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
To the Unknown Voice by Wassily Kandinsky: Introduction
A web of black lines, small dark shapes and pale colour appears to float on a light sheet. Wassily Kandinsky made this watercolour in September 1916, marking it “K IX 16”. The Centre Pompidou catalogues it under the German title An eine Stimme, with the French A une voix; in English it is often called To the Unknown Voice. The original is watercolour and India ink on paper, 23.7 × 15.8 cm, inventory AM 81-65-101. Its title carries a story about Nina Andreevskaya, Kandinsky's future wife, but the painted image offers no straightforward portrait of a speaker. [1]; [2].
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Watch on YouTubeAt a Glance
- Artist and owner title:Wassily Kandinsky, An eine Stimme (A une voix), commonly translated To the Unknown Voice.
- Date:September 1916, signed and dated “K IX 16”.
- Medium and size:Watercolour and India ink on paper, 23.7 × 15.8 cm.
- Collection:Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Pompidou, AM 81-65-101.
- Acquisition:Nina Kandinsky bequest, 1981.
- Visual structure:Dark line clusters, slanting axes, small coloured passages and pale washes on a light ground.
- Distinct object:Pompidou also owns a larger, monochrome 1916 drawing titled A une voix, AM 81-65-265; it is not this sheet.
Where this work sits in Kandinsky’s career
The Blue Rider
1903Composition VII
1913Composition VIII
1923Several Circles
1926Sky Blue
1940Contents
- Lines held in a pale field
- Nina Kandinsky's remembered voice
- In the Russian years
- A lasting small work
- Frequently asked questions
- References
Lines held in a pale field
The image is small but visually intense. Black strokes run in several directions around a dense central knot. Some are long and thin, crossing the sheet like sudden signals; others gather into compact dark forms. A few coloured curves and washes thread through them. Because the ground remains pale, the marks never fill every part of the paper. Instead, they seem to hover in front of it. The exhibition catalogue Kandinsky: Russian and Bauhaus Years 1915–1933 draws attention to this floating quality, produced by slanting axes and pale washes around the darker centre. [2]; [1].
At the top, several separate dark accents reach toward the edge, while a diagonal coloured line seems to pass through them. The middle is far more entangled. A partly rounded passage meets black hatching, a curved band and small strokes that can feel like fragments of lettering or motion. The lower region opens again into broad, pale space interrupted by a few long lines. This movement from scattered top marks to a concentrated centre and then outward is one way the sheet gains rhythm. It need not be decoded as a map of real objects. [1].
The contrast between India ink and watercolour matters. Ink gives Kandinsky dark, decisive strokes, while watery colour creates translucent areas and softened edges. Where the two meet, the eye alternates between sharp marks and less defined fields. The museum's medium line names both materials; describing the work as merely a drawing in ink would leave out its colour. The card-sized dimensions also distinguish it from Kandinsky's much larger paintings of 1916. This is an intimate paper work whose density rewards close looking. [1].
The composition can evoke a burst of sound or an inner event. That is a plausible response to a work titled for a voice, but it remains interpretation. Kandinsky did not write a sound key into the visible image. The title and the story attached to it guide our attention; the actual lines and washes have to be encountered on their own terms. They are varied enough to make a single, literal illustration of a telephone call seem too narrow. [1]; [2].
Nina Kandinsky's remembered voice
The personal story comes from Nina Kandinsky's recollection, as reported in the exhibition catalogue. She said that her first encounter with Kandinsky occurred through a telephone call. He was struck by the sound of the unfamiliar young woman's voice and dedicated a watercolour to it; they married the following February. This is a retrospective personal account, not a scene visible in the marks on the paper. The catalogue connects it with the title's meaning and with Kandinsky's life in Russia in 1916. [2].
The work need not be reduced to romance. A title can record the occasion for making an image without determining every aspect of its form. The dark lines do not shape a conventional likeness of Nina, and the sheet contains no clearly depicted telephone. Its floating structure and interlaced strokes turn a personal stimulus into a wider formal experiment. The title reminds us that Kandinsky could connect visual composition with experiences beyond sight, but it does not license a fixed one-to-one translation of every mark into a sound. [1]; [2].
