Arab cavalry 1905

Wassily Kandinsky made this painting, Arab Cavalry, with gouache and crayon. The color palette is mostly muted earth tones like browns and grays, but with surprising pops of turquoise, light blue, pink, and gold. You can see the artist working to find the image, figuring out how to depict the horse in motion with expressive strokes of crayon. It makes me think about what it's like for a painter to be in conversation with what they see, and how the painting might have emerged through trial, error, and intuition. And look at the white marks indicating the legs of the horses – how they don't quite touch the ground! The artist is playing with the possibility of representing movement, and how to convey this using the material aspects of painting. The energy is palpable, and the artist is embracing ambiguity here, inviting us to interpret. Just like painting itself, it's an ongoing process, like a call and response.