NARRATOR:
Colorful circles float in front of a dark, mysterious background. Alone or grouped in threes and fours, they overlap and partially obscure each other. Gently poetic and open to interpretation, they suggest a cluster of microscopic organisms ... or a constellation in a far-flung corner of the universe.
Vasily Kandinsky was fascinated by the expressive potential of circles, preferring them to triangles or squares.
KANDINSKY (actor):
“The circle is the synthesis of the greatest oppositions. It combines the concentric and the eccentric in a single form and in equilibrium. Of the three primary forms, it points most clearly to the fourth dimension.”
NARRATOR:
Though he wrote extensively on his ideas about art, we don’t know exactly what Kandinsky meant by “the fourth dimension.” The fifteen circles may allude to entities far beyond our current understanding.
The variety and intensity of color is unlike anything in the cosmos, but the composition still brings to mind our own solar system. The largest circle, for example, could be a sun. Over most of its right half […], the yellow paint is a thin wash over the deep black ground. But where other circles intersect it, Kandinsky built up the bright pigment. The sharp contrast between the fiery yellow and the areas of intersection, which are void of color, makes us read the arrangement as an eclipse—with three smaller spheres passing in front of the “sun” as they travel along orbital paths.
Heavy Circles
1927
Vassily Kandinsky (Russian, 1866–1944)
On View
Writing to the art historian Will Grohmann in 1930, Kandinsky explained the crucial role of the circle in his recent work: “It is a link with the cosmic and I use it above all formally... The circle is the synthesis of the greatest oppositions. It combines the concentric with the ex-centric in a single form and in balance.” The cosmic resonance of circles is powerfully felt in this composition, where fifteen of them—each delineated with a slender halo of bright paint—seem to float in space, imaginary planets in orbit and eclipse.
Details
- Artist Name: Vassily Kandinsky (Russian, 1866–1944)
- Title: Heavy Circles
- Date: 1927
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 22-1/2 x 20-1/2 in. (57.2 x 52.1 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection
- Accession Number: P.1953.216
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Museum
Object Information
The artist, consigned summer 1928 to;
[Galerie Neue Kunst Fides, Dresden];
later gifted by artist in May, 1933 to;
Galka Scheyer;
Pasadena Art Institute, Pasadena, 1953-1954;
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena,1954-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, 1975.
[Galerie Neue Kunst Fides, Dresden];
later gifted by artist in May, 1933 to;
Galka Scheyer;
Pasadena Art Institute, Pasadena, 1953-1954;
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena,1954-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, 1975.
Vasily Kandinsky 1966-1944: A Retrospective Exhibition [organized by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum]
- Pasadena, Pasadena Art Museum, 1963-01-15 to 1963-02-15
- San Francisco Museum of Art, 1963-03-01 to 1963-04-01
- Portland, The Portland Art Museum, 1963-04-15 to 1963-05-15
- Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute, 1963-06-01 to 1963-07-01
- Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 1963-07-15 to 1963-08-25
- Baltimore Museum of Art, 1963-09-19 to 1963-10-20
- Columbus Museum of Art, 1963-11-05 to 1963-12-05
- St. Louis, Washington University Art Gallery, 1963-12-22 to 1964-01-06
- Montreal, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1964-02-05 to 1964-03-05
- Worcester, Worcester Art Museum, 1964-03-20 to 1964-04-20
Drawing Down the Moon
- Hammer Museum, 2022-06-19 to 2022-09-11
Visual Music, 1905 - 2005
- Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles, Calif.), 2005-02-13 to 2005-05-22
Kandinsky exhibition
- Los Angeles, Stendahl Art Galleries, 1936-02-24 to 1936-03
Die Blaue Vier: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Klee in der Neuen Welt
- Kunstmuseum Bern, 1997-12-05 to 1998-03-01
- Dusseldorf, Kunstsammlung Nordhein-Westfalen, 1998-03-28 to 1998-06-28
50 years bauhaus
