Small dream in red 1925

Wassily Kandinsky made this painting, Small Dream in Red, at a time when he was working out what abstract art could be, using oil on canvas. I find myself drawn to the way he balances the earthy tones of browns and yellows with these sharp, zinging lines and shapes. It's like a landscape, but one you might find inside your head. The paint isn't trying to hide; it's right there on the surface, thin in places, allowing the weave of the canvas to peek through, and thicker in others, creating a bit of texture that catches the light. Look at the top left corner, where a thick red curve hangs suspended. It’s balanced by the frenetic, scribbled lines and scattered shapes to the right, creating a dialogue between chaos and calm. Kandinsky reminds us that art is never really finished, just abandoned at a certain point. Thinking of Joan Miró, perhaps, who also sought to find a pictorial language rooted in abstraction. What remains is the space to dream within the red.