Untitled

Over the first year of his exile in Moscow during the First World War, Wassily Kandinsky focused entirely on drawing. This coincided with a period of transition in Kandinsky's work, moving from the last vestiges of figuration towards pure abstraction, as demonstrated in this drawing. The drawing balances gestural vigour and control. The composition seems to spring from the upper right corner of the sheet and spiral clockwise, sweeping the sprays of eyelash-like parallel hatching into a whirling dance. The rhythmic, musical quality of the line is common to much of Kandinsky's contemporary work. Although it appears swiftly drawn, the three different applications of ink, which would have had to dry individually, reveal that he planned and executed the drawing with care. Kandinsky considered his work the visual expression of a spiritual state. This drawing seems to bristle with a dark energy, reflecting the anxieties he must have been experiencing at the time.