive,oreven

32KeithHolz,forexample,arguesthatthedifferent“politicalandsocialimplicationsoftheseabstractvisualizationsofindividualunits,subordinatedtoapre‐existingorder”arehardtoignore,particularlyatatimewhen“thechoicebetweenindividualandcollectiveendeavorbecamemoreurgent.”See“ScenesfromExileinWesternEurope:thePoliticsofIndividualandCollectiveEndeavorAmongGermanArtists,”inExilesandEmigrés,46.33WassilyKandinsky,replytothequestionnaire“L’artaujourd’huiestplusvivantquejamais,”Cahiersd’Art1‐4(1935),53.34WassilyKandinsky,“Toretninger,”Konkretion,15September1935,8,reproducedas“TwoDirections”(1935),inCompleteWritingsonArt,778.35Kandinsky,replyto“L’artaujourd’hui,”53.

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unconscious feeling.36 In late February the sameyear, sixofKandinsky’spaintings, including threerecent examples from 1934, Monde Bleu, Violetdominant, and Deux entourages, appeared at anexhibition of (mainly) Paris‐based artists at theKunstmuseum in Lucerne, the very title ofwhichassuredly spoke to this new consciousness:These—Antithese—Synthese(Fig.4).

Figure4. Cover,These—Antithese—Synthese, exhibition catalogue, Kunstmuseum,Lucerne,1935.

As Paul Hilber, the museum’s curator, plainlyarticulated in the catalogue, the dialecticviewpoint of the show was an attempt to drawclear distinctions between the different creativeforces that drove modern art: “thesis (consciousplasticity: Purism, Constructivism, abstraction)and antithesis (dissolution in the unconscious:

36TomásLlorensSerra,“Lemouvementmoderneaumomentdelasynthèse,”inAnnées30enEurope.Letempsmenaçant,1929‐1939(Paris:Parismusées/Flammarion,1997),27.SeealsoGladysFabre’sessayinthesamevolume,“L’artabtrait‐concretàlarecherched’unesynthèse,”71‐76;andJohnElderfield’sessay,“GeometricAbstractPaintingandParisintheThirties”inArtforum8,partI(May1970),54‐58,andpartII(June1970),70‐75.

Dadaism,Surrealism),fromwhichtheelementsofa new art are being synthetically derived.”37 Yetsynthesis, in the terms that Hilber described, alltoo easily slipped into syncretism, begging thequestion: To what extent did the works thatKandinsky painted in Paris also reflect a moreworldly, if idiosyncratic, response to thedifferent“isms” competing for visibility in the city,especiallySurrealism,Futurism,andCubism?

Sincetheartist’sfirstexhibitionattheGalerieZakin 1929, a number of French critics had linkedKandinsky’s more nebulous abstractions toautomatism and Surrealism,38 an association theartist himself perpetuated by exhibiting with thegroup in 1933, where, according to Arp, his“painting hung very beautifully [and he] led theSurrealist procession.”39 Yet Kandinsky himselfassumed an equivocal position in relation to themovement, both before and after his move toParis.WritingintheParisiandailyL’Intransigeantin1929,hehaddistinguished the Surrealist fromthe abstract painter by suggesting that whereas“oneputsalongsidenatureanaturethatissurreal,[t]heotherconsidersnatureandartastwoworldsexisting in a parallel fashion.”40 Conversely, hemaintained that both abstraction and surrealism,each in their own way, were “carriers of thefantastic,”andthatseenfromthisaspect,“abstractpainting and surrealist painting [were] naturalsisters.”41 While still in Dessau, he was clearlyattracted to the amorphous possibilities thatSurrealist painting offered, openly appreciatingthe work of Yves Tanguy and Max Ernst andincluding reproductions of Salvador Dalí’s worksfrom Surrealist publications in his teachingmaterialsat theBauhaus.42Theegg‐likestonesofDalí’s 1929 Accommodation of Desire certainlybeararesemblancetothenineovathatKandinsky

37PaulHilber,“Vorwort,”These—Antithese—Synthese(Lucerne:Kunstmuseum,1935),3(myemphasis).ThereweretextsinthecataloguebyKandinsky,SigfriedGiedion,JeanHélion,AnatoleJakovski,FernandLéger,andJamesJohnsonSweeney.SeealsoHansErni’saccountof“TheLucerneExhibition”inAxis2(1935),27‐28.38SeeforexampleTériade’sdescriptionoftheartistasthe“leaderof…pictorialsurrealism”in“ExpositionKandinsky(GalerieZak),”L’Intransigeant,22January1929,5;andGeorgeCharensol’sreferenceto“thisprecursorofsurrealistart”inhiscompte‐renduforL’ArtVivant,1stFebruary1929.39HansArptoKandinsky,11November1933,9200‐39,FondsKandinsky.40WassilyKandinsky,“Enquête:1830‐1930,”L’Intransigeant,2December1929,5.41Unpublishedtexttitled“Sachlich‐Romantisch(Für‘L’Intransigeant’),”datedDessau,June1930,9200(P2177),FondsKandinsky.42ChristianDerouet,“KandinskyinParis,”inKandinskyinParis:1934‐1944,34‐36.

