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
Red Spot II by Wassily Kandinsky: Introduction
Red Spot II (Roter Fleck II) brings a large red form into a field of black, white and smaller coloured shapes. Wassily Kandinsky painted it in 1921, near the end of his years back in Russia and before he began teaching at the Bauhaus. The oil belongs to Munich's Lenbachhaus, which records it as a 131 × 181 cm canvas. Its circles, arcs, triangles and lines can look precise at first, yet their irregular meetings give the picture a more unsettled rhythm than a measured geometric chart. [1].
The museum's conservation account provides rare physical evidence of how part of the painting was made. A small mark in a yellow area is a compass point inserted after the yellow paint was laid down; microscopic examination helped establish the order of a nearby brown circle and blue forms. Such details let us discuss decisions on the canvas, not only a broad shift toward geometry. They do not turn one local sequence into a complete step-by-step account of the whole work. [2].
Annotated details in Red Spot II
Select a numbered point to examine three close views of the work.
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Details from RED SPOT II
Three close views of the work.
Red spot
The large red form holds attention near the lower right.
Dark and light discs
Circular shapes sit within the long black diagonal at the upper left.
Central fragments
Angular and curved marks cross in the middle of the painting.
Reproduction from the linked collection record, CC0 1.0. View image source and terms.
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Curator Megan Fontanella introduces Kandinsky and the Guggenheim collection.
Watch on YouTubeAt a Glance
- Artist and date:Wassily Kandinsky, 1921.
- Owner's title:Roter Fleck II; English Red Spot II.
- Medium and dimensions:Oil on canvas, 131 × 181 cm.
- Collection:Lenbachhaus, Munich, G 17562.
- Acquisition:Purchased in 1989 with support from Hypo-Bank; not a 1957 Münter gift.
- Image:Existing page reproduction retained; the owner record explicitly labels its downloadable image CC0 1.0.
Where this work sits in Kandinsky’s career
The Blue Rider
1903Composition VII
1913Composition VIII
1923Several Circles
1926Sky Blue
1940Contents
- Annotated details
- A painting at the end of the Russian years
- Reading the large red form
- Geometry without a rigid system
- A compass mark under the microscope
- What the title can and cannot tell us
- From Russia toward the Bauhaus
- Acquisition, image and continuing study
- Frequently asked questions
- References
A painting at the end of the Russian years
Kandinsky returned to Russia after the First World War began in 1914. He made art in changed circumstances and took on responsibilities in cultural institutions. By 1921 those roles included work connected with the Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences. MoMA's chronology dates his departure for Berlin to December 1921 and the start of Bauhaus teaching in Weimar to 1922. Red Spot II belongs to the Russian period, even though its circles and carefully organised forms can look forward to concerns that continued at the Bauhaus. [3]; [1].
The Lenbachhaus's older curatorial essay describes war and revolution as severely disrupting his painting. That is a broad historical reading, not proof that he stopped producing art throughout the interval. Dated works such as Moscow I of 1916 and In Grey of 1919 show continued, varied activity. The Moscow and Russian years guide traces paper works, city views, large oils and institutional work together. In this setting, the 1921 canvas marks another formal choice rather than art returning after an absolute silence. [1]; [4].
The object's documented facts help separate it from a generic picture of “geometric Kandinsky.” It is a large horizontal canvas, 131 cm high and 181 cm wide. The owner records a K enclosed in a triangle with the number 21 at lower left. Its inventory is G 17562. These particulars matter when titles appear in translation or when readers compare reproductions of related work from the early 1920s. [1].
Reading the large red form
The red form appears near the centre-right, with a broad rounded upper edge and a more pointed or clipped lower edge. Against the light ground it has weight, but it does not dominate by size alone. A dark, angled area at the upper left presses toward the centre; white cuts a large space around the red; smaller coloured marks offer counterweights elsewhere. The title helps locate a prominent feature, then the rest of the painting refuses to become mere background. [1].
Black works in several ways. The large upper wedge establishes a strong diagonal, while smaller dark circles and short curves punctuate the open field. Yellow, blue and green appear in relatively compact forms, set against expansive white. A curving orange or yellow passage toward the left helps carry the eye around the red rather than straight into it. This creates an active relationship between concentration and dispersal: a large named form, but many smaller events that keep the eye moving. [1].
