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 9 by Wassily Kandinsky: Introduction
Bright colour cuts through Improvisation 9, but the painting is not an arrangement of colour alone. A small church appears high on the right; a rider can be found toward the left. The Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, which owns the work, also discerns a faint group of people and a reclining giant. Those figures are surrounded by heavy dark borders and broad patches of blue, green, yellow and pink. Kandinsky painted the square oil on canvas in 1910. It measures 110 × 110 cm and carries the museum's inventory number 2723. [1].
The museum calls the scene fairy-tale-like, a useful description of its strange shifts in scale. Yet the picture does not settle into a story with a definite beginning and end. Its strong colours cross the figures' boundaries and compete with them for attention. This is the tension that makes the work distinctive: identifiable motifs invite one sort of looking, while paint and colour lead the eye along a less literal route. The owner describes the canvas as an important threshold in Kandinsky's move toward the more forceful abstractions of 1911–14. That is a curatorial judgement about his development, grounded in the painting's visible pull between figures and colour. [1].
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Watch on YouTubeAt a Glance
- Artist and title:Wassily Kandinsky, Improvisation 9.
- Date:1910, according to the owning museum.
- Medium and dimensions:Oil on canvas, 110 × 110 cm.
- Collection:Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany, inventory 2723; acquired by the museum in 1965 with Lotto funds.
- Visible motifs:A rider, church, partly seen group at left and reclining giant at right in the museum's interpretation.
- Early reception:Art historian Franz Stadler chose this painting after Kandinsky offered him a work in thanks for a talk supporting the new art; Stadler wrote to Kandinsky about it on 17 March 1913.
- Separate preparation:Centre Pompidou's Study for Improvisation 9 is a small 1910 graphite diagram, not the Stuttgart oil.
Where this work sits in Kandinsky’s career
The Blue Rider
1903Composition VII
1913Composition VIII
1923Several Circles
1926Sky Blue
1940Contents
- Finding the scene among the colour
- Figurative forms and independent colour
- A small drawing before the canvas
- Franz Stadler and an early viewer
- Looking again
- Frequently asked questions
- References
Finding the scene among the colour
The church at the upper right is a good place to begin. Its blue facade and dark roof make a comparatively legible shape against the surrounding colour. From there the eye can travel diagonally down toward the broad yellow and pale blue forms. On the left, a smaller rider seems to rise against green and violet. The two landmarks help orient the viewer, but they do not make a stable, continuous landscape. Between them, colour changes abruptly, so that near and far are difficult to sort. These close-looking observations can be checked against the image published by the Staatsgalerie and the motifs named in its account. [1].
Along the lower left, the museum finds a group of figures only partly visible. Dark enclosing lines suggest bodies and heads, while nearby red, yellow and green areas keep their edges uncertain. The reclining giant at right is harder to reduce to a conventional figure. The owner's description asks viewers to consider the sweeping form as a body, yet its curves also bind together large colour areas. A reader may not see each named figure immediately. That delay is part of the painting's effect, because colour and contour can act together as representation or pull apart into their own rhythm. [1].
The square format gives the visual activity room to spread in several directions. A sharp dark passage cuts through the middle, while warmer forms gather at the lower right and cool blues and greens run across the upper portion. Neither a single horizon nor one central figure controls the whole. The eye moves between compact details, such as the church, and large areas that do not name any object. Kandinsky kept both modes of attention active within a canvas as high as it is wide. [1].
Figurative forms and independent colour
The Staatsgalerie describes dark borders around some motifs as almost stained-glass-like. The comparison helps explain why a rider or figure can remain visible amid intense colour. Yet stained glass is an analogy for the outlines, not evidence that this oil was designed as a window. The same borders divide patches of colour that do not correspond neatly to bodies, buildings or hills. What looks like a contour in one place becomes a line of movement in another. [1].
That is why calling the canvas simply abstract or simply figurative misses its strongest feature. The museum sees a reciprocal effect between pictured forms and colour freed from describing objects. A church is present, but its blue is more than the blue of a building. A rider may be picked out, while a neighbouring yellow curve works through its own scale and force. Such shifts are visible across the canvas. They make the scene appear and then loosen it again as the viewer looks. [1].
The title Improvisation suggests an expressive approach, but it does not document how long the painting took to make. Kandinsky used the term for works concerned with inward experience rather than a direct record of the outside world. Here that concern coexists with a rider, a church and fantastic figures. The visible subject was not simply abandoned; it was woven into an arrangement whose colour has its own energy. Reading the title as a guarantee of a single spontaneous session would claim knowledge of the studio process that the object record does not provide. [1]; [4].