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carefully arranged, each fertilized with its ownfantastic or geometric form, in Chacun pour soi,one of his first Parisian works. Once he took upresidenceinthecity,Kandinskytendedtolimitthemerits of Surrealism to its literary achievements,preferringtobelievethatpainterswhoseworkheadmired such as Arp and Miró had beeninvoluntarily “harnessed” to the group’s “wagon”due to its lack of painterly talent.43 Proximityundoubtedly brought with it greater misgivingsabouttheSurrealists’“hotenthusiasmforsexandpolitics,” but Kandinsky’s well‐documenteddisdainfortheir“frivolity,”sexualpreoccupations,and “fashionable” Communism too oftenovershadowshis keen awareness and admirationof thegroup’s enterprise.44 “It is astonishinghowmuch publicity they generate and in how manycountries. And with such aplomb.”45 His owndevelopingbiomorphismcannotbedivorcedfromthe movement’s dominance of the Parisian artscene in the mid‐1930s. From the moment hearrived,Kandinskybegan topopulate his parallelworld with newly life‐like beings that struck thecontemporary eye as marvelous. Indeed, withinthedialecticschemeoftheexhibitioninLucernein1935, for at least one Swiss critic, the artist’s“purelysurrealistic”Parisiancanvases,whichhungalongside works by Ernst and Wolfgang Paalen,formedtheantithesistoPietMondrian’splasticallyconstructedCompositionsopposite.46

WhileKandinskycertainlyprivilegedthenotionofsubjectivity, according to which the paintertransformed “external impressions (externallife)…within his soul (inner life), reality anddream,” his artistic practice differed fromSurrealism’s creative methods: he showed no 43KandinskytoJosefAlbers,15November1936,reproducedinJosefAlbersandWassilyKandinsky:FriendsinExile.ADecadeofCorrespondence,1929‐1940,ed.byNicholasFoxWeberandJessicaBoissel(ManchesterandNewYork:HudsonHillsPress,2010),99.44KandinskytoAlbers,19December1935,inFriendsinExile,77.ScholarsfrequentlyciteKandinsky’searlierlettertoAlbers,dated6September1934,inwhichhelamentedthatthe“onlythingthatisreallyterribleisso‐callederoticart,whichisverysuccessfulnowadays.Theword‘erotic’canbetranslatedas‘obscene.’”FriendsinExile,43.45KandinskytoAlbers,15November1936,FriendsinExile,99.HisgrowingcriticismswereclearlytingedbyhisresentmentoftheeasewithwhichtheSurrealistssecuredinternationalattentionfortheirwork,when,increasingly,hestruggled.InJuly1936hewarnedhisfellowBlueFourmemberAlexejvonJawlenskythat“We’vegotfreshcompetitionfromabroad,theSurrealists.They’rechic,cheap,andhavesnob‐appeal…InAmerica,where‘sex‐appeal’countsforalot,they’llprobablyscoreanevenbiggerhit.LongliveFreudandhisfollowers!”CitedinJelenaHahl‐Koch,Kandinsky(London:ThamesandHudson,1993),322.46MaxA.Wyss,“These,Antithese,Synthese,”DasWerk4(1935),18.

interestinFreudianpsychoanalysisormythology,andhisfree‐flowing,ludicformsweretheresultofa meticulous care and painterly control at oddswith the spontaneous and arbitrary nature ofautomatism.Ashefurtherclarifiedinresponsetothe questionnaire on “ArtToday” inCahiersd’Artin 1935, if the “painter neverworries about [his]aim,or,toputitbetter,heisnotawareofitwhilehepaints a canvas, [it is because]his attention isfocused exclusively on form. The goal remains inthesubconsciousandguideshishand.”47Whatthistextandothersalsodemonstrate,however, is theway Kandinsky noticeably borrowed fromSurrealism’s discourse of the unconscious to(re)frame his own painting during this period,even as he sought to distinguish his formal aimsand approach. In the very next issue of Zervos’sreview,whichwasentirelydevotedtoSurrealism,the painter contrasted the “cold period” of hisBauhausworktohisdesiretodayfor“polyphony”:

aliaisonbetween‘fairytales’and‘reality.’Notouterreality…but the ‘material’ reality of pictorialmethods, tools that demand a complete change ofallmeansofexpressionaswellastechniqueitself.Apainting is the synthetic unity of all its parts. Tomakea ‘dream’cometrue,onedoesnotneedfairytales…norevenphantasms…butthepurelypictorialfairy talesofsomeonewhoknowshowto“tell thestory”ofpainting,uniquelyandexclusivelythroughits“reality.”48

The same year, in the English review Axis,precedinga reproductionofChacunpour soi (Fig.2),hewroteof thepeculiar, “though latent” forceof the isolated line, latent forces that, in concert,“become dynamic” within the miracle of thecomposition,definedas“theorganizedsumoftheinterior functions (expressions) of every part ofthe work.”49 Lastly, in an interview published inJuly in Il Lavoro Fascista, presenting the painterand his ideas on art to the Italian public,Kandinskyemphasizedthat“theessentialformeistobeabletosaywhatIwanttosay,torecountmy

47WassilyKandinsky,“L’artaujourd’huiestplusvivantquejamais,”54(myemphasis).48WassilyKandinsky,“Toilevide,etc.,”Cahiersd’Art5‐6(1935),117.Inthesameissuetherewerecontributionsby,amongothers,AndréBreton,PaulEluard,DavidGascoyne,ManRay,SalvadorDalí,RenéMagritteandBenjaminPéret.49WassilyKandinsky,“LineandFish,”Axis2(1935),6.