The arrangement can feel airy and densely worked at once. Much of the canvas is light, yet line and shape repeatedly cross its apparent openness. No simple grid governs the whole image. Some forms seem carefully drawn while others bend, fray or meet at unexpected angles. Describing those differences is more useful than assuming “geometry” means mechanical regularity. The Lenbachhaus specifically calls attention to gentle boundaries and irregular grouping. [1].
Geometry without a rigid system
The museum connects the painting's sharper forms and smoother application of colour to Kandinsky's contact with Russian Constructivist art, naming figures including Kazimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin and Lyubov Popova in its discussion. It also stresses a difference: Kandinsky did not simply join a logical construction of cleanly assembled parts. Circles, arcs, lines and triangles coexist, but their limits and adjacencies are not equally strict. The source offers a historically informed comparison, not evidence that any named artist designed this painting with him. [1].
This distinction can be tested visually. A circle may be precise in one area, while an adjacent colour plane has a softer edge or changes width. A straight line crosses a curved one without resolving into a stable architectural frame. Shapes remain individual enough to recognise, but their relationship is not a repeatable diagram. Lenbachhaus's curators describe Kandinsky as distancing himself from Constructivism while learning from the era's formal changes. That position is more accurate than labelling him a Constructivist solely because circles and triangles are present. [1].
The museum also observes that the circle would become especially important in Kandinsky's Bauhaus years. The claim concerns a recurring form and the artist's later practice, not a guarantee that every disk in 1921 has the same meaning. A shape can be visually useful because it combines clear boundary and internal tension. In Red Spot II, circles are one kind of figure among many; their repetition and difference help build the rhythm of the field. [1].
A compass mark under the microscope
Lenbachhaus conservator Ulrike Fischer described examination of a group near the lower left: a yellow arch, elongated blue ovals and a brown circle. Under a stereomicroscope, the team determined that the brown circle was painted after the yellow and blue forms. A small hole in the yellow paint was not a missing chip. It was the point where a compass had been set into paint already applied to the canvas. This is unusually concrete evidence that Kandinsky adjusted and marked part of the composition in stages. [2].
The conservation account adds that the compass's pencil line did not trace an entire circle around all those forms. It left the previously painted blue and yellow areas aside, marking the portion intended for brown. That detail matters because it shows a specific local decision: the artist used a geometric tool while respecting forms already on the canvas. The picture's appearance is therefore neither wholly spontaneous gesture nor pure pre-planned diagram. A compass could help make one form within an evolving painted field. [2].
This finding has limits. It establishes the order of the inspected yellow, blue and brown elements, not the full chronology of every line and colour across a two-metre-wide canvas. The same museum article discusses conservation of other Kandinsky works, including problems of cracking and surface deposits illustrated by Improvisation 19 and Improvisation 26. Those examples should not be mistaken for documented damage to Red Spot II. The small compass hole is evidence of making, not a defect requiring a dramatic restoration story. [2].
What the title can and cannot tell us
The owner title Roter Fleck II points to a red spot and includes a numeral. The red area is indeed prominent. The numeral belongs to the recorded title, but the source does not provide a documented paired canvas or sequence that this page can identify with confidence. Inventing the appearance, ownership or date of a “Red Spot I” would make the title do more evidentiary work than it can. Here the exact inventory G 17562 identifies the painting under discussion. [1].
The red form is not a translated code for a single emotional state. It changes character because of the white space around it and the more abrupt black area elsewhere. Kandinsky's interest in what pure forms and colour relations could do is documented by the owner essay, but a fixed dictionary of meaning is not supplied for this canvas. Viewers can describe how the red mass pulls and how smaller shapes resist it without assigning every shape an unverified symbol. [1].
The title also sets a useful problem of scale. A “spot” sounds small and isolated; this red form is broad, and the painting is physically large. That difference between word and object can draw attention back to the composition. The red may feel concentrated because it is surrounded by open light areas, even while it occupies a substantial part of the canvas. Looking at the real dimensions guards against thinking of the painting as only the thumbnail through which many readers first encounter it. [1].
