by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on October 14, 2023
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
Circles in a Circle by Wassily Kandinsky: Introduction
A thick black ring gathers many smaller circles, straight lines and translucent colour patches into one crowded field. Yet the ring does not seal the composition: broad turquoise and warm ochre diagonals pass behind it, while fine dark lines cross the circles inside. Wassily Kandinsky's Circles in a Circle dates from 1923, when he was teaching at the Bauhaus in Weimar. The Philadelphia Museum of Art identifies it as oil on canvas, 98.7 × 95.6 cm, in the Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, accession 1950-134-104. [1]; [3].
The title tells us what to find, but it does not reduce the work to a diagram. Circles differ in size, colour and transparency; lines interrupt and connect them; and the large boundary ring gives the whole picture a second frame inside the canvas. The owner museum describes an abstract composition of geometric forms and subtle colour harmonies. It does not catalogue the small disks as literal planets or assign every mark a fixed spiritual meaning. Such associations can be useful prompts for looking when identified as a viewer's interpretation. [1].
Watch: Wassily Kandinsky
Five museum videos about Kandinsky’s art, sources of inspiration and the relationship between colour and music.
Vasily Kandinsky: Around the Circle
Curator Megan Fontanella introduces Kandinsky and the Guggenheim collection.
Watch on YouTubeAt a Glance
- Artist and date:Wassily Kandinsky, 1923.
- Collection title:Circles in a Circle.
- Medium and dimensions:Oil on canvas, 98.7 × 95.6 cm (38 7/8 × 37 5/8 inches).
- Collection:Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950; accession 1950-134-104.
- Career context:Painted in Kandinsky's Bauhaus years, after he joined the school in 1922.
- Distinct works:Composition VIII also dates to 1923; Several Circles is a separate 1926 canvas; Squares with Concentric Circles is a 1913 sheet.
- Image:Existing site reproduction retained; the museum's visible image policy does not provide a straightforward replacement licence.
Where this work sits in Kandinsky’s career
The Blue Rider
1903Composition VII
1913Composition VIII
1923Several Circles
1926Sky Blue
1940Contents
- The outer ring and the field within it
- Lines crossing colour
- A Bauhaus painting, not a formula
- The Arensbergs and the collection
- Frequently asked questions
- References
The outer ring and the field within it
The large black circle is the first organising device. It nearly fills the height and width of the canvas, with just enough pale ground around it to show that it is an element inside the picture, not the canvas's own edge. Its line is thick and dark, making a firm perimeter for the looser activity within. Because the ring sits centrally in a nearly square format, it encourages the eye to treat the interior as one bounded place. Yet a glance at the coloured diagonals immediately complicates that reading: they extend through the space outside the ring as well. [1].
Inside are circles of several kinds. Some are clear disks; others are outlines or forms with a translucent centre. A pink circle at upper left overlaps red and dark marks. Green and turquoise areas meet darker disks near the right. At lower left, a smaller reddish circle touches the edge of a muted translucent mass. The eye can move among these clusters without finding a single central circle that explains all the others. Their differences of scale and opacity make the repeated shape feel varied rather than mechanically copied. [1].
The outer ring can be read as a second frame, but it is not an airtight container. A pale ochre diagonal rises from the lower left, and a turquoise diagonal descends from the upper left toward the right edge. Both continue beyond the black perimeter. These bands make the internal circular group feel connected to a larger space. They also prevent the nearly square canvas from becoming entirely static: where the big circle asks for a centre, the diagonals pull attention across and out of it. This is a description of visible relationships, not evidence that Kandinsky modelled a physical orbit or a mapped cosmos. [1].
Lines crossing colour
Thin black lines bring a different pace to the picture. Some are long and nearly straight, cutting through coloured circles; others form shorter clusters or near grids. Their crossings make small visual incidents that compete with the broad outer ring. A line can run across a transparent green area and remain visible, while a dark disk nearby interrupts it. As a result, a viewer may alternately see the circles as layered colour and the lines as a framework laid over them. The small website reproduction shows this structure, though it is insufficient for confident claims about paint sequence or individual tool marks. [1].
The museum's page cites Marcel Duchamp's description of Kandinsky tracing lines with ruler and compass in a 1950 catalogue for the Société Anonyme. Duchamp was offering a retrospective judgement about Kandinsky's achievement. The Philadelphia museum says those words readily apply to Circles in a Circle, where geometric forms and colour harmonies produce an animated abstract composition. That is valuable historical reception, but it should not be inflated into a conservation report proving which ruler or compass Kandinsky used on this particular canvas. The surface and construction would need object-specific technical evidence for that claim. [1].
