Wassily Kandinsky, R. Piper & Co., and others
Klänge
1912
Scroll
- Artist/Author: Wassily Kandinsky
- Publisher: R. Piper & Co.
- Printer (color woodcuts): F. Bruckmann Verlag
- Printer (woodcuts and letterpress): Poeschel & Trepte
Klänge
1912
Physical Qualities
Bound volume with color woodcuts, woodcuts, and letterpress, Book: 286 x 286 x 17 mm. (11 1/4 x 11 1/4 x 11/16 in.)
Sheet: 281 x 275 mm. (11 1/16 x 10 13/16 in.)
Credit Line
The Ryda Hecht Levi Collection of Illustrated Books, Gift of Ryda H. Levi, Baltimore
Object Number
2001.445
Kandinsky thought of "Sounds" as a “musical album” in which his poems would harmonize with his woodcuts, as if in a symphony. The spread shown here demonstrates the artist’s attempt to synthesize the visual with the aural. In the poem “Seeing,” Kandinsky repeated the phrase “weißem Sprung” (or “white leap”), causing the words to lose their meaning and become pure sound. In some sense, this parallels the color woodcut, which may be seen both as an image of a rider on a horse and as a composition of black lines and colored shapes. The poem ends, “That’s where everything begins...with a...crash.”
The Baltimore Museum of Art by gift, 2001; Mrs. Ryda H. Levi, Lutherville, Maryland; purchased from William H. Schab Gallery, NY
The Art of Music from The Baltimore Museum of Art
Off the Shelf: Modern and Contemporary Artists' Books
Wassily Kandinsky, Complete Writings on Art, ed. Kenneth C. Lindsay & Peter Vergo (Da Capo, 1994). Wassily Kandinsky, On the Spiritual in Art ed. & trans. Hilla Rebay (Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1946) Vivian Endicott Barnett, Kandinsky at the Guggenheim (Abbeville Press, n.d. [1983]). Peter Jelavich, and Peg Weiss, Kandinsky in Munich: 1896-1914 (Guggenheim Museum, 1982). Peg Weiss, Kandinsky in Munich: The Formative Jugendstil Years (Princeton University Press, 1979).
Signed: 1-4
Inscribed: TITLE PAGE: 'KANDINSKY/ KLANGE/ MUNCHEN R. PIPER & CO. VERLAG'; VERSO TITLE PAGE: ' Von diesem Buche/ wurden dreihundert vom/ Verfasser numerierte und signierte ... dies Exemplar is Nummer/ 47/ [in ink artist signature] Kandinsky'
