Complex Simple 1939

Kandinsky made this painting, Complex Simple, with oil on canvas. It's big - about 100 x 81cm. Just imagining Kandinsky building this composition, these shapes… it’s not really chaos, but it's like things are emerging, shifting from one colour to another. I wonder if he was thinking about the push and pull between representation and abstraction? You know, how do you make something that looks like nothing, but feels like something? Look at the surface, at the way the paint is applied in thin layers, almost translucent, but also with these bold outlines in black. It's like he's trying to define the boundaries, but the colours keep bleeding, wanting to escape. That looping gesture on the bottom right, kind of worm-like, feels so playful and free. Painters are always responding to other painters, in this ongoing conversation across time, inspiring each other. Painting is an embodied expression, it’s about embracing the questions more than answers.