Improvisation 9

In 1910 Kandinsky still let the world show through. The Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, which owns this canvas, points to a rider, a church, a shadowy group of figures on the left and a huge reclining giant on the right, all held in black outlines like the lead in a stained-glass window, while the colour floats free of the things it belongs to. Within a year or two those anchors would all but disappear from his work. In 1912, during the second exhibition of the Blue Rider, Kandinsky's circle in Munich, the art historian Franz Stadler gave a lecture asking the public to take the new art seriously. As thanks, Kandinsky let him pick a painting, and Stadler chose this one. On 17 March 1913 he wrote to the painter that it was hanging now, that it was beautiful beyond measure, and that he could do nothing but look at it. The Staatsgalerie bought it in 1965 with lottery funds.