Quadrat im Nebel 1932

Here we have 'Quadrat im Nebel' by Wassily Kandinsky. Look at the way he’s handled the watercolor – so subtle, so delicate. It’s like he’s trying to capture a fleeting moment, a whisper of form in a hazy dream. You can really see art-making as a process of discovery. I love how the translucent layers create depth, even though it’s so flat. There’s this square right in the center, it's the darkest point, like a little anchor holding the whole composition together. It's a grounding element but seems to float just above the surface. The surrounding shapes – circles and rectangles – are barely there, they seem to emerge and recede like memories. The texture of the paper becomes part of the image, its graininess echoing the nebulous quality of the forms. Kandinsky's earlier, more expressionistic works contrast with this more abstract composition, reflecting a move toward pure form and color, rather like Hilma af Klint's paintings, which aimed for a similar kind of spiritual resonance, but through a very different visual vocabulary. Ultimately, it’s about embracing the ambiguity, letting the painting breathe and exist as an open-ended experience.