Tableau à trois taches, n° 196

Kandinsky painted this in Munich in the first half of 1914, when he had pushed almost all the way to pure abstraction. Recognizable things have nearly vanished. What is left is three large oval spots surrounded by swirling color and line, meant to work on the viewer the way music does, without picturing anything. He wanted painting to reach the emotions directly. Then in August 1914 the war began, and Kandinsky, a Russian citizen living in Germany, suddenly found himself an enemy alien and had to leave the country within days. He made his way back to Moscow while this canvas stayed behind. He had spent nearly two decades building his art in Munich, and it was among the last paintings he finished there.