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dream.Ilookattechniqueandformitselfassimpleinstruments to express myself, and besides, mystoriesarenotofthenarrativeorhistorictype,butpurelypictorial.”50

Kandinsky’s very appearance in this particularnewspaper also attests to the contacts hemaintained from Paris with the Italian avant‐garde, theresultbothofanhistoricconnectiontoFilippo Marinetti’s Futurist movement and hisgrowing friendshipwith two Italian artists basedin the city, Alberto Magnelli and EnricoPrampolini. The personal tribute fromKandinskythat appeared at the time in Stile Futurista, thereview Prampolini edited, bore witness to theselinks,oldandnew:“IperfectlyrememberthestartofItalianFuturismanddoyouknow,IstillhavealltheMANIFESTI that I receivedmore than twentyyears ago?”51 In conversation with Il LavoroFascista, theartist drewcertain, implicit parallelsbetween his own work and Futurism’s secondwave, signaling the way he had begun, sincearriving in Paris, to mix sand with pigment as atextural element in compositions such as EntreDeux, Rayé, and Relations (1934), which wasreproduced as an illustration alongside theinterview. This particular technical innovationidentifiedhisdevelopingpracticenotonlywiththeworkofMiró, erstwhile SurrealistAndréMasson,and pre‐war Cubism, but also with resurgentcontemporary interest in mural painting and,moreto thepoint,Prampolini’sownpolimaterico.The “pleasure and gratitude” with which thepainterreceivedthis“unsolicitedhomagefromthe[Italian] press” both reflected and fueled hisoptimism that under Mussolini’s regime, incontrast toNationalSocialismandCommunism,aplurality of styles continued to flourish.52 Helooked hopefully to Italy, buoyed that a group ofabstract artists, including Magnelli, were at thatmomentpresentingtheirworkatthequadriennaledi Roma, and that G.A. Colonna di Cesarò hadtranslatedOntheSpiritualinArtintoItalian(albeit 50“IlpittoreKandinskyelesueideeintornoall’arte,”IlLavoroFascista,28July1935,4.51Kandinsky’swordsfeaturedaspartofatributepagethatappearedaspagefourofthefirstfourissuesofStileFuturistain1934,andwhichalsoincludedcontributionsfrom,amongothers,Mussolini,AmeliaEarhart,EzraPoundandPietMondrian.52“IlpittoreKandinsky,”4.

without a publisher).53 Andwhile Kandinskywasnot attractingmuch interest from French dealersor critics, apart fromhis two small exhibitions attheGaleriedesCahiersd’Artin1934and1935,hehad a contract with Giuseppe Ghiringhelli’sGalleria delMilione inMilan, whichwas “puttingon one abstract show after another.”54 This iscertainlywhy Kandinsky, who otherwise tried toavoid political intrigue in Paris, abandoned hisusual discretion in April 1935 to welcome andsupport Marinetti on the occasion of a Futuristexhibition at the Galerie Bernheim‐Jeune and arelated debate at the École du Louvre centeredaround the question of: “Whichwill be the art oftomorrow? Futurism, Cubism, Surrealism, or aplasticmural art inspiredby these tendencies?”55Alongside Marinetti’s highly favorable account ofthese events in a special bilingual issue of StileFuturista, Prampolini in turn reproduced twophotographsofKandinsky,oneshowingheandhiswife smiling among the Futurists at theirexhibition(Fig.5).

The chosen title of Marinetti’s lecture alluded toway that contemporary Futurist painters likePrampoliniwerealsopursuinga“synthesis”underthe name aeropittura, blending Cubist,Constructivist and Surrealist vocabularies anddeploying biomorphic forms in plunging orpanopticperspectivestoevoketheexhilarationofflight, freedom from gravity, and a sense of theimmaterial beyond.56 “With the power of volumeand color alone, [Enrico Prampolini] paints thedramaofgeology,ofinterplanetaryelectricityandof cosmic waves,” wrote Marinetti, in terms thatresonatedwith some of Kandinsky’s descriptionsofhisownwork.“Inmovingawayfromverismandallmemoryofreality…hefixesonthecanvaseveryfantasy of the universe and all that is

53Ibid.54KandinskytoAlbers,25January1935,inFriendsinExile,51.Kandinskyhadexhibited43watercoloursand30drawingsatthegalleryfrom24Aprilto9May,1934.SeeIlMilione.BollettinodellagalleriadelMilione27(1934).55F.T.Marinetti,“Qualesaràl’artedidomani?,”StileFuturista8‐9(1935),3‐4.56Marinettifrequentlyinvokedtheideaofsynthesisinhistextsofthisperiod.See,forexample,MarinettiandFillìa’stext,“L’Artsacréfuturiste,”StileFuturista8‐9(1935),5.LisaPanzerapointsoutthatFuturism’sembraceofSurrealisticimagery,didnotsignalashiftawayfrompoliticalthemes,butwenthandinhandwithFascism’ssacralizationofpolitics,anditsappropriationofreligiousritualforpoliticalends.See“CelestialFuturismandtheParasurreal,”inItalianFuturism1909‐1944:ReconstructingtheUniverse,ed.byVivienGreene(NewYork:SolomonR.GuggenheimFoundation,2014),327.

