Living with abstract art: Kandinsky's Improvisation 30
Abstract art is easier to live with than it looks: it has no subject to get tired of, only colour and rhythm that change with the light.
The painting
Vasily Kandinsky (1866–1944) believed painting could work like music: directly on the feelings, without telling a story. His Improvisations were meant to be spontaneous expressions of inner feeling. Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons), from 1913, is one of the most dramatic: blues, reds and yellows collide, black lines cut across, and in the lower right corner two cannons fire, a detail Kandinsky later said had come into the painting almost unconsciously in a year full of talk of war. The original hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago.
How to hang abstract art
- Link it to the room with one colour. Pick the blue, red or yellow in the painting and repeat it once, in a cushion or a lamp.
- Give it space. Abstract art is busy by nature, so hang it on a calm wall, not next to shelves of objects.
- Use the square format. Improvisation 30 is almost square. A 50×50 cm print suits a spot above a console table, between two windows, or as the anchor of a gallery wall with portrait prints around it.
Abstract art with other styles
Abstract works mix surprisingly well with older things: an antique chest, a wooden table, a Japanese print on the next wall. Hilma af Klint and Kandinsky were painting at the same time, and their works hang well together too.