The Waterfall

Wassily Kandinsky

Oil on canvas

Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus

The Waterfall depicts a richly colored, semi-abstracted landscape in which multicolored foliage surrounds a cascading waterfall, the natural forms pushed to the very edge of figuration. Painted during a pivotal moment in Kandinsky's development, the work reflects his growing impulse to dissolve the observable world into expressive fields of color and form, inspired by the Bavarian countryside near Murnau. Its bold, Fauvist-inflected palette—indebted to the French avant-garde Kandinsky encountered during his Paris stays from 1904 to 1906—announces the lyrical abstraction he would fully realize in subsequent years. The painting stands as a bridge between landscape tradition and the purely non-representational work for which Kandinsky is celebrated worldwide.