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inexpressible.”57Kandinsky’sowndynamic, large‐scale works from themid‐1930s, which combinedislocated forms, spatial ambiguities, colortransparencies,andweightreversals,sharecertainformal and philosophical affinities with thepaintings of his friend Prampolini, whose flyingforms and nebulous spaces had been exhibitedseveraltimesinParisinthe1930s.58

Figure5.F.T.Marinetti’sarticle,“Qualesaràl’artedidomani?”inStileFuturista8‐9(1935),page3,withportraitsofFernandLégerandWassilyKandinskybyFlorenceHenriandaphotographofWassilyandNinaKandinskywithMarinettiandothersattheexhibition“Lesfuturistesitaliens”attheGalerieBerheim‐JeuneinParisinApril1935.

Kandinskyhadonce likened theupperand lowerpartsofthecanvasto“heaven”and“earth,”andinmany works from this period, including EntreDeux,butalso,forexample,CompositionIX(Fig.6),executedin1936,heshiftedthetraditionalcenterof interest from the lower points of hiscomposition to its upper half.59 In this work,

57F.T.Marinetti,“L’aéropeinturefuturisteouvreunenouvelleèredelapeinture,”StileFuturista8‐9(1935),7‐8.58Prampolini’sworkwasexhibitedat“Prampolinietlesaéropeintresfuturistesitaliens,”2‐16March1932,GaleriedelaRenaissance;“Lesfuturistesitaliens,”3‐27April1935,GalerieBerheim‐Jeune;and“L’artitaliendesXIXeetXXesiècles,”May‐July1935,MuséeduJeuPaume.59Hischoiceofwords,whilenotmeantliterally,servehereasaninterestingmetaphor.SeeKandinsky,“PointandLinetoPlane,”645.

geometric and irregular forms, dominated by ablack, heart‐shaped outline, appear to hover,weightless,againstthedirectionalthrustprovidedby oblique planes of yellow, blue, red, purple,orange and green, the painter using translucentpastel shades to emphasize the immateriality ofhis free‐floating elements. Their apparentlevitation in front of the fixed, diagonal bands ofopaquecolorrealize inpaintwhatKandinskyhadset forth the year before in his text “Toile vide,etc.,” when he wrote that “‘the action’ in thepaintingmustnottakeplaceonthesurfaceofthephysical canvas, but ‘somewhere’ in the ‘illusory’space’” that results when the work’s “mobile”forms “gather strength inconcert,” andappear torelease themselves forward “in a single ‘HERE IAM.’”60 In continuing to exploit such tensionsbetween individual forms and the picture plane,betweenfigureandground,andbetweenthefixedand the free, to create what he equated with a“cosmic” or “limitless space,” Kandinskyapproached the formal devices and celestialthemes of Second Futurism, particularly whatMarinetti referred to as Prampolini’s“stratospheric,cosmic,biochemicalaeropittura.”61

If Kandinsky’s flirtation with Futurism’sreincarnationunderFascismwasinpartpoliticallystimulated by his still‐bitter recollections ofBolshevikrevolutionandhisscornforthe“fashionamong ‘modern’ people,’” and particularly theSurrealists, tocall themselvesCommunists, itwassurely also a consequence of simple artisticrivalry.62 By supporting Marinetti’s movement,Kandinskywas indirectlyprotestingthe(baffling)sanctityCubismthenenjoyedinParis.IntheDutchperiodical Kroniek van hedendaagsche Kunst enKultur—a safe distance from which to voice hiscomplaint—he specifically opined that “it isremarkablehowCubism,whichisjustasold(or

60Kandinsky,“Toilevide,etc.,”117.Thispieceextendedalineofthinkinghehadalreadydeveloped,firstinOntheSpiritualinArtasthe“attempttoconstitutethepictureuponanidealplane,whichthushadtobeinfrontofthematerialsurfaceofthecanvas”;andagaininPointandLinetoPlane,asthewayinwhicha“dematerializedsurface”ledtothecreationofan“indefinablespace.”SeeKandinsky,“OntheSpiritualinArt,”195;and“PointandLinetoPlane,”672.61Marinetti,“L’aéropeinturefuturiste,”7.IamalsostruckbythenumberofKandinsky’stitlesfromthisperiodthatseemtocarrythesuggestionofflight,suchasMontéegracieuse(1934),Mondebleu(1934),Volant(1936),Verslebleu(1939),Bleudeciel(1940).62KandinskytoAlbers,19December1935,inFriendsinExile,79.

