Murnau with rainbow 1909

Curator: "Murnau with Rainbow," painted by Wassily Kandinsky in 1909, presents us with a vibrantly rendered cityscape in oil. What jumps out at you initially? Editor: Pure joy. Honestly, it’s as though someone bottled a particularly exuberant feeling of happiness and smeared it all over the canvas. The colors are so saturated; it's a visual feast! Curator: Yes, the color palette certainly leans into Fauvist territory, doesn't it? But it goes deeper. You can feel Kandinsky edging toward abstraction, almost releasing the pure, raw emotion from within the image. Look at how the rainbow, usually a symbol of hope and promise, seems less about a literal weather phenomenon and more about... spiritual effervescence. Editor: The rainbow becomes almost a halo crowning the village. I notice, too, how geometric the buildings are— almost child-like in their simplicity. And yet, these simple shapes feel monumental, somehow weighted with collective memories. Perhaps of idealized homelands, maybe of safer places. It carries echoes, like an old folk tune you can't quite place. Curator: It’s interesting you pick up on those memories, especially in his "Blue Rider" period that this anticipates. Kandinsky sought a kind of spiritual resonance through his work—an expression stripped bare of literal representation. Do you sense some premonition of his shift here? Editor: Absolutely. The rainbow could be seen as more than just atmospheric perspective or depth and become something much more ethereal and allusive. This painting feels transitional: you get the hint he is struggling against representing objects in the known, material realm, even though you are presented with homes, foliage, etc. Everything vibrates here with emotion, the promise that a rainbow carries. It really opens your imagination to those symbols from history and folklore that continue resonating for hundreds and hundreds of years. Curator: Indeed, this blend of visible world and inner landscape creates a remarkably lasting and powerful impact. The promise of those colors in tension! Editor: Precisely! Kandinsky’s particular vision encourages us to see both a world as it appears and all that it could, emotionally, potentially represent to our senses. What a marvelous balance!