Parc de Saint-Cloud

Kandinsky spent most of 1906 in France, living just outside Paris in the town of Sèvres, and the park of Saint-Cloud was his regular walk. It reminded him of the English Garden back in Munich, and he went there with a small board to paint the shaded alleys quickly, on the spot. This is Kandinsky still painting what he sees, four or five years before his first abstract canvases. What's already happening is in the handling: the trees and the autumn light break up into separate patches of color that almost come loose from the things they describe. Paris that season was full of the Fauves and their raw color, and you can feel him leaning that way. He painted several of these Saint-Cloud park scenes during the French year, then carried them into the Paris salons that autumn.