Drawing for Etching II 1916

Wassily Kandinsky made this drawing for etching with ink on paper. The drawing is so immediate, you can feel the scratch of the pen as it hits the page. The marks are nervous, energetic and the drawing feels like it’s about to take off into pure abstraction, but it never quite does. There's a dynamic play between chaos and control, with areas of dense hatching contrasting with delicate, almost tentative lines. Look at the upper left corner of the image, the mark-making seems to be building an atmosphere, or perhaps, a kind of contained explosion. Then, your eye travels down to find these little moments that almost resolve into figures. It's like a dream, or a half-formed memory. It’s a push and pull. The drawing reminds me of Paul Klee’s whimsical, linear explorations, where representation is always just a hair's breadth away from dissolving into pure form. It’s all about the act of looking, and the endless possibilities of interpretation.