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young) as abstract painting, has nonethelessbecome ‘historical’ and hence sacrosanct.”63 Hewas confounded by Cubism’s critical resurgenceand canonization in France in the 1930s andinfuriated by accounts that elaborated upon hisworkintermsofitsso‐calledCubistorigins.AlfredBarr’s “conjecture that [his] painting may havebeeninfluencedbyArporMiró”vexedKandinsky,buthewasnevertheless“gratefultoBarr,becausehe [did] not trace [the artist’s] painting fromCubism,”aswasoften thecase inFrance.64 In thegrand narrative ofHistoire de l’art contemporainthat René Huyghe compiled in 1935, the author,curatorofpaintingattheLouvreandeditorofthereview L’Amour de l’Art, acknowledged thatKandinsky’s “non‐figurative art … remainedprofoundlydifferenttoCubism” in itsmeaningor“signification.”Heemphasized,however, that“theCubists’ attempts to substitute pure geometriccombinationsforrepresentation[had]rubbedoff”on the artist and his work had accordinglydeveloped“undertheimpetus”ofCubism. 63“AbstractPainting”(1936),inCompleteWritingsonArt,785.64KandinskytoGalkaScheyer,29May1936,citedinEndicottBarnett,“KandinskyandScience,”83‐84.

Perhaps, however, Kandinsky took note of (orsolacein)Huyghe’sanalogythatpaintingssuchasChacunsursoi,whichhementioned,were“fuguesaboutaline,anangle,acircle,thatdeveloponthesurfaceofthecanvas”accordingto“anintuitionofa musical order,” and that the artist was not“concerned with creating compositions built anddefinedlikeanedificeofFrenchCubism.”Inmanyof the kaleidoscopic paintings he completed inParis, Kandinsky seems to have deliberatelystripped—“deprived”—his forms of the sort ofstructureororderthatmightbemistakenforwhatHuyghe termed a “powerful Cubist armature.”65Closed configurations cede to open and dynamicformations, the surface of the canvasdematerializes into a nebulous space almost“Baroque” in its disregard for the limits of thepictureplane.66

65RenéHuyghe,“L’Allemagneetl’EuropeCentrale.Introduction,”inHistoiredel’artcontemporain,ed.byRenéHuyghewithGermainBazin(Paris:FélixAlcan,1935),420.66PaulOveryarguesthatthewayKandinskyattemptstosubvertthephysicallimitsofthecanvasinhisParisianworksisakintoManneristorBaroquespatialprinciples.SeeKandinsky:theLanguageoftheEye(London:Elek,1969),120.

Figure6.WassilyKandinsky,CompositionIX,1936,oiloncanvas,113.5x195cm,Paris,CentreGeorgesPompidou,Muséenationald’artmoderne.PhotoCentrePompidou,MNAM‐CCI,Dist.RMN‐GrandPalais/Droitsréservés.

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IntheaptlynamedCourbedominanteof1936(Fig.7), an illusionistic set of stairs ascend into theupper sections—the “heavens”— of the painting,where the central arabesque, inscribed withdelicate hieroglyphs, unfurls in themist, scythingits way through the painting like an extravagantquestionmark. Overlapping, luminous orbs shinethrough the haze, overlaidwith organic elementsand black, calligraphic flourishes morereminiscentofthesinuous,decorativenineteenth‐centuryformsoftheartist’syouth.Grohmannlaterremarked upon the “Russian or Asiatic splendor”and “enamel colors” of these large horizontalcanvases,likeningtheir“epicbreadth,”serpentinelines and densely interwoven forms to theintricacy of Chinese embroidery on silk and the“passionate curves” of Chinese painting onscrolls.67

67Grohmann,LifeandWork,227‐228.

Kandinsky regardedCourbedominante as onehismost accomplished paintings, the apex of hisParisianproductionandits“syntheticperiod.”68ItwasexhibitedaspartofOriginesetdéveloppementde l’art international indépendantattheMuséeduJeudePaumein1937(Fig.8),alongsideafurtherfour works that the artist carefully selected torepresent the spectrum of his œuvre: the earlyabstractions of Die Blauer Reiter in Mit demschwarzen Bogen (1912); the theoreticalinvestigationsofformattheBauhaus,AufWeissII(1923); the last work he painted in Germany,Entwicklung inBraun (1933);andoneofthefirst,newlybiomorphiccanvaseshecompletedinParis,Entre Deux (1934). Kandinsky himself played aformative role in the advent of this exhibition.Grieved that abstract and Surrealist artists hadbeen otherwise excluded from the officialproceedingsoftheExpositionInternationaledes

68KandinskytoAndréDezarrois,15July1937,9200‐1514a,FondsKandinsky.

Figure7.WassilyKandinsky,Courbedominante, 1936,oil on canvas,129.2x194.3 cm,NewYork, SolomonR.GuggenheimMuseum,SolomonR.GuggenheimFoundingCollection,45.989.Photo©TheSolomonR.GuggenheimFoundation.

