Sketch for Composition V

1911 · Painting · 95 × 139 cm

May one see it?

Unknown: the museum keeps its counsel

State Hermitage Museum

Saint Petersburg, Russia

The owner is known. Whether it is on view today, the museum does not say, and we were not trained to guess.

Source: The museum's own collection data

On the map Museum page

Particulars

Accession number: ГЭ-10077

In the catalog

Germany

Sources

State Hermitage Museum: the museum's own open data · fetched 3 days ago
Image: State Hermitage Museum — Museum open access

Meanwhile, in the life of Vasily Kandinsky

The whole life

1909
President of the Neue Künstlervereinigung München
Kandinsky helped found the Neue Künstlervereinigung München and became its president. The group dissolved in late 1911: it could not reconcile the radical approach of Kandinsky and others with conventional ideas of art.
from 1910
Begins the “Compositions”: music as the ultimate teacher
Declaring music the ultimate teacher, Kandinsky began his cycle of “Compositions” (ten in all). The common theme of the first seven is the apocalypse: he drew on Noah's Ark, Jonah and the whale, the resurrection, the four horsemen and Russian folktales, but never presented them as narrative.
1910–1911
The treatise “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”
The treatise defended and promoted abstract art and affirmed that all forms of art are equally capable of reaching spirituality; colour in a painting can be autonomous, apart from the depiction of an object. Kandinsky distinguished three kinds of painting: impressions, improvisations and compositions.
1911
The turn to pure abstraction
Kandinsky developed a novel concept of the “rhythmic” use of colour and moved from figurative painting to pure abstraction.
1911
The birth of the Blue Rider
After the earlier association dissolved Kandinsky formed the Blue Rider with August Macke, Franz Marc, Albert Bloch and Gabriele Münter. The group issued an almanac and held two exhibitions; the war ended further plans.
1911
His first solo exhibition
His first solo exhibition took place in the same years, when the Blue Rider was being born.