Large Study on a Mural for Edwin R. Campbell 1914

Wassily Kandinsky made this oil sketch, this “Large Study on a Mural,” when he was thinking about mural painting and color. I can see him moving the paint around, letting the colors meet, mesh, and collide with one another. It’s like watching the weather shift. I imagine the studio filled with the smell of oil paint and turpentine. The process must have been a real push and pull. A kind of conversation or argument with himself. What if I put this red here? And then scrape it back? I'm drawn to the bottom part of the picture where it looks as though a dark pool of ink is forming. See how it pushes up against the blues and reds which rise and fall like the tide. The painting feels urgent, like he needed to find out something by doing it. And that's what keeps us all going as painters. We inspire each other. I'm sure that what Kandinsky did then still helps artists like me today.