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artsettechniquesdanslaviemoderneinParisthatyear, and particularly from the enormous displayofMaîtresde l’art indépendant at thePetit Palais,he personally lobbied the director of the Jeu dePaume, André Dezarrois, to stage an alternative,more comprehensive show, offering his expertiseduring the course of preparations. He argued forthe inclusion of Dada, as “Surrealism’s point ofdeparture,” recommended the work of his friendPrampolini, “asan Italian futuristwouldcertainlybe necessary,” and forcefully insisted ondistinguishing abstract art from Cubism, becausethe two movements, while both stemming fromCézanne, had developed independently of oneanother.“Bothmovementscameintotheworldatalmost the same time: 1911. Cubism may havebeensomethinglikeabrothertoabstractartbutit

was, by no means its father.”69 Kandinskyspecifically selected his large 1912work (Fig. 9),neverbefore exhibited and “inwhich there [was]nota singleCubist influence tobeseen,” to showthe dubious and unreceptive Parisian audiencethat hewas not amere (Cubist) disciple, but thepioneer of a new type of painting, one that heincreasingly preferred to call “concrete.”70 Theabstract artist, in Kandinsky’s terms, created “anew‘worldofart’,”onethat“initsexternals[had]nothing to do with ‘reality,’” but which existedalongsidethe“‘worldofnature’…[and]wasjustasreal,[and]concrete.”71

69KandinskytoAndréDezarrois,10May1937,9200‐1512,FondsKandinsky.70KandinskytoAndréDezarrois,31July1937,9200‐1514b,FondsKandinsky.71WassilyKandinsky,“AbstractorConcrete?”(1938),inCompleteWritingsonArt,832.

Figure8.Photographof salleXIVat theexhibitions“Originesetdéveloppementde l’art international indépendant”at theMuséedu JeudePaume,Paris1937,showingworksbyWassily Kandinsky, left to right: Courbe dominante (1936), Entwicklung in Braun (1933), Mit dem schwarzen Bogen, (1912), AufWeiss II (1923), Entre deux (1934). Photo ©BibliothèqueKandinsky,CentrePompidou,MNAM‐CCI.

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Prominentlydisplayedinthecenteroftheartist’sallocated space, the eponymous black arc ofMitdemschwarzenBogenaccordingly functionedasaprophetic marker, pointing the way to the “self‐contained universe” of Kandinsky’s creation as itappeared on either side, to the black lighteningbolt dissecting Auf Weiss II, to the black dartspunctuatingCourbedominante.72

72Thedescriptionof“auniverse,completeandself‐contained”comesfromAlexandreKojève’sunpublished1936essay,“Lespeinturesconcretes(objectives)deKandinsky,”thatwaslatertranslatedbyNinaIvanoffinCorrespondancesaverZervosetKojève,187.

Origines and développement de l’art internationalindépendantwasthefirstandonlyinstanceduringhis lifetimethatKandinsky’sworksappeared inanational French institution, and came at the verymoment when the National Socialists werepillorying his “abominable painting” on thewallsof Munich’s Entartete Kunst exhibition andsystematicallypurgingGermany’smuseumsofhisparticularbrandof“Kulturbolschevismus.”73

73Kandinskychosetotakeheartfromtheenormoussuccessof“EntarteteKunst,”believingthatatleastsomeofthosewhosawitwere“properdevotees”ofmodern

Figure9.WassilyKandinsky,MitdemschwarzenBogen,1912,oiloncanvas,189x198cm,Paris,CentreGeorgesPompidou,Muséenationald’artmoderne.Photo©CentrePompidou,MNAM‐CCI,Dist.RMN‐GrandPalais/PhilippeMigeat.

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Whatever consolation the show at the Jeu dePaumeoffered,however,wasmarredbyChristianZervos, who served as secretary general of theorganizing committee. Much to Kandinsky’schagrin, Zervos transformed the original, broadlyinternational scope of the exhibition to ananthology of Parisian art from Cézanne to thepresent day, in which the best spaces went toartists already well represented at the largerMaîtres de l’art indépendant at the Petit Palais:HenriMatisse,GeorgesBraque,andPabloPicasso.Worse still was the preface to the shortaccompanyingcatalogue,writtenby,althoughnotcredited to Zervos, for while Kandinsky wasaccordedaprincipleroleinthesectiondevotedto“abstract art,” in every other instancedevelopments in contemporary art were definedaccording to the all‐pervasive influence andexampleofCubism:

PURISM, of which Ozenfant is the creator, comesdirectlyfromCubism…

NEOPLASTICISMThe influence of Cubismon ‘newplasticexpression’isundeniable…

SURREALISM If Cubism has revived sensespreviously dull to any contact with the spirit ofthings, Surrealism has wanted to create poetry oftheinvisible…

CONSTRUCTIVISMisequallyachildofCubism…74

Asaresultoftheexhibition,KandinskyandZervoswere no longer speaking when, in its wake, theeditor penned his lavishly illustrated Histoire del’art contemporain the following year.Devoting athin chapter—30 pages out of 450— to what hetitled “Au‐delà du concret,” Zervos acknowledgedthepainteras theprinciple representativeof “artdit abstait” and even lifted some of Kandinsky’sown evocative descriptions from Reminiscences(1913), but only in such a way as to reduce theartist’spaintingstocuriositiesbylikeningthemtothepoetryof“thecoldbuttofacigarettelostintheashtray…the little piece of bark carried in thepowerful jaws of an ant across thick grass for an

art,whotraveledexpresslytopaytributeto(orevenbuy)theworkondisplay.KandinskytoAlbers,5December1937,inFriendsinExile,112.74Originesetdéveloppementdel’artinternationaleindépendant(Paris:MuséeduJeudePaume,1937),np.

