Minneapolis Institute of Art

Klänge (Sounds)

Vassily Kandinsky; Author: Vassily Kandinsky; Designer: Vassily Kandinsky; Printer: F. Bruckmann A.G., Munich, Germany, (woodcuts); Printer: Poeschel and Trepte, (text); Publisher: R. Piper & Co., Munich

Date

1912 (dated 1913)

Medium

Color woodcuts, black-and-white woodcuts, and letterpress, bound volume

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Klänge (Sounds) evokes the range of Kandinsky's artistic vision from Russian folk art and Jugendstil (Viennese Art Nouveau) to his pioneering abstractions, which profoundly influenced the direction of 20th-century art. Featuring poems written by the artist, Sounds explores the correlation between the senses of sight and hearing. Kandinsky was believed by some to have had synaesthesia, a condition whereby individuals may hear color or see sounds. Whether true or not, his artistic theories focused on the idea of a visual music, the painterly equivalent of a symphony, which is simultaneously seen and heard. Kandinsky intended that his poems for Sounds be read aloud, and in fact, the Zürich Dadaists recited them at the Cabaret Voltaire as part of their frequently raucous performances. Europe

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