All Saints Day II

Kandinsky was a Muscovite living in Bavaria, and in 1911 he put both of his homes into one picture of the end of time. The figures have heavy black outlines, the way village craftsmen in upper Bavaria drew saints on the back of glass. Scholars at the Lenbachhaus have tried to name them. In the middle stand three saints with sweeping gestures, perhaps the Greek church fathers Basil, Gregory and John Chrysostom. The half-length woman in front of them has been read as St Walburga, venerated in Bavaria as a patron saint. Above a group of believers holding candles, St Vladimir, the prince who had the Rus baptised, raises his arms. Higher still, the prophet Elijah rides up to heaven in his chariot of fire behind three white and gold horses. Kandinsky held on to that team of three. In many of his later abstract canvases it survives only as three curved lines, which scholars call the troika motif.