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
Improvisation 10 by Wassily Kandinsky: Introduction
Across the middle of Improvisation 10, pale yellow opens like a patch of light. Heavy black strokes cross it, curve around it and rise from the lower edge. At first the picture can seem to be a free arrangement of colour and line; after a longer look, a rainbow, a red-domed building and sweeping branches begin to appear. The Fondation Beyeler identifies the work as a 1910 oil on canvas, 120 × 140 cm, in its collection at Riehen near Basel, inventory 55.1. The artist signed and dated it KANDINSKY 1910 at the lower right. [1]; [3].
The owner calls this painting a step between figurative landscape and abstraction. That does not mean it is a landscape with its details carelessly left out. Its black lines organise the field, while colour blocks can be read both as parts of an imagined place and as independent events on the canvas. The museum describes Kandinsky's early Improvisations as prompted by inward ideas, visions and imagination. The visible landscape suggestions give the viewer an entry point without turning the work back into a record of a particular view. [3]; [2].
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Watch on YouTubeAt a Glance
- Artist and date:Wassily Kandinsky, 1910; signed and dated at lower right.
- Title:Improvisation 10. The number distinguishes it from other works in his Improvisation series.
- Medium and dimensions:Oil on canvas, 120 × 140 cm.
- Collection:Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Beyeler Collection, inventory 55.1; work number 337 in the owner's record.
- Visible motifs:A rainbow over a red-domed building at upper left and a tree or shrub with curved branches at right, as identified by the museum.
- Early exhibition:Shown at the Neue Künstlervereinigung exhibition in Munich, September 1910, according to the owner.
- Provenance:Unlawfully confiscated from a Hannover museum loan in 1937; the Beyeler Foundation and Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers's heirs reached a settlement in 2002 for the work to remain in the foundation's ownership.
- Image:Existing site reproduction retained. The owner's photograph is credited to Peter Schibli and has no clear new reuse licence.
Where this work sits in Kandinsky’s career
The Blue Rider
1903Composition VII
1913Composition VIII
1923Several Circles
1926Sky Blue
1940Contents
- How the image comes into view
- Why call it an Improvisation?
- The work's early public life
- Ownership, confiscation and settlement
- Frequently asked questions
- References
How the image comes into view
The first impression is of broad light and abrupt dark strokes. A large yellow form sits near the centre, with a curved red passage and cooler blue and green around it. The black marks differ in weight. Some seem to outline shapes, while others appear to slice across the picture without closing any shape at all. The pale areas near the upper edge prevent the dense left-hand cluster from making the whole canvas feel closed. The painting's structure depends on that alternation between thick marks and open colour. [1].
Fondation Beyeler's guide asks us to find a rainbow at the upper left, arching over a building with red cupolas. It also points to a tree or shrub at right, its branches sweeping through the surrounding space. These identifications are more precise than an invitation to invent arbitrary objects in every patch. They are also modest: the museum says “tree or shrub,” leaving the exact plant unresolved. The coloured arch and domed roof are suggestions within a loose construction of paint, not a meticulously described city. [3].
A viewer may first notice the tree only after following a black line from the edge toward the centre. That movement of the eye is part of the work. The black strokes create a loose framework that holds the landscape hints in a kind of perspective, as the museum describes. Yet the lines are not subordinate to the depicted things. A branch can also function as a dark arc set against yellow; an architectural contour can carry the eye toward another field of colour. The picture keeps oscillating between a scene one might recognise and an arrangement one can feel before naming anything. [3]; [2].
The owner describes glowing blocks of red, yellow, blue, green and white edged by black. These contrasts make the small red cupolas stand out even when other architecture dissolves. Yellow, especially, is not a single smooth background. It is divided and interrupted, so that the black lines can read as paths through colour rather than details drawn over a completed landscape. The colour offers the eye places to rest, but the broken contour keeps it moving. [3].
Why call it an Improvisation?
Kandinsky grouped large paintings under the headings Impressions, Improvisations and Compositions in these years. The Fondation Beyeler's Blue Rider account places the two Improvisations it displayed from 1910 within a category intended to convey inward emotion rather than simply reproduce an external scene. Its later room guide describes this as the artist's “inner nature”: ideas, visions and imagination. The terms are useful for understanding a starting point, but they should not be treated as a rigid test in which any recognisable form disqualifies the painting. [2]; [3].
That tension is particularly clear here. The rainbow and domes can seem like fragments of a remembered landscape, and the tree has a recognisable branching action. But the artist has not supplied a documentary title naming a town, palace or event. The owner does not identify the red-domed building as a specific place. Without that evidence, there is no reason to turn the picture into a travel view or a map of Moscow. Its visual elements remain part of a response shaped in paint, even where they resemble things outside it. [3].
The museum compared Improvisation 10 with Improvisation 13 in a Blue Rider exhibition. Both are dated 1910, but the curators found a different sense of distance in each. Here the colour and line seem to leave some breathing room; the rainbow and domes give the eye a few holds. In Improvisation 13, the coloured areas press closer and seem more compressed within the canvas. This comparison is a better way to describe Kandinsky's experimentation than claiming that each higher number is automatically more abstract or more advanced. The numbers name works within a series; they are not a straight ladder of stylistic progress. [2].