From Russia toward the Bauhaus
The date 1921 puts the painting just before Kandinsky's move from Russia to Berlin in December and before his 1922 Bauhaus appointment. It is therefore wrong to list it as a Bauhaus work because it anticipates some of the forms he explored there. The relation is chronological and visual: he made this canvas in the Russian years, then worked in a new school setting in Germany. Our Bauhaus years guide begins with that later institutional phase. [3]; [1].
Comparing Red Spot II with Composition VIII of 1923 shows continuity and difference. Both use circles and distinct geometric elements, but the later canvas has its own organisation, scale, owner and date. The comparison should not collapse the 1921 painting into a draft for another work. It can instead reveal Kandinsky's continuing questions about how individual forms hold together in an abstract image. [1]; [5].
The Lenbachhaus's description of a shift from pre-war expression to cooler geometric groupings is valuable as an interpretation of development. It is not a rule that each later work is colder or that Kandinsky had stopped responding to visual associations. The very different limits of forms in Red Spot II make it resistant to a neat style label. Some shapes are exact enough to imply measurement; others remain irregular or soft. Kandinsky's change had texture and overlap, not just a switch of vocabulary. [1].
Acquisition, image and continuing study
The Lenbachhaus acquired Red Spot II by purchase in 1989, with support from Hypo-Bank funds. This is not one of the works that entered in Gabriele Münter's 1957 gift. A prominent Kandinsky painting in the museum's collection can arrive by a different route, and the accession G 17562 records this one's identity. The owner currently marks it as not on display, a status that can change with loans and installations. [1].
The owner's downloadable image is explicitly labelled CC0 1.0, and the annotation map here is sized for online viewing. The conservation article's microscopic details also remind us that no ordinary web image can show everything a close examination of the canvas reveals. [1]; [2].
The painting matters because it makes the 1921 transition tangible. Its dated signature, collection record and microscope evidence locate a real canvas with a particular making process. Its red form and surrounding figures show Kandinsky drawing on more defined geometry while retaining uneven encounters among shapes. The work belongs to a Russian-period artistic life that continued through institutional pressures and into departure, and its questions carried forward without making this canvas a retrospective Bauhaus exercise. [1]; [3].
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Frequently Asked Questions
The Lenbachhaus dates the oil to 1921 and records a lower-left K-in-triangle signature with “21.” It was made before Kandinsky began Bauhaus teaching in 1922. [1]; [3].
It belongs to the Lenbachhaus in Munich, inventory G 17562. The museum purchased it in 1989 with support from Hypo-Bank funds. [1].
No. Its 1921 date belongs to Kandinsky's final Russian year. He left Russia in December 1921 and joined the Bauhaus faculty in 1922. Its forms can be compared with later Bauhaus work without changing the date or place of the canvas. [1]; [3].
The Lenbachhaus notes contact with Russian Constructivist art but also stresses his distance from its systematic construction. The painting's geometrical forms meet with irregular and sometimes soft boundaries. [1].
Lenbachhaus conservators found that a compass point was pressed into an already painted yellow area to mark part of a brown circle. Microscopic study shows the brown circle followed nearby yellow and blue forms; it does not establish the order of the entire canvas. [2].
Yes. The Lenbachhaus labels the downloadable image for this exact object CC0 1.0. The guide ledger records the saved owner file and source URL; the existing page image is retained. [1].
Discussion
What do you notice first in Red Spot II? 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 smaller form most changes the weight of the large red spot?
How does the conservator’s compass evidence change your sense of how the painting was made?
Where do the irregular edges resist a purely measured geometric scheme?
Join the Conversation
Add your observation below and tell us which part of the artwork led you to it.
References
- Lenbachhaus, Roter Fleck II. Owner facts, German curatorial essay and CC0 image. View source.
- Lenbachhaus, Ulrike Fischer, conservation account. Compass point, local paint sequence and correctly attributed figure captions. View source.
- MoMA, Kandinsky: Compositions chronology. 1921 departure and 1922 Bauhaus appointment. View source.
- Centre Pompidou, In Grey. Evidence of continuing large-scale Russian-period painting. View source.
- Guggenheim, Composition VIII. Separate 1923 comparison. View source.
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