The German An eine Stimme means approximately “To a Voice.” The English To the Unknown Voice reflects the remembered episode of an as-yet-unidentified caller rather than a literal word-for-word rendering of the owner's title. Readers should keep both in mind: the collection's title anchors this specific object, while the familiar English version explains why the personal story often accompanies it. The museum's record also provides the exact month, September 1916, and the artist's matching inscription “K IX 16”. [1].
In the Russian years
Kandinsky was working in Russia during this period. The exhibition catalogue sets the sheet among his 1915–21 work and notes the density of black lines characteristic of some early Russian-period watercolours. At the same time, its pale washes and tipped axes already make the centre feel less fixed. This is a specific account of how the image operates, more useful than treating every work of the period as a single style. [2].
The same catalogue identifies the work as a smaller version of a related image that Kandinsky chose to reproduce in the 1918 Russian edition of his Reminiscences. That relation is interesting, but the two should not be silently collapsed into one sheet. The known Pompidou watercolour has its own measured size, date inscription and inventory. The catalogue's comparison suggests that Kandinsky revisited or repeated a visual idea; it does not establish that the museum object is the larger printed original. [2]; [1].
There is another close title problem within the same museum. Pompidou also catalogues a 1916 sheet as simply A une voix, inventory AM 81-65-265. That work is India ink on paper, 26.7 × 20.4 cm, and its record describes it as a drawing. The image on this page is the smaller, coloured watercolour and ink sheet, AM 81-65-101. Matching a title alone would be insufficient; medium, dimensions and inventory settle which object is intended. [1]; [3].
This distinction also protects the work from the casual claim that it is just a sketch for a larger picture. Its watercolour washes, dense ink strokes and careful open spaces function as a finished small composition. The published catalogue gives it a separate entry and discusses its relation to another image, while the museum catalogues it as an individual collection object. Whether Kandinsky considered any version final in a private sense is not documented by those facts. What can be said securely is that this sheet has its own material identity and history. [1]; [2].
A lasting small work
The Centre Pompidou received An eine Stimme through Nina Kandinsky's 1981 bequest. That ownership history joins the personal account surrounding the title to the later public preservation of the sheet. The museum's catalogue lists the object in its graphic arts holdings and cites scholarship on Kandinsky's watercolours and Russian period. It is valuable to name the object precisely, because an easily repeated story can otherwise overshadow the actual page of ink and colour. [1].
Look again at the lower open area after studying the dense centre. The remaining lines have space to travel, so the dark knot seems almost suspended. The small scale makes this shift particularly immediate. Kandinsky's 1916 work shows that a modest paper surface could hold both a personal dedication and a complex experiment in line, wash and balance. We know the date, medium and collection from the museum; the voice's biographical meaning comes from Nina's account; the sense of floating comes from the image and the exhibition catalogue's visual reading. Keeping those kinds of evidence distinct makes the painting more, rather than less, interesting. [1]; [2].
Kandinsky artworks directory
Frequently Asked Questions
The Centre Pompidou dates this watercolour to September 1916. Kandinsky marked it “K IX 16”. [1].
It is watercolour and India ink on paper, 23.7 × 15.8 cm. [1].
According to Nina Kandinsky's later recollection, the title relates to her first telephone contact with Kandinsky, before they met and married. The account is reported in the exhibition catalogue; the image does not depict that call literally. [2].
It belongs to the Centre Pompidou's Musée national d'art moderne, inventory AM 81-65-101, through Nina Kandinsky's 1981 bequest. [1].
Yes. Pompidou also owns a larger black-ink drawing, AM 81-65-265. This page concerns the smaller coloured watercolour and ink sheet, AM 81-65-101. [1]; [3].
The documented image has no conventional depiction of a telephone. Its crossed lines, colour washes and floating centre can be read in relation to the title, but no fixed sound-to-shape key is supplied by the museum. [1].
Discussion
What do you notice first in To the Unknown Voice (An eine Stimme)? 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 do the ink lines make the central forms feel suspended?
What does the pale wash do around the darker cluster?
How does Nina’s account shape the way you read the title?
Join the Conversation
Add your observation below and tell us which part of the artwork led you to it.
References
- Centre Pompidou, An eine Stimme (A une voix), AM 81-65-101. View source.
- Kandinsky: Russian and Bauhaus Years 1915–1933, exhibition catalogue, discussion and catalogue entry for the September 1916 watercolour. View source.
- Centre Pompidou, separate A une voix ink drawing, AM 81-65-265. View source.
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