Untitled

Wassily Kandinsky

Pen and brush and black ink, gray wash, with touches of graphite, on cream wove paper

Art Institute of Chicago

Created in Moscow in 1916, this intimate abstract drawing on paper exemplifies Kandinsky's working method during his Russian period, when he was forced by the circumstances of World War I to work on a smaller scale using pen, brush, black ink, gray wash, and touches of graphite. The composition demonstrates his characteristic interplay of gestural line and abstract form, balancing the expressive organic energy of his earlier Munich years with the emerging clarity that would later develop into geometric abstraction. Kandinsky, widely regarded as a pioneer of non-objective art and a co-founder of the influential Der Blaue Reiter group, used works on paper during this period to sustain and evolve his visual language under constrained conditions. The drawing stands as a refined example of his Moscow-period output, bridging the lyrical abstraction of his pre-war years and the structural concerns that would define his Bauhaus teaching.