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Today at the Museum

May 24, 2013

A Taste of Asia

1 – 2 p.m.

Study for Improvisation V
Title:Study for Improvisation V
Artist:Vassily Kandinsky
Date:1910
Creation Place:Europe, Russia
Credit Line:Gift of Bruce B. Dayton
Image Copyright:©Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Accession Number:67.34.2
This landscape evokes Biblical stories of the Apocalypse, which foretold Christ's second coming. In the foreground, a woman in blue kneels before a tall figure with streaming golden hair, possibly Christ, while in the background two horsemen of the Apocalypse vault a fence. As a pioneer of abstract painting, Vassily Kandinsky thought art could make inner truths visible. An "improvisation," he said, was "a largely unconscious, spontaneous expression of inner character," or "non-material (i.e., spiritual) nature." Kandinsky wanted painting to function like music, using colors and forms like melodies and rhythms—abstractly—to summon emotion. Frame: Gift of Galerie Thomas, Munich, Germany.