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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
Glass Painting with the Sun (Mit Sonne) by Wassily Kandinsky: Introduction
A white sun glows above a group of riders on the left. At the right, a black cloud presses down over a boat in troubled water. Between them, pale hills rise toward pointed towers. Kandinsky painted this small image on the reverse of ornamental glass and enclosed it in a painted original frame. Lenbachhaus identifies it as Mit Sonne (“With Sun”), made in 1911, inventory GMS 120. The site's inherited title, Glass Painting with the Sun (Small Pleasures), hints at a later related painting. It must not make the glass work itself into the 1913 oil Small Pleasures. [1]; [2].
The owner calls this a Hinterglasbild, or reverse-glass picture: ink and oil lie behind ornamental glass. The 30.6 × 40.3 cm object has its original painted frame. These physical facts correct the old page's date of 1910 and give its claim about a decorated frame a firm source. The image is representational in fragments, yet those fragments are compressed into almost emblematic signs. A few riders, towers, waves and a sun carry a much larger drama than the picture's size would suggest. [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, 1911.
- Owner's title:Mit Sonne (“With Sun”); the site's descriptive English title is Glass Painting with the Sun.
- Object:Reverse-glass painting, ink and oil behind ornamental glass, in the original painted frame.
- Dimensions and collection:30.6 × 40.3 cm, Lenbachhaus, Munich, inventory GMS 120. A Lenbachhaus publication separately gives 34.1 × 43.6 cm as framed dimensions.
- Identifiable motifs:Three riders, a reclining couple, a white sun, two hilltop city silhouettes, a dark cloud, a boat with three rowers and waves.
- Related but distinct works:Improvisation 21 a (1911, Lenbachhaus) and Small Pleasures (Kleine Freuden, 1913, Guggenheim).
- Image:Existing site reproduction retained. An 800 × 628 Lenbachhaus reproduction explicitly labelled CC0 1.0 is saved separately as an optional guide image.
Where this work sits in Kandinsky’s career
The Blue Rider
1903Composition VII
1913Composition VIII
1923Several Circles
1926Sky Blue
1940Contents
- Reading from the sun toward the cloud
- The painted frame and reverse glass
- Three works, three identities
- What does the contrast mean?
- Frequently asked questions
- References
Reading from the sun toward the cloud
Lenbachhaus's work text supplies a precise route through the picture. On the left, three colourful horsemen move up the hills. A pair of reclining people lies below them. The white sun sits above; the hills, layered one behind another, carry outlines of Russian cities with pointed towers. The riders and towers do not have a naturalistic scale. They are signs that draw the eye upward and inward, aided by black contours cutting across pale blue and off-white areas. The old page's generic reference to figures “perhaps on horseback” understates how specifically the museum describes this side. [1].
The right is darker. Lenbachhaus identifies a black cloud weighing over it and, below, a wine-red boat with three rowers making its way through dark waves. Two partly organic forms project into the lower right. The glass image in the site's existing reproduction is small; at that scale the rowers may be less obvious than the large cloud and patterned water. Naming them from the owner's analysis gives a visitor a way to look again, while retaining the difference between a documented motif and an immediately legible one. [1].
The pale central hills do more than separate two episodes. They make the bright and dark sides touch: a rider can travel toward the city as a black cloud spreads over the boat. Lenbachhaus notes that the clear yellows, reds and blues of the figures are checked by a dirty, mixed white across the hills and land forms. One can follow those forces without deciding that each individual line represents an object. The picture works as a landscape of recognisable signs and as a tension of colour, dark contour and reflective ground. [1].
The painted frame and reverse glass
The museum's material description matters. This is ink and oil behind ornamental glass, not a conventional oil on canvas and not simply a modern print behind a frame. Lenbachhaus also identifies the frame as original and painted. Its decoration belongs to the way Kandinsky presented the object. The work's physical border is therefore relevant to close looking, even though a flat reproduction cannot show all the reflective effects of the glass. A Lenbachhaus catalogue spread gives the framed measurement as 34.1 × 43.6 cm, larger than the 30.6 × 40.3 cm dimensions in the owner object record. The different numbers should be labelled rather than silently merged. [1]; [3].
Lenbachhaus quotes Kandinsky's later account of how this small glass picture affected the larger compositions that followed. He recalled delicate colours, gold, silver and mirrored points as stimuli. That reported account directs attention to the work's luminous surface as well as its motifs. It does not mean a digital image reproduces exactly what a viewer sees before the physical glass. Colour and reflection may change with light and viewpoint; any assertion about a particular production sequence would need direct technical evidence beyond the basic medium record. [2].
