Wassily Kandinsky – Composition VII

Description

Composition VII is an abstract oil painting executed in 1913 by Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian-born painter. It is in the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. Art historians have concluded that the work is a combination of the themes of Resurrection, Judgment Day, the Flood and the Garden of Eden.

Kandinsky’s preliminary study was his first abstract watercolor. Untitled (Study for Composition VII, Première abstraction), painted in 1913, is one of the first artworks to emerge from the representational tradition of Western European painting entirely, shedding references to well known forms, conventions of material representation and all narrative allusions. The watercolor is the first extant entry in Wassily Kandinsky’s parallel series of abstract “Compositions” and “Improvisations” that began to emerge during his Blue Rider Period. Though the work is dated 1910, art historians believe the date is apocryphal, and that Kandinsky dated the work in 1913.