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
Munich-Schwabing with the Church of St Ursula by Wassily Kandinsky: Introduction
A church dome and slim tower rise above a dark blue city edge, while a broad field of green, red, yellow and blue pushes toward the viewer. Wassily Kandinsky's 1908 painting has long circulated in English as Munich-Schwabing with the Church of St Ursula. The Lenbachhaus in Munich, which owns the original, catalogues it as München – Vor der Stadt (Munich – Outside the City), inventory GMS 35. These are two names attached to the same image, not two church paintings. The museum records the work as oil on cardboard, 68.8 × 49 cm, and notes Kandinsky's blue signature and date at the lower left. [1].
Annotated details in Munich-Schwabing with the Church of St Ursula (München – Vor der Stadt)
Select a numbered point to examine three close views of the work.
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Details from MUNICH-SCHWABING WITH THE CHURCH OF ST URSULA (MÜNCHEN – VOR DER STADT)
Three close views of the work.
Church tower
The tower rises above the block-like buildings.
City edge
Short bright marks make the buildings meet the green foreground.
Foreground figures
Small figures occupy the lower part of the picture.
Reproduction from the linked collection record, CC0 1.0. View image source and terms.
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Watch on YouTubeAt a Glance
- Artist:Wassily Kandinsky.
- Museum title:München – Vor der Stadt (Munich – Outside the City); this page retains the established descriptive English title.
- Date:1908, both in the Lenbachhaus record and in Kandinsky's painted inscription.
- Medium and size:Oil on cardboard, 68.8 × 49 cm.
- Collection:Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München, GMS 35.
- Collection history:With Gabriele Münter from 1926 to 1957; her 1957 gift brought it to the Lenbachhaus.
- Visible motif:A blue sky, city buildings and church forms above an expansive foreground of sharply contrasting colour.
Where this work sits in Kandinsky’s career
The Blue Rider
1903Composition VII
1913Composition VIII
1923Several Circles
1926Sky Blue
1940Contents
- Annotated details
- A city beyond the foreground
- Schwabing and the moment of 1908
- From small studies to stronger colour
- Two titles and one original
- Frequently asked questions
- References
A city beyond the foreground
The top third contains enough architecture to anchor the scene in Munich. A tall dark green building stands at the left. At the right, a reddish vertical tower and rounded dome identify a church form. In between, smaller roofs, blue horizontal marks and yellow-orange shapes crowd together. Kandinsky offers a city edge rather than a measured street prospect. The viewer recognises buildings, but their outlines compete with the brushstrokes that make them. The museum calls the work a view of the artist's new surroundings on the edge of old Munich. [1].
A large, pale cloud presses into the upper left against a very deep blue sky. The sky is not a quiet backdrop: its saturated colour is as emphatic as the red architecture and the bright field below. The Lenbachhaus curators describe intense colour, almost explosive in effect, and draw attention to the dominant blue concentrated in the sky and in parts of the architecture. Related dark tones at the bottom of the painting balance it. That observation helps explain why the image feels joined across its entire height even though the field and buildings are so different. [1].
Most of the picture is given to the foreground. It could be described simply as a meadow, but that label misses how forcefully the paint asserts itself. Green patches run into yellow, blue and red; pale strokes shift to dark clusters. The ground does not recede through gentle changes of tone. Instead, Kandinsky moves the eye by setting colours against one another. Near the lower centre are small, dark shapes that can be read as people gathered in the grass. They are tiny beside the sweeping bands around them. Their presence gives a sense of scale while leaving the field visually dominant. These identifications come from the image; the museum's account does not provide a detailed map of each figure. [1].
The broad pale and pink strokes at the right of the field can be difficult to name as specific things. They still carry the movement of the scene. A winding red area near the middle separates green zones, while yellow marks seem to leap across it. This is one reason the painting is best encountered as a whole rather than treated as a puzzle in which every patch must become a tree, road or person. The town remains present, but colour has its own independent momentum. [1].
Schwabing and the moment of 1908
The Lenbachhaus connects München – Vor der Stadt with an important turn in Kandinsky's life. He and Gabriele Münter had spent the summer of 1908 in Murnau, in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, where they worked alongside Alexej Jawlensky and Marianne von Werefkin. The museum describes that experience as a release from several years of experimentation and as a breakthrough toward more individual pictorial means. Kandinsky and Münter then settled in Munich and took a shared apartment in Schwabing in September 1908. This painting was among the early works made in the new period. [1].
That sequence matters because the subject is still geographically recognisable. Kandinsky had not stopped looking at the world around him. The museum's title, literally Munich – Outside the City, describes an edge or threshold. The buildings appear beyond a large open area, rather than surrounding the viewer as they would in a street scene. The descriptive English title directs attention to Schwabing and St Ursula, but the owner's title puts the relation between city and outskirts first. Both ways of naming it can help a reader look more closely; the museum title is the secure object identifier. [1].