Three works, three identities
The museum describes Mit Sonne as a point of departure for Improvisation 21 a, a 1911 oil on canvas in its collection, GMS 82, and for the later oil Kleine Freuden, or Small Pleasures, at the Guggenheim Museum. The Guggenheim dates that later canvas to June 1913, accession 43.921. The three share a family of motifs, but they differ in date, material, scale, composition and owner. Keeping the objects distinct matters because the site's parenthetical “Small Pleasures” could otherwise read like an alternative title for this glass picture. The separate pages for Improvisation 21 a and Small Pleasures can be used for comparison without merging their records. [1]; [2]; [5].
Lenbachhaus says the individual elements in the glass work are more clearly recognisable than in Improvisation 21 a, where figure and colour are softened under greyish white. A Guggenheim archive lecture similarly contrasts the readable glass motifs with their veiling in the later Small Pleasures oil. The lecture casually calls the small work “about a year earlier in 1912”; for its date, the holding museum's specific 1911 record is the stronger source. The useful point of the lecture is the visual comparison, not that approximate dating. [2]; [4].
This relationship also resists a simple “study then finished painting” story. A small glass image can generate ideas for a canvas while remaining an independent finished object in its own material and frame. Lenbachhaus's 2021 catalogue spread notes that Mit Sonne was shown in the first Blue Rider exhibition in 1911, although outside the printed catalogue. That documented public presentation is another reason to treat it as a work in its own right, rather than merely a preparatory step hidden behind the later oils. [3].
What does the contrast mean?
The sun, riders and reclining couple at left face the boat, rough water and threatening cloud at right. Lenbachhaus reports an interpretation that associates this opposition with an apocalyptic vision and a hoped-for spiritual renewal. It presents that as an argument advanced by scholars, not as a literal event established by the image alone. Its work text also notes that Kandinsky's later comments on Small Pleasures take a lighter, more ironic direction. Those comments belong to the later painting and complicate any single, solemn translation of every motif in the glass work. [1].
The viewer can begin with the less disputed observations: one side is bright and rising, the other dark and unsettled; between them stand citylike towers and hills. The stark division invites a story of danger and hope. Yet the coloured riders, patterned frame and surface effects also make this a playful, concentrated object. The title With Sun singles out the bright feature without explaining every other shape. It is most useful to hold the visible drama and the interpretive uncertainty together. [1].
Lenbachhaus holds the original as part of its Gabriele Münter Foundation collection, accession GMS 120, received in 1957. The collection page currently marks it not on display; exhibition status should be checked again before visiting. Its existing page image remains sufficient for reading the overall composition and frame. The museum's clearly labelled CC0 reproduction has been saved separately for a possible artist-guide illustration, where greater resolution can help the reader find the rowers and riders. [1].
Kandinsky artworks directory
Frequently Asked Questions
It is Kandinsky's Mit Sonne (“With Sun”), a 1911 reverse-glass painting at Lenbachhaus, accession GMS 120. “Small Pleasures” in the inherited page title points toward a separate later oil rather than a second title for the glass object. [1].
Lenbachhaus dates Mit Sonne to 1911. The previous page's 1910 date should be corrected to the owner's date. [1].
The owner records ink and oil behind ornamental glass, with the original painted frame. It is a reverse-glass picture rather than oil on canvas. [1].
Lenbachhaus identifies three riders, a reclining couple, a white sun, hilltop city silhouettes, a boat with three rowers, dark waves and a black cloud. Some are easier to locate in a larger reproduction than in the site's small image. [1].
Lenbachhaus connects the glass painting to its 1911 oil Improvisation 21 a and the later Guggenheim oil Small Pleasures. The motifs develop across these works, but the glass, 1911 canvas and 1913 oil are three distinct objects. [2].
It belongs to Lenbachhaus, Munich, inventory GMS 120. The owner currently lists it as not on display; check the live collection record for changes. [1].
Discussion
What do you notice first in Glass Painting with the Sun (Mit Sonne)? 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
Which detail first leads your eye from the riders and sun toward the boat and dark cloud?
What changes when you compare this small framed glass object with Improvisation 21 a?
How far does an apocalyptic reading help before it claims more than the image or owner record establishes?
Join the Conversation
Add your observation below and tell us which part of the artwork led you to it.
References
- Lenbachhaus, Mit Sonne, GMS 120, 1911. View source.
- Lenbachhaus, Improvisation 21 a, GMS 82, 1911. View source.
- Lenbachhaus, Der Blaue Reiter 2021 catalogue spread, Mit Sonne entry. View source.
- Guggenheim Museum Archives, “Abstraction: Kandinsky's Vision of Utopia” lecture transcript. View source.
- Guggenheim Museum, Vasily Kandinsky: Around the Circle 2021 press checklist. View source.
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