Hear curator Megan Fontanella describe this painting and the significance of the circle in Kandinsky’s practice.
Megan Fontanella: This painting is "Several Circles" by Vasily Kandinsky. It’s dated January to February 1926.
In the early decades of the 20th century, a period of wars and social unrest, political unrest that Kandinsky encountered necessitated a physical move from country to country, from his native Russia to Germany, back to Russia, to France.
Kandinsky in this period was working as a professor at the Bauhaus, this German art school. This was a really important chapter for him because it was a moment of heightened community, where he’s working in this community of creatives that was anything from metalworkers, to weavers, to painters like him.
And in this moment, his artistic style is very much taking on this more geometric form. Works like Several Circles are very typical in some ways of this period. We see that the painting is on this very dark black background. And what’s emerging from that background are these really vibrant, colorful circles in all manner of size, from the very smallest circle to this large, dominating, black, glossy circle at center.
From his early years, Kandinsky was experimenting with surface appearances. So he is deliberately creating passages of gloss and matte on this canvas.
In this cosmos, if you will, he’s creating this environment that almost feels otherworldly—a nod to astrology, his interests in the stars, but also very much this lifelong pursuit of his to really mine the spiritual in art.
In the early 20th century, there’s innovations and technological advancements. The modern city is coming into being, and he and his compatriots, I think, were taking a step back saying, I see the materialism that’s abounding, I see this need for a new spiritual dimension in our lives, and that art could be that guide—could, you know, lift us all up to this more spiritual realm.
So, when I come to this painting, I very much am thinking of that otherworldliness, of this idea of art’s potential to lift us up from our world into another dimension. He’s kind of inviting us to move into the painting, to be among those circles.
By this moment in the 1920s, the circle had become a really important form for him. He says, “The circle is the synthesis of the greatest oppositions. It combines the concentric and the eccentric in a single form and in balance.” So this idea of the circle being this harmonious, balanced shape. And in this painting, you know, you see circles throughout his production, but here we have several circles. We have it really dominating the canvas.
Vasily Kandinsky, "Several Circles" (Einige Kreise), January–February 1926. Oil on canvas, 140.3 x 140.7 cm. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, By gift 41.283 © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris
