Klänge Pl.17 1913

Wassily Kandinsky made this woodcut print, Klänge Pl.17, sometime in his career, using stark black ink on a pale ground. The image hovers somewhere between figuration and abstraction, with dark shapes suggesting figures, landscapes, and maybe even sounds. It makes me think about how Kandinsky, like other artists at the time, was trying to distill his experiences down to their most essential forms. I wonder what Kandinsky was listening to when he made this! I can see him, tool in hand, carving away at the wood, the black ink bleeding into the paper, each mark a translation of something felt and heard. He’s not just showing us what things look like, but how they feel, how they vibrate. And that’s the thing about art, isn't it? It’s not about perfect representation, but about capturing a fleeting moment, a resonance, an echo in the soul.