The Lenbachhaus curators link the picture's bold, relatively flat colour to the Fauves. They suggest that Jawlensky, who had worked in Paris in Henri Matisse's studio, helped transmit that example to Kandinsky. This is a curatorial reading of artistic influence rather than a claim that the painting copies a specific French work. Strong pure colours and forceful application suited Kandinsky's wish to make the painted material and the surface of the picture more apparent. The scene is no longer organised mainly to reproduce an atmospheric view. [1].
From small studies to stronger colour
Kandinsky's shift did not emerge in a single moment. The Lenbachhaus essay recalls his earlier small oil studies from nature. In those, he had already given colour considerable freedom. The curators nevertheless distinguish their small, late Impressionist-like strokes from the newer work's vigorous, broader handling. München – Vor der Stadt joins a familiar observed setting to a more assertive arrangement of marks. The colours feel less like a transcription of a particular hour's light and more like a structure built across the surface. [1].
The painting's upright proportions are part of that structure. The relatively narrow strip of architecture does not span a panoramic view. Instead, it runs along the top while a much larger foreground rises from the bottom in rhythmic bands. In the museum's description, waves of strong blue, green, yellow and red build the image upward from the lower zone. The viewer's attention alternates between the near field and the compressed skyline. Even the church's vertical tower has to compete with the repeated directions of colour below it. [1].
The support is cardboard, not canvas, according to the museum's exact record. That distinction is useful because reproductions and derivative captions sometimes label this image differently. The owner's inventory number, dimensions, signature and photograph form a stronger identification than an isolated caption. Kandinsky's name and 1908 are painted in blue at the lower left. The inscription ties the vivid foreground and dark city view to a securely dated work just after the Murnau summer. [1].
Two titles and one original
Readers may find the image under Munich-Schwabing with the Church of St Ursula, Munich – Outside the City or the German München – Vor der Stadt. The painting illustrated on this page matches the Lenbachhaus photograph of GMS 35, including the large pale cloud, the red church elements and the small dark group in the foreground. The museum title and inventory establish the object's identity; the inherited English title remains a useful signpost for people who know it that way. This does not make every Kandinsky view of a Munich church the same painting. [1].
The Lenbachhaus records Gabriele Münter as holding the work from 1926 to 1957, after transfer from the artist, and lists her 1957 donation as the museum's acquisition. The online record currently says it is not on display. The collection history is firmer and more lasting than any promise about where a visitor might see it on a particular day. It also places this Munich scene among the many Kandinsky works Münter preserved and ultimately brought into the public collection. [1].
What makes the painting memorable is the balance between a place that can be named and a painted surface that resists settling down. The church and buildings give the scene its location; the cloud, blue sky and surging field make its visual force. Kandinsky's 1908 inscription fixes the moment. His colour opens it outward, toward the stronger departures from literal landscape that followed. That last connection is an interpretation of the image and the museum's account of his change in 1908, not a claim that this particular work is wholly abstract. [1].
Kandinsky artworks directory
Frequently Asked Questions
The Lenbachhaus dates the painting to 1908 and records Kandinsky's blue signature and 1908 inscription at the lower left. [1].
The Lenbachhaus catalogues the original as München – Vor der Stadt. The English title on this page is an established descriptive name for the same image. The museum's inventory is GMS 35. [1].
It is oil on cardboard, measuring 68.8 × 49 cm, according to the museum. Some derivative captions say canvas, but the collection record identifies this specific object as cardboard. [1].
It belongs to the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München. Gabriele Münter gave it to the museum in 1957. The online record presently lists it as not on display. [1].
The large field lets the broad, contrasting strokes carry the work's energy. The Lenbachhaus describes waves of blue, green, yellow and red building upward, while the city and strong blue sky occupy the upper part. The effect is an expressive balance between near ground and distant buildings. [1].
It still depicts a recognisable Munich setting with buildings and church forms. Its unusually free colour and paint handling show the change the Lenbachhaus associates with Kandinsky's work after the 1908 Murnau summer. Calling it a landscape at the edge of greater abstraction is more precise than calling it completely non-representational. [1].
Discussion
What do you notice first in Munich-Schwabing with the Church of St Ursula? 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 field change the scale of the distant city?
Which colours connect the foreground with the sky?
What does the museum title add to the familiar English title?
Join the Conversation
Add your observation below and tell us which part of the artwork led you to it.
References
- Lenbachhaus, Wassily Kandinsky, München – Vor der Stadt, GMS 35: object record, image, provenance and curatorial essay. View source.
- Helmut Friedel and Annegret Hoberg, Der Blaue Reiter im Lenbachhaus München (Prestel, 2007), excerpted as the work text on the Lenbachhaus object page. View source.
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