Auf Weiss II

A canvas from the Bauhaus period, which the Kandinskys had hanging in their dining room in Dessau, Auf Weiss II depicts the tension between two diagonal lines emanating from an almost square background, the white of which gives the painting its title. With its primary colors, its geometric forms, and the way the composition floats weightlessly in an apparently infinite space, this canvas is comparable to the suprematism of Malevich, with whom Kandinsky became acquainted in Moscow. It comes across as an analytical schematization of motifs associated with Munich, such as the representation of Saint George bearing a lance. In Regards Vers le Passé (Looking Back on the Fast), Kandinsky says the following about the content of his paintings: "I learned to fight with the canvas, to know it as a being which is resistant to my desire (= my dream), and to subject it to that desire through violence."