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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
Improvisation 28 (Second Version) by Wassily Kandinsky: Introduction
Broad sweeps of black line cut across coloured patches in this long canvas. At the left, the marks seem turbulent and crowded; farther right, they open around lighter space and a tower-like form. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum identifies the painting as Wassily Kandinsky's Improvisation 28 (Second Version), a 1912 oil on canvas, 112.6 × 162.5 cm, accession 37.239. Its curators describe a boat and waves, a serpent, perhaps cannons, an embracing couple, a shining sun and what may be a church or tower. Such forms are deliberately schematic: the picture encourages recognition while keeping every motif embedded in moving line and colour. [1].
The museum reads a tension between cataclysm and redemption in this group of signs. Its earlier teaching text puts the difference in spatial terms, suggesting turmoil at the left and hope or spiritual salvation at the right. These are interpretive accounts, useful because they arise from the painting's visible contrasts and Kandinsky's historical interests. They are not a one-to-one key that makes every black stroke into a cannon or every pale form into a named religious figure. [1]; [2].
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 title:Wassily Kandinsky, Improvisation 28 (Second Version); German Improvisation 28 (zweite Fassung).
- Date:1912, according to the owning museum.
- Medium and dimensions:Oil on canvas, 112.6 × 162.5 cm in the Guggenheim's 2021 exhibition checklist.
- Collection:Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, by gift, accession 37.239.
- Visible motifs:Boat and waves, serpent, embracing couple and shining sun; the museum calls cannons possible and the upper-right form a possible church or tower.
- Interpretation:The museum proposes a contrast of upheaval and redemption, with a more agitated left side and a calmer right side.
- Image:Existing site splash retained. Press-image terms and conflicting metadata on an alternative Commons file make a new reproduction unsuitable under the project's clear-rights rule.
Where this work sits in Kandinsky’s career
The Blue Rider
1903Composition VII
1913Composition VIII
1923Several Circles
1926Sky Blue
1940Contents
- Moving through the left and right halves
- Improvisation and Kandinsky's inner subject
- What Second Version identifies
- Image and viewing scale
- Frequently asked questions
- References
Moving through the left and right halves
The canvas is much wider than it is high, allowing Kandinsky to spread passages of action across it. A dense assembly of diagonal lines and bent contours gathers at the left. Nearer the centre, long black strokes rise and cross into the upper zone. To the right, lines still move vigorously, but their spacing around pale and blue areas changes the mood. The Guggenheim's teaching guide describes that difference as one between cataclysm and an image of hope. One can begin without those labels and still test the formal claim: the marks are more congested in some regions and more open in others. [2].
Within the left-hand activity, the owner identifies a boat and waves. In a descriptive reading, curved and zigzagging strokes suggest movement in water. The museum's catalogue connects these to a global deluge, a meaning that belongs to its interpretive account. The visible forms do not amount to an illustrated flood with a single horizon, location or named crew. Their expressive power lies partly in how they break up the painted space: the viewer senses forces pulling and crossing before settling on a story. [1].
The Guggenheim also notes a serpent and, more cautiously, perhaps cannons. That adverb matters. A line that suggests a barrel or weapon can retain the ambiguity of a forceful graphic stroke. It should not be described as an unequivocal row of artillery. Nor does a serpent automatically mean that the canvas depicts a specific biblical scene from start to finish. The owner's reading sees several signs of threat and disruption, but the image keeps them compressed into a loose, energetic network rather than presenting each as an isolated emblem. [1].
At the right, the museum picks out an embracing couple, a shining sun and a possible church or tower in the upper corner. These forms support its account of hope or redemption, especially when compared with the troubled left. Yet they do not create a neat division in which one half is wholly dark and the other wholly bright. Black lines continue into the right half; vivid colours are present across the surface. The contrast works as an uneven movement through the painting, a change in emphasis rather than a hard border between two separate panels. [1]; [2].
The tower-like form at the top right is a useful test case for reading Kandinsky. The museum says it appears to be a church or tower, leaving open which association a viewer finds stronger. Its place high in the composition can help a hopeful reading, but no cited label identifies a particular real building. Looking closely at its neighbouring blue, white and red is more productive than forcing it into a map. The same principle applies to the embracing couple: its human closeness matters even though its bodies have been simplified into coloured fragments and outlines. [1].
Improvisation and Kandinsky's inner subject
The Guggenheim places Kandinsky's Improvisations within the years 1909–14 and explains the musical term in relation to his ambition for painting. Kandinsky described such works as expressions arising from an inner character or internal nature. The museum notes his interest in experimental composers, including Arnold Schoenberg, and in the possibility that senses such as colour and sound could be felt together. That context helps explain the title, but it should not be stretched into a claim that this canvas illustrates a specific musical composition. [1].
