Moderation

Kandinsky dated this canvas September 1940. Paris had been under German occupation for three months, and he was back at work in his flat at Neuilly-sur-Seine, on the western edge of the city, a Russian-born painter who had taken French citizenship only the year before. He called the picture Modération. It is tall and fairly narrow, just under a metre high, painted in oil and enamel over a flat pale yellow ground that he left almost empty. Everything else gathers in a loose band running from the top left down towards the bottom, pink and mint-green blocks patched with stripes and checks, joined by thin rods and small triangles. Off to the right hangs a black disc, finely speckled with colour, the darkest thing in the picture.