Klänge Pl.13 1913

Wassily Kandinsky made ‘Klänge Pl.13’ using woodcut printmaking techniques, resulting in this lovely, slightly haphazard image. You can imagine how the process might have felt for him, the carving, proofing, and inking. It's a way of thinking through material action. In this image, blocks of color form the shapes of figures and the setting around them. I see violet, and orange, set against blues, black and white. The scene gives me a feeling of ritual or gathering, and maybe a bit of melancholy? Who knows what Kandinsky was thinking! But somehow he put it all in there, this feeling. In his work, you can really sense his interest in color and form to evoke emotions. He was looking at music, and science, for ways to get beyond conventional modes of expression. He wasn’t alone. We’re all in this big art conversation together. We look and we learn, and we try things out, and hopefully, something clicks.