“Improvisation” likewise does not mean the painting was made without decisions. The surviving canvas is arranged with large coloured zones, crossing dark lines and motifs that recur on different sides. The label describes a kind of artistic impulse and Kandinsky's chosen category; it does not supply a studio diary recording the sequence of strokes. The image can be described as forceful and spontaneous in effect while still recognising that its formal organisation demands attention. The historic explanation of the series should illuminate what can be seen rather than stand in for it. [1].
Kandinsky's appeal to inner experience also helps account for the canvas's mixture of identifiable and dissolved forms. The boat, waves and couple are accessible to a viewer after guidance; the painting does not abandon subjects wholesale. But their identities are only one part of what the lines and colours do. Curves carry the eye across the field, and colours set different levels of intensity without defining stable floors, skies or walls. The Guggenheim describes this as a favoured opposition of destructive events and redemption. One can use that account to compare the left and right while resisting an exact allegorical label for every patch. [1].
The inherited web article praised the painting's dark contrast and energetic lines but offered little way to verify its assertions. It also suggested broad claims about why Kandinsky chose particular colours without an object-specific source. The Guggenheim's actual list of motifs and its cautious language provide stronger questions: where does a wave become only a curve, which cluster can bear the reading of a couple, and how far does the left-right emotional contrast hold when the same black lines cross both areas? These questions connect interpretation to the physical image. [1].
What Second Version identifies
Second Version is part of the Guggenheim's official title, with the German zweite Fassung in its catalogue entry. It distinguishes this painting from another version of Improvisation 28. The catalogue number 37.239, date 1912 and medium oil on canvas hold this article to the specific work in the Guggenheim Founding Collection. The version term does not by itself establish a detailed chronology of sketches, the fate of an earlier canvas or a later act of recreation. Such claims require separate documentary evidence and should not be inferred from the title alone. [1].
The museum's more recent exhibition checklist gives 112.6 × 162.5 cm, a size also printed in Guggenheim Bilbao's 2020 Kandinsky dossier. An older Guggenheim teaching guide gives 111.4 × 162.1 cm for the same accession. The article uses the later, repeated owner measurements rather than quietly combining them. Both sources confirm that this is a broad, substantial canvas; the small difference does not change the visual analysis, but recording which source governs the figure is part of keeping the object's identity precise. [1]; [3]; [2].
The 2021 checklist documents this painting's inclusion in Vasily Kandinsky: Around the Circle, an exhibition held in New York from October 2021 to September 2022. That is evidence of a particular display period, not a claim about where the work hangs today. A current gallery location would require a live owner object page or exhibition listing. The stable fact for this article is its Guggenheim ownership and accession. [1].
Image and viewing scale
The existing site splash has been visually checked against the owner publication and remains on the page. The picture's size and the density of its lines make close reproduction attractive, but finding a larger file is optional. Guggenheim press materials set restricted conditions for image use. A Commons file labels a reproduction public domain, yet its embedded metadata names a museum photographer and says licensing permission should be sought. Under the project's requirement for plainly usable images, that conflict is enough to abandon the candidate. No new download has been added to the guide ledger, and the article remains complete with its existing image. [3]; [4].
On the original canvas, a viewer can trace black strokes across more than a metre and a half of width; in the web image, that travel is compressed. The contrast still reads: dense leftward agitation and an opening toward the right, with forms poised between subject and abstraction. That visual movement gives the Guggenheim's interpretation of destruction and hope something observable to rest on, while leaving the exact identity of the most elusive signs open. [1].
Kandinsky artworks directory
Frequently Asked Questions
The Guggenheim dates it to 1912. [1].
It is oil on canvas. The Guggenheim's 2021 checklist gives 112.6 × 162.5 cm; an older teaching guide prints slightly different measurements. [1]; [2].
The Guggenheim identifies a boat, waves, serpent, embracing couple, sun and a possible church or tower. It calls the cannon-like forms uncertain. [1].
Guggenheim interpretation connects the turbulent left with cataclysm and the right with hope or redemption. This is a historically grounded reading of schematic forms, not a definitive label for each mark. [2].
No. Second Version is in the owner's title and German subtitle. The Guggenheim identifies this particular 1912 oil as accession 37.239. [1].
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York holds it in the Founding Collection, by gift, accession 37.239. [1].
Discussion
What do you notice first in Improvisation 28 (Second Version)? 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 the boat and wave motifs become visible among the black lines?
How does your experience change from the crowded left toward the right?
Which details support the Guggenheim’s destruction-and-hope reading without fixing every mark?
Join the Conversation
Add your observation below and tell us which part of the artwork led you to it.
References
- Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Vasily Kandinsky: Around the Circle, 2021 exhibition checklist and interpretive entry. View source.
- Guggenheim, The Great Upheaval teaching guide. View source.
- Guggenheim Bilbao, Kandinsky dossier, 2020. View source.
- Wikimedia Commons file page, including conflicting photograph metadata. View source.
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