Russian Folklore: An Everlasting Source of Influence

Tempera on cardboard, 9.1 x 21.5 inches
Pompidou Center, National Museum of Modern Art, Paris
Bequest of Nina Kandinsky, 1981

"The sun softens the whole of Moscow into a remarkable blur that makes one's soul and inner being quiver. Pink, mauve, yellow, white, pistachio green, and fiery red houses and churches, with lawns that are insanely green, trees that emit a deeper humming sound, or snow that sings in a chorus of a thousand voices, the allegretto of the bare branches, the unyielding, silent, red enclosure of the walls of the Kremlin, and finally, rising up above all of that like a triumphant and liberating cry of Hallelujah, the tall white column and solemn adornments of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower.

Russian Scene is not an attempt to imitate the reality of Moscow life. Like other works, it is a transposition of a folkloric scene blended with the colorful magic of stories and legends.

Tempera on glossy cardboard, 19.3 x 26 inches, Pompidou Center, National Museum of Modern Art, bequest of Mrs. Nina Kandinsky, 1981 

It was against a backdrop of Parisian Russophilia marked by the art exhibits organized by Sergei Diaghilev as well as by the success of the Ballets Russes that Song was created in 1906 in Sèvres. 

Also known as Song of the Volga and exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1907, Song shows the extent to which German Jugendstil had influenced Kandinsky's early work, just as both Russian symbolism and popular art had. 

More than a historical account, Kandinsky sought here to create an overall atmosphere steeped in mystery: the figures are not depicted individually, but rather dynamically in a group, giving pretext to an abundance of spots and lines with an enchanting tonality of color. 

The bygone character of this distant past allowed Kandinsky to remain close to tradition while also being innovative on an artistic level. By leaving behind realistic models to accentuate the autonomy of color, the artist lyrically awakens the imaginary world of a forgotten Russia, which he was able to discover as a young ethnologist of peasant law during his travels in provincial Russia. 

I still remember when I was entering the room for the first time, I stood rooted to the spot in front of such an unexpected scene. The table, the trunks, the large stove, which hold an important place in the house of a Russian peasant, the cabinets, and each object were decorated across their entirety with multicolored adornments painted in broad strokes. 

It is through these impressions in all likelihood, and not otherwise, that what I wanted, the objective that I set for my own personal art, took shape in me." 

They conjure up the distant past, where figures mix with one another, figures from old Russia, from old Germany, or even from the Biedermeier period.

During these nomadic years across Europe and North Africa until 1908, Kandinsky continued to demonstrate a dichotomy in his work.

He created a significant number of small oil studies, done in the open air with a palette knife in a post-impressionist style, while continuing to paint what he called his "colored drawings": multicolored scenes on a black background done in a pointillist style using tempera, which seem to be directly inspired by Russian stories and legends.