Munich - The Isar

In September 1899 the Isar flooded and brought down two of Munich's river bridges, the Prinzregentenbrücke and the Max-Joseph-Brücke. Through 1900 and 1901 the city was rebuilding them, and that is the river Kandinsky came to in 1901 with a paintbox under his arm. The lid of the box held a small board faced with canvas, and he laid the colour on with a palette knife, stripe beside stripe. The piers of a bridge are mirrored in the water, yet the Lenbachhaus's own audio guide says no one knows which stretch of the river this is, because the Isar and its bridges have changed so much since. Low in the picture, where the strokes don't meet, the bare grey canvas still shows through. Twelve years later, in his memoir, he described these outdoor studies. He let himself go, spread stripes and spots of colour and let them sing as loudly as he could, and afterwards always felt a deep disappointment, his colours weak and flat beside the real Munich light.