1922, Vasily Kandinsky, White Cross -- Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice)
A white Greek Orthodox cross can be found in the upper right of the painting. The checkerboard pattern resonates of garments in Russo-Byzantine icons, just as the crescents, like watermelon rind, evoke the aureoles of medieval painted saints. The events that unfold in this abstraction are cosmic and specifically Russian (although this was painted in Germany soon after Kandinsky's enrolment as a teacher at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany). They are set against the night of outer space, which is penetrated by black lines which mysteriously give off light.
1922, Vasily Kandinsky, White Cross -- Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice)
A white Greek Orthodox cross can be found in the upper right of the painting. The checkerboard pattern resonates of garments in Russo-Byzantine icons, just as the crescents, like watermelon rind, evoke the aureoles of medieval painted saints. The events that unfold in this abstraction are cosmic and specifically Russian (although this was painted in Germany soon after Kandinsky's enrolment as a teacher at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany). They are set against the night of outer space, which is penetrated by black lines which mysteriously give off light.