Fugue

Kandinsky finished this in Munich in March 1914. He had been in Bavaria for nearly 20 years by then, and he was using music as the model for what a painting could be with no objects left in it. That is why so many canvases of these years carry musical titles. Composition, Improvisation, Impression, and this one, Fugue. Five months later, on 1 August, Germany declared war on Russia. Kandinsky was a Russian citizen on the wrong side of a new border, and within days he had crossed into Switzerland with the painter Gabriele Munter, his partner of many years. He reached Moscow that December, leaving most of his Munich work behind him, and he did not see Germany again until the end of 1921.