- Stuttgart, Wurttembergischer Kunstverein, 1968-05-05 to 1968-07-28
- Royal Academy of Arts (Great Britain), 1968-09-19 to 1968-10-27
- Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 1968-11-30 to 1969-01-01
- Paris, Musee National d'Art Moderne, 1969-04-01 to 1969-06-22
- Illinois Institute of Technology, 1969-08-25 to 1969-09-26
- Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, 1969-12-05 to 1970-02-01
- Pasadena Art Museum, 1970-03-16 to 1970-04-26
- Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1970 to 1971
- Tokyo, National Museum of Modern Art, 1971 to 1971
The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee
- California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1931-04-08 to 1931-04-22
Kandinsky
- Oakland Art Gallery, 1929-04 to 1929-05-10
The Galka Scheyer Collection: Klee, Nolde, Jawlensky, Moholy-Nagy, Schmidt-Rottluff, Schwitters, Archipenko, Kandinsky, Lissitzky, Feininger, Kirchner, Dix_1
- La Jolla, Art Center in La Jolla, 1960-07-05 to 1960-08-14
The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee
- Braxton Gallery, 1930-03-01 to 1930-03-15
The Universe: Creation, Constellations and the Cosmos
- Norton Simon Museum, 2001-02-04 to 2001-06-04
Selections from Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee. The Blue Four Galka E. Scheyer Collection
- Seattle Art Museum, 1956-10-10 to 1956-11-04
- Portland, Portland Art Museum, 1956-11-08 to 1956-11-30
- , 1957-01-01 to 1957-01-31
- Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute, 1957-03-02 to 1957-04-01
- Kansas City, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, 1957-11-15 to 1957-12-15
- San Francisco Museum of Art, 1958-01-14 to 1958-02-23
- Vancouver Art Gallery, 1956-07 to 1956-08-31
Kandinsky Paintings and Graphics: Retrospective of Kandinsky's Bauhaus Years
- Norton Simon Museum, 1989-01-19 to 1990-01-14
Kandinsky
- Norton Simon Museum, 1994-01-13 to 1994-09-11
The Blue Four
Maven of Modernism: Galka Scheyer in California
- Norton Simon Museum, 2017-04-07 to 2017-09-25
The Blue Four and Their Contemporaries
- Norton Simon Museum, 1991-06-20 to 1992-05-24
Bauhaus Painters; Spirit of Modernism: Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, El Lissitzky, Oskar Schlemmer, Alexander Archipenko, Alexei Jawlensky and Others
- Seoul, Ho-Am Art Museum, 1996-02-08 to 1996-04-28
My Four Kings: Galka Scheyer and the Blue Four
- Norton Simon Museum, 2002-12-13 to 2003-04-14
The Blue Four-Galka Scheyer Collection From The Norton Simon Museum
- Henry Art Gallery, 1997-07-17 to 1997-10-05
The Spirit of Modernism: Galka Scheyer in the New World
- Norton Simon Museum, 1994-11-17 to 1996-01-14
- Grohmann, Will, Wassily Kandinsky: Life and Work, 1958, cc 262 pp. 206, 336, 371
- The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection, Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena, 1976, no. 236 pp. 83, 87
- Roethel, Hans K. and Jean K. Benjamin, Kandinsky, 1979, pp. 132-133
- Roethel, Hans K. and Jean K. Benjamin, Kandinsky: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings 1916-1944, 1984, no. 841
- Campbell Abdo, Sara, Wassily Kandinsky, 1994, p. 26
- The Blue Four. Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, and Klee in the New World, 1997, no. 76 pp. 176, 345-6
- Barnett, Vivian Endicott, The Blue Four Collection at the Norton Simon Museum, 2002, no. 289 pp. 246-248
- Varga, Richard S., Gerschgorin and His Circles, 2004, cover
- Wünsche, Isabel, Galka E. Scheyer and the Blue Four: Correspondence 1924 - 1945, 2005, Plate X p. 337
- Brougher, Kerry; Jeremy Strick, Ari Weisman, Judith Zilczer, and Olivia Mattis, Visual Music: Synaesthesia in Art and Music Since 1900, 2005, p. 104
- Peabody, Rebecca, et al., Pacific Standard Time: Los Angeles Art, 1945-1980, 2011, Fig. 1-4 p. 8
- Katzenstein, Peter J., Sinicization and the Rise of China, 2012, Cover Cover
- Andréi Nakov, Kandinsky the Enigma of the First Abstract Painting, 2014, fig. 15 p.181
- co-edited by Naman P. Ahuja and Louise Belfrage, A Mediated Magic: The Indian Presence in Modernism, 2019, fig. 1 p. [4], p. 8; p. [1] (ill.), p. [9] (ill.)
- Gilbert Holzgang, Galka Scheyer : Ein Leben für Kunst und Kreativität, 2023, p. 209 (ill.)
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