Murnau with church I

Kandinsky once described an evening that changed how he saw his own work. He came home at dusk with his paintbox, still absorbed in the day's study, and saw in his studio a picture of indescribable beauty, glowing from within, made of nothing but forms and colours. Then he understood. It was one of his own paintings, leaning against the wall on its side. The next day he tried to see it that way again by daylight and kept recognising the objects. He published the story in 1913 without naming the picture, and the Lenbachhaus suggests it may have been this one, or one very like it. The tilt is already in the painting. Houses lean and blur on the left, the white church tower shoots up the tall board, and in places the light brown cardboard shows through the paint. A second version, Murnau with Church II in the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, shows the same view far more exactly.