A small drawing before the canvas
The Centre Pompidou has a separate Study for Improvisation 9, dated 1910. It is a graphite diagram on paper measuring only 13.05 × 16.55 cm, inventory AM 81-65-184. The museum describes it as a Schéma pour Improvisation IX and cross-references the catalogue number of the Stuttgart oil. The drawing entered the French collection through Nina Kandinsky's 1981 bequest. These details connect the sheet to the painting while keeping their materials, sizes and histories distinct. [2]; [1].
The existence of a diagram matters for how the term Improvisation is understood. Kandinsky could explore a structure in graphite and still pursue an inward or intuitive effect in oil. The drawing does not show that every colour was predetermined; graphite cannot record the particular blue, violet and yellow relations of the finished canvas. It does show a preparatory stage for this numbered work. A viewer can therefore separate the painting's lively appearance from an unsupported story that it arrived fully formed without planning. [2].
Franz Stadler and an early viewer
The Stuttgart museum records a striking early episode. Art historian Franz Stadler gave a talk during the second exhibition of the Redaktion Der Blaue Reiter, arguing that the new art deserved recognition. Kandinsky offered him a painting as thanks, and Stadler selected Improvisation 9. On 17 March 1913, he wrote to Kandinsky after hanging it. His letter, quoted by the museum, conveys immediate pleasure in living with the work. The episode gives this particular canvas an early owner and a documented response, rather than only a generic place in an avant-garde movement. [1].
Stadler's response is useful, but it should not be made to stand for every viewer in 1913. He had already spoken publicly in favour of Kandinsky's circle and then had the chance to choose a work. His enthusiasm belongs to that particular relationship. It does, however, show that the painting's mixture of unfamiliar form and powerful colour could be valued by a contemporary who encountered it close at hand. A study of Kandinsky's exhibition history also lists the painting, oil catalogue number 335, in a January 1914 Dresden expressionist exhibition. The record places it in continuing circulation after Stadler's letter, although it does not establish every stage of its later ownership. [1]; [3].
The Staatsgalerie says it acquired the canvas in 1965 with Lotto funds. That is the secure collection milestone in its public object record. It does not provide a complete chain from Stadler's possession to the museum, so an account of the painting should not invent one. The inventory number 2723, the owner record and its catalogue references make the Stuttgart object identifiable even where the intervening provenance is not stated. [1].
Looking again
With the documentary history in mind, the painting remains visually unsettled. The church holds its place at the top right, but the eye is drawn away by the yellow band below. A rider can be located, yet its contours give way to large patches of colour. The left-hand figures and the giant on the right may emerge differently on each viewing. Stadler's delight in having the canvas before him is understandable without requiring the viewer to solve every form. The work asks for repeated looking because it offers both a fantastic scene and an independent play of colour. [1].
The painting's documented study and history sharpen that experience. It was a planned object with a preparatory diagram, a gift selected by an early supporter and a later place in Stuttgart's collection. None of those facts dissolves the visual ambiguity. They allow the 1910 canvas to be understood as a particular work, rather than a generic example of Kandinsky's passage toward abstraction. [2]; [1].
Kandinsky artworks directory
Frequently Asked Questions
The Staatsgalerie Stuttgart dates the painting to 1910. [1].
It is oil on canvas, 110 × 110 cm, inventory 2723 at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. [1].
The owning museum identifies a rider, church, barely seen group on the left and reclining giant on the right. Their contours mingle with bright colour areas that also work independently of depicted objects. [1].
No. The museum describes a deliberate tension between figural motifs and colours released from any one object's description. It regards that tension as important to Kandinsky's development. [1].
Stadler was an art historian who spoke in support of the new art at a Blue Rider exhibition. Kandinsky offered him a painting in thanks; he chose Improvisation 9 and wrote to the artist about it on 17 March 1913. [1].
Discussion
What do you notice first in Improvisation 9? 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 painted shape first helps you locate the rider or church?
Where do the dark borders hold a figure together, and where does colour move beyond it?
What does Stadler’s 1913 response establish about one early viewer?
Join the Conversation
Add your observation below and tell us which part of the artwork led you to it.
References
- Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Improvisation 9, inventory 2723, object record and image rights. View source.
- Centre Pompidou, Étude pour Improvisation 9, AM 81-65-184. View source.
- Christina Bartosch, Exhibiting Abstraction: Strategies in the Propagation of an Avant-Garde 1908–1915. View source.
- Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, October 2023 programme on Improvisation 9. View source.
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