extraordinarily important purposewhich escapesus…”75AnddespitethecarewithwhichKandinskyalways labeled photographs to indicate theirproper orientation, Zervos reproduced twopaintingsupsidedown,turningthefloating,heart‐shaped form beating in the upper margins ofComposition IX into a earthbound pear, a furtherinsulttocriticalinjuryinthisfatvolumeinwhich,astheartistcomplained,“Picassowasandremainsthe origin, the continuation, and the future ofmodernart.”76

The same year, Kandinsky sought to reclaim theterm Zervos had appropriated to defend theexistence and value of “Concrete art” in a newParisian review edited by the Italian Gualtieri diSan Lazzaro,XXe siècle. Cubism, the artist arguedhere, no longer existed, it was one “ism” amongmany, already filed away into the different boxesofarthistory,relegatedtothepast.“Concreteart,”in comparison, continued to attract young artistsand was “in full growth, especially in the freecountries…The future!”77As his very reference to“freecountries”indicates,Kandinskywasfarfromoblivioustoworsening international tensions,buthe tried tohold fast tohisconviction thatart toomust remain “free” of politics and took refuge inhis painting. “When I enter the studio and go towork,thereareno‘bombsorpoisongas’forme—theydisappearcompletely,”hewrotetohisformerstudent,HannesBeckmann,inPrague.“ThereIaminmy ‘ivory tower,’ and I personally knowmanyother artists who are just the same. Woe to theartistwhoissubjectto‘bombs’!”78InMay1938hetookpart inagroupexhibitionat theGalleriadelMilione in Milan alongside Hans Arp, CésarDomela,AlbertoMagnelliandSophieTaeuber‐Arp,persisting in his hope that “in a few years Italy[might]bean importantartmarket.”79 In July,hehappily celebrated Otto Freundlich’s sixtieth 75ChristianZervos,Histoiredel’artcontemporain(Paris:Cahiersd’Art,1938),311.SeeKandinsky’soriginaldescriptionin“Reminiscences”(1913),inCompleteWritingsonArt,361.76KandinskytoAlbers,28April1938,inFriendsinExile,119.77WassilyKandinsky,“L’artconcret,”XXesiècle1(1938),14‐16.78KandinskytoHannesBeckmann,26January1938,citedinBronislavaRokytová,“‘LieberHerrBeckmann…’FromWassilyKandinsky’sletterstoHannesBeckmanninPrague(1934–1939),”Umění/Art1(2014),62.79KandinskytoAlbers,5December1937,FriendsinExile,106.

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birthday at a tribute, Hommage à Freundlich,organized by the gallerist they shared, JeanneBucher,butrigorouslyavoidedanyaffiliationwithGerman exile groups, those whom the Englishcritic Herbert Read described as “determined tomakepoliticalcapitaloutoftheirunhappyfate.”80Thesamemonth,KandinskylentfourpaintingstoRead’sshowTwentiethCenturyGermanArtat theNew Burlington Galleries in London, which wasconceived as a riposte to Entartete Kunst, butwhere once again Kandinsky seemed moreconcerned with separating himself from Cubism.HewroteatlengthtoReadtoemphasizethat

in Germany, Cubism amounted to almostnothing…Abstract art (or as I prefer to call it,“concrete”)wasnotaresultofCubisminGermany,asitwasinParis.Ibeganmakingabstractpaintingin1911,withouthavingseenaCubistpainting.Andit is readily apparent thatmy art especially neverhad,anddoesnot todayhave,anything todowithCubism.81

Read’s reply to the artist, however, also suggeststhat Kandinsky strongly advised organizers toexclude artists still living in Germany, due to the“risks involved”and “to refrain fromanypoliticalpropaganda in connection with the show,” so asnot to “give offence to theGerman authorities.”82Kandinsky’s stand,while not terribly courageous,was both principled and pragmatic: on the onehand, he certainly believed, as Read laterconcurred, “that if one strives for the freedomofart, one does not at the same time strive for thepoliticisationofart;”on theother,BerlinwasnotallthatfarfromLondonorParis,andtheneed“topreserve the distinctions” between “politicalrealities” and “aesthetic realities” must haveseemed acute, especially when in August theKandinskys’ German passports expired and theirsituation in one of Europe’s few remaining freecountries became all the more precarious.83 For

80HerbertReadtoKandinsky,9November1938,9200‐851,FondsKandinsky.ForacomparisonofKandinskyandFreundlich’salternativeclaimsofautonomyversuscommitment,seeKeithHolz,“ScenesfromExileinWesternEurope,”43‐46.81KandinskytoHerbertRead,2April1938,9200‐1533,FondsKandinsky.82HerbertReadtoKandinsky,27April1938,9200‐850,FondsKandinsky.83HerbertReadtoKandinsky,9November1938,9200‐851,FondsKandinsky.NinaKandinskyrecollectsthattheirpassportsexpired“attheverymomentthatthesituationofGermansabroadbecameextremelydifficultanddangerous.”Kandinskyundich,187.TheKandinskys,throughtheirownpersistenceandwiththeaidofothers,werefortunatelyabletosecureFrenchcitizenshipforthemselvesinAugust

these reasons, perhaps, even in Kandinsky’s self‐containedartisticuniverse,thereweresometimessigns of political incursion. In Entassement reglé(Ensemblemulticolore),painted in1938,ahostofbrightly colored biomorphic and musical formsswim in a dense liquid filled with bubble‐likecircles,bringingtomindnotalargecosmicspace,butaninfinitelysmallone,aninvisiblemicrocosmmade visible. But its “colorful ensemble” is onlyjust held by the asymmetrical, blue‐green outerborderandatseveralpointsthetinyglobuleslookset to breach this membrane, black plasmthreateningtooverruntheclean,neutralspaceofthe buff‐colored ground, as if to suggest an ivorytowerthatwasnolongerquitesoimpenetrable.