The inherited page presented the forms as “haphazard” and said the artist's three categories varied vaguely between reality and imagination. The owner's texts allow a sharper account. The shapes are organised by intersecting black strokes, strong colour groupings and a few landscape anchors. The Improvisation title points to inward experience while still leaving those anchors visible. “Improvised” in the title should not be mistaken for evidence that the finished oil was made without decisions, revisions or structure; the collection record itself documents a carefully identified, signed object, not the exact sequence of brushstrokes. [1]; [2].
The work's early public life
Fondation Beyeler dates the canvas to 1910, and Kandinsky's lower-right inscription confirms the year. Its exhibition history places it at the Neue Künstlervereinigung show in Munich from 1 to 14 September 1910. The same record lists appearances in Moscow and in the Salon Izdebsky circuit during the following winter. These entries establish that the painting entered public exhibition quickly. They do not by themselves prove how every visitor understood the unusual mixture of landscape and independent colour. [1].
The 1910 date also matters in relation to the later Blue Rider group. Kandinsky and Franz Marc's almanac and first exhibitions belong to 1911 onward; Improvisation 10 was already complete. It can help explain the visual direction that fed into that project without being described as a painting made for the Blue Rider almanac. The Fondation Beyeler later placed the work in a Blue Rider exhibition to show how colour and line became increasingly independent across Kandinsky's early 1910s paintings. [1]; [2].
At 120 × 140 cm, the original is much larger than the site's small inherited reproduction. A long black stroke can cross a substantial physical surface, and the yellow passage can occupy much of a viewer's field. The digital image is useful for tracing the composition, but it compresses those differences of scale and may hide variation in paint handling. The museum's precise size helps readers imagine an encounter with the object without pretending the online view is equivalent to it. [1].
Ownership, confiscation and settlement
The Beyeler record supplies an unusually detailed ownership trail. It says Franz Kluxen acquired the work from Kandinsky in 1913; after later changes of hands it belonged to Paul Erich and Sophie Küppers in Hannover from 1919. From 1926 to 1937 it was on long-term loan to the city's Provincial Museum. In 1937 the Nazi regime unlawfully confiscated it during its campaign against so-called “degenerate art.” The painting's later path through the market eventually brought it to the Beyeler Collection. These events are part of the object's history, not merely a footnote to its style. [1].
The museum records a 2002 agreement between the Beyeler Foundation and the heirs of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers allowing the painting to remain the foundation's property. That statement should be kept specific. A settlement is documented; the page need not guess the agreement's financial terms or describe the confiscation as legitimate because a later agreement was reached. The foundation's own provenance research report separately notes the unlawful 1937 seizure and the resolution with the heirs. [1]; [4].
The painting remains in the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, under inventory 55.1. Its collection page is the appropriate place to check future display arrangements or new provenance findings. The image on this site remains the existing reproduction. The museum credits its newer photograph to Peter Schibli and provides no clear, free reuse licence for a replacement. Because a better image is optional here, neither the page nor the planned guide takes that photograph or seeks permission for it. [1].
Improvisation 10 asks for close looking at two scales: the motifs one slowly finds and the broader movement of line and colour that first commands attention. Its landscape hints keep it from being a pure field of unrelated marks; its sweeping black strokes keep it from settling into illustration. The owner's catalogue, exhibition history and provenance make the object historically specific, while the picture itself remains open enough for the eye to travel more than one route through it. [1]; [2].
Kandinsky artworks directory
Frequently Asked Questions
The Fondation Beyeler dates it to 1910, and records Kandinsky's lower-right signature and date, KANDINSKY 1910. [1].
It is oil on canvas, 120 × 140 cm, according to the owning museum. [1].
The museum identifies a rainbow above a red-domed building at upper left and a tree or shrub with sweeping branches at right. These forms sit within a broader arrangement of luminous colour blocks and black lines. [3].
The Fondation Beyeler describes it as a transition from figurative landscape to abstraction. Recognisable landscape hints remain, while colour and line do much more than describe them. [3].
The museum records its unlawful Nazi confiscation from a long-term loan at Hannover's Provincial Museum. In 2002, the foundation reached an agreement with Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers's heirs for the painting to remain in its ownership. [1].
It belongs to the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen/Basel, Switzerland, inventory 55.1. Check the museum's collection record for any current display details. [1].
Discussion
What do you notice first in Improvisation 10? 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
Where do you first find the rainbow and red domes amid the colour?
Which black line works as a branch and which moves independently?
How does knowing the 1937 confiscation change what you would ask of the object record?
Join the Conversation
Add your observation below and tell us which part of the artwork led you to it.
References
- Fondation Beyeler, Improvisation 10, Inv.55.1: object, provenance, exhibition history and image credit. View source.
- Fondation Beyeler, Der Blaue Reiter exhibition essay on Improvisation 10 and Improvisation 13. View source.
- Fondation Beyeler, The Lion Is Hungry room guide, discussion of Improvisation 10. View source.
- Fondation Beyeler, final provenance research project report. View source.
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