Some circles have edges that look precise, while coloured passages within or around them vary in density. That tension matters. A mathematically repeatable shape can still work as a painting with uneven colour, transparency and overlap. The eye notices relationships that a plain geometry exercise would leave out: a small red disk changes the apparent weight of a larger green area; a pale pink edge softens one cluster; a black dot holds a narrow interval between larger shapes. The overall effect depends on variation within repetition. [1].
A Bauhaus painting, not a formula
Kandinsky joined the Bauhaus faculty in 1922, and this painting followed in 1923. The Guggenheim's teaching materials describe how he continued to explore colour, form and their psychological and spiritual effects at the school. They explain that the circle became particularly important to him during the Bauhaus years. The geometric clarity of Circles in a Circle belongs in that context, but the work is more than an illustration of a classroom principle. Its intersecting bands, varied disks and fine linework make relationships that change as one looks. [3].
The Guggenheim notes that Kandinsky associated the circle with spiritual possibility and, by the later 1920s, spoke of loving circles as he had once loved horses. That later statement helps explain why comparisons between his early rider pictures and Bauhaus abstraction recur in museum writing. It does not mean a horse has been secretly turned into each disk here. Nor does it settle what every circle represents. The visible painting works through colour, scale, overlap and direction before a symbolic reading is added. [3].
The date also invites a precise comparison with Composition VIII, which the Guggenheim dates to July 1923. Both canvases use circles, lines and contrasting geometric forms on a pale ground. In Composition VIII, shapes are dispersed across a wider landscape-format surface. Circles in a Circle gathers its activity inside and around one commanding black perimeter. The works share a period and vocabulary, but neither museum record cited here describes one as a study for the other. Their different owners and accession numbers keep them separate. [1]; [4].
Nor should it be confused with Several Circles of 1926. The latter makes disks on a dark ground central to its effect and has its own Guggenheim object history. Squares with Concentric Circles is an earlier 1913 work on paper with twelve repeated cells. The recurrence of circles throughout Kandinsky's art makes these works natural companions for comparison, but it makes an exact title, date and accession especially useful when identifying a reproduction. [3]; [1].
The Arensbergs and the collection
The Philadelphia Museum of Art credits Circles in a Circle to the Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950. Its accession number, 1950-134-104, is a reliable way to distinguish the museum object from similarly titled reproductions or later prints. A museum press account describes the Arensbergs' 1950 gift as a cornerstone of Philadelphia's modern art collection and names Kandinsky among the artists they collected. The painting's presence in that collection explains its Philadelphia home; it does not by itself reveal every earlier owner or exhibition. [1]; [2].
The museum's page also connects Kandinsky to the Société Anonyme, an organisation led by American collector Katherine Dreier that helped introduce modern art to audiences in the United States. It says Marcel Duchamp helped secure Kandinsky's first solo exhibition there through that organisation. This is context for the later catalogue assessment quoted on the object page, not a claim that Circles in a Circle itself appeared in the first exhibition. The link between the artist and American collectors is historically significant without needing an invented exhibition itinerary for this canvas. [1].
The museum displays the work on its collection website, but a record and a historic gift credit are not a promise of continuous gallery display. Check the museum's current display information before travelling to see the original. The website splash remains a useful view of the overall arrangement; it does not replace the scale, colour and surface of a nearly metre-square oil painting. [1].
The existing reproduction is retained. Philadelphia's visible image notice describes educational sharing and directs image-rights and permissions queries to the museum. That wording does not give this project a straightforward licence for a larger copy in the site or the free artist guide. The larger image is optional, and no permission request is needed. A text-led guide entry can still identify the object and help a reader notice the tension between the central ring and crossing bands. [1].
Kandinsky artworks directory
Frequently Asked Questions
It is oil on canvas, 98.7 × 95.6 cm (38 7/8 × 37 5/8 inches), according to the Philadelphia object record. The museum lists separate frame dimensions. [1].
It is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, credited in 1950, accession 1950-134-104. [1].
They can suggest a cosmic arrangement to a viewer, but the cited owner record describes abstract geometry and colour; it does not identify literal planets as the painting's subject. [1].
The museum quotes Duchamp's 1950 general assessment of Kandinsky's ruler-and-compass approach. It does not present an object-specific technical finding about the exact tools used on this canvas. [1].
Discussion
What do you notice first in Circles in a Circle? Share a close observation or a question about the evidence for this work.
Comments are for comparing what we see and what the cited sources establish.
Reader Insights
How does the large black ring change your reading of the smaller circles?
What do the diagonal colour bands do outside the ring?
What evidence would distinguish a planetary reading from a documented subject?
Join the Conversation
Add your observation below and tell us which part of the artwork led you to it.
References
- Philadelphia Museum of Art, Circles in a Circle object record. View source.
- Philadelphia Museum of Art, Arensberg collection press account. View source.
- Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Kandinsky teaching materials. View source.
- Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Vasily Kandinsky: Around the Circle press kit. View source.
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