Despite his many statements to the contrary,Kandinsky had never be able (nor hadhe alwayswanted) to isolate himself completely, and themanymovementsheundertookduringthecourseof his remarkable career, which coincided withdistinctphases of the avant‐garde’sdevelopment,attestrathertotheartist’stangledrelationshiptopolitics: from turn‐of‐the‐century secessionism tothe pre‐war internationalism ofDie Blaue Reiter;from short‐lived political fermentation inRevolutionary Russia to the radical aesthetic andsocial agenda of the Bauhaus; before, lastly, thehighly‐competitive and polarized arena of Paris.The paintings he created here demonstrate thewaythat,duringtheperiodhelabeled“synthetic,”the artist was revisiting his own ideas about thespiritual nature of art and the problems ofabstraction in connection with the other “isms”thatwerehistoricallyvisibleintheFrenchcapital.The evocatively organic shapes that swarmedhiscanvases and linked his worked to thebiomorphism of Arp and Miró also functioned,according to the artist’s own analogies, to signalthe “natural growth” of his abstract art fromsimple organism to complex system. Surrealismhadearlyexploitedtheimplicitvitalityofsuch

1939,amonthbeforeFrancedeclaredwaronGermany.Seethepainter’sletterstoPierreBruguière,reproducedinChristianDerouet,“NotesetdocumentssurlesdernièresannéesdupeintreVassilyKandinsky,”LesCahiersduMNAM9(1982),92‐94.

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Figure 10. Wassily Kandinsky, Bleu de ciel, 1940, oil on canvas, 100 x 73 cm, Paris,Centre Georges Pompidou,Musée national d’artmoderne. Photo Centre Pompidou,MNAM‐CCI,Dist.RMN‐GrandPalais/PhilippeMigeat.

loose, curvilinear forms for their power ofsuggestion, and while Kandinsky thoroughlydisliked the group’s politics, in Paris he began toemploysimilarlyvividformsbothtomakevisiblehisown“internalview”andtogivehisvieweran“experience of the small and the great.”84 Toheighten the emotive effect of these forms,Kandinskyplayedupon tensionsbetween surfaceand illusionistic space, a frequent subject in hispedagogicaltexts,drawingonformaltechniques—including color transparencies, weight reversals,and the incorporationof sand—thatwere similarto those the Futurists were using, a group withwhichhereadilyinteracted.Conversely,unwantedassociations with Cubism plagued Kandinsky inParis, and the way he deliberately relaxed thegeometricsyntaxesandstructuralprinciplesofhis“cold”Bauhauspaintinginfavorofdynamicforms

84Kandinsky,“TwoDirections”(1935),778.

and compositional arrangements also served todistancehisworkfromthisparticularbêtenoire.

Far fromhaving “nothing todowithpolitics,” thecomplex “synthesis” Kandinsky effected in hispaintings in Paris was the result of both thematuration of his ideas on abstract art and hisadaptation to a rocky political and culturallandscape.Hisveryuseoftheterm“synthesis”tieshim to a new and specific “post‐avant‐gardistconscience”thatemergedagainstthisbackdropofsocial andpolitical instability in the 1930s,whenartistsshedtheirworkofsignsofexcessorderandembraced a new freedom of application in asimultaneous gesture of their subjectivity andautonomy.85 The politically‐determinedsignificance of Kandinsky’s free‐flowing forms,liberated palette, and resolutely apolitical stancebecameevenmoreapparentoncehostilitiesfinallyerupted.In his Bleu de ciel of 1940 (Fig. 10) amultitudeofmulti‐colored fantastic shapeshoveronthesurfaceofthecanvas,amoebasandcuriousinvertebratesintheveryprocessofformation.Nolonger contained by any cellular boundary, theyfloatfreelyuponasky‐bluegroundthatdissipatesatitsedges,disruptingtheperimeteroftheframeand lending the whole a celebratory and oneiricquality. Much like Miró, who, during the firstwartimeblackouts,hadbeguntoimmersehimselfin a universe of Constellations on the Normandycoast, Kandinsky continued to paint hereaccording to his own cosmic sentiment anddemiurgism. There is no hint of the apocalypticsigns and symbols that had suffused theCompositionshe had painted on the eve the FirstWorldWar; instead, as Germany invaded France,bringing with it another cataclysm, Kandinskycalledintoexistencehisconcretebeings,fillingthecanvaswithnascentformsthatcelebratedtheverygeneration of life, even as Paris faced occupationbythecountrythatlabeledhiswork“degenerate.”

85LlorensSerra,“Lemouvementmoderneaumomentdelasynthèse,”27.