Composition VIII by Kandinsky

Description

About the painting. Composition VIII, also known as Composition 8, sets circles, triangles, ruled lines and a tilted chequerboard on a pale cream ground, with a great black and violet circle in a pink halo weighing down the top left corner. Wassily Kandinsky painted it at the Bauhaus in July 1923, the moment his abstraction turned from storm to geometry, and in 1930 it became the first Kandinsky Solomon R. Guggenheim bought. Oil on canvas, 140 x 201 cm. Original in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Read the full story in our guide to Composition VIII by Wassily Kandinsky.

Kandinsky built this painting like a piece of music. The big circle presses down from the corner, the triangles push back against it, the lines cut across, and in the middle a ring like a target holds everything in balance. He believed he could hear colour: yellow was a trumpet, deep blue an organ. Every shape is placed so the whole canvas feels alive and still at the same time.

Our reproduction is painted by hand in oil on canvas, the way Kandinsky made it. The straight lines are ruled, the circles are drawn with a compass, and the colours are laid on flat and clean, so the edges stay crisp and the cream ground stays calm. You get the real surface of paint, not the flat sheen of a Kandinsky print or poster.

It is one of the easiest abstract paintings to live with. The pale ground and clear shapes suit offices, studios, modern living rooms and mid-century or Bauhaus-style interiors, and they work with almost any furniture. If you are looking for abstract wall art with a real story behind it, few paintings changed design as much as this one. It looks best in a thin black or natural wood frame, or with no frame at all.