Network from Above, November 1927, Gouache, watercolour and Indian ink on paper, 32.1 x 48.3 cm. 

Some of the works done in the later years at the Bauhaus are hard to write about. Very simple in composition, they refer to nothing beyond themselves, and what they are in themselves leads to little more than statements of fact and our perceptions of the composition. For example, Two Squares of 1930, 

of which we could describe the colour of the two squares, their positions in relation to each other and the ground, the texture of the surface (all pretty factual) and then, a commentary on how we perceive them (‘the red seems to stand forward of the picture plane, while the light blue square seems to fall behind it’, and that sort of thing). The strongest connection in terms of the development of his practice is to Russian Suprematism, which (along with Constructivism) clearly influenced much of his work after he left Russia for Germany in December 1921. This work is very reminiscent of the language developed by Malevich. But then, I begin to run out of things to say. 

Not so, the work I alighted upon for today’s ramble – Network from Above of 1927. It’s still far from obvious what we might want to talk about, it lacks any recognizable motifs, no indication of narratives that sometimes persist across his works, just a purely abstract composition. The most obvious motif is the series of different size circles, mostly of similar colour, connected by white lines. Behind these (it seems), three rectangles of bands, again mostly of related colour. One chequerboard, threes semi-circles, one bright arc and some vertical and horizontal lines, to three of which are attached at right angles further bars. All on a very dark ground. 

Such is an inventory of shapes. The dominant compositional motif is constituted by the combination of circles connected by white lines, forming a structure reminiscent of ‘ball and stick’ molecular models that had first been developed in the 19th century, in which the ball represents an atom and the stick represents the chemical bond (constituted by electromagnetic force).  Kandinsky’s interest in the invisible forces that science had been uncovering – as a weapon against what he called ‘crass materialism,’ which valued only that which could be seen and measured – is apparent in his writings, as in 1911 he wrote of the doubts scientists had cast on ‘matter itself’ (Lindsay and Vergo, p. 142) and in 1913, he wrote of ‘a scientific event that removed one of the most important obstacles from my path [to abstraction]. This was the further division of the atom. The collapse of the atom was equated, in my soul, with the collapse of the whole world.’ (L&V, p.364). The realization that at a sub-atomic level, matter could become non-particulate, that at root all could be nothing more than energy, opened the doors for Kandinsky to a new, non-naturalistic view on the world. 

But immediately, he throws a spanner in the works. Not so fast, he says. Atop the atom at the apex of the composition, appear a series of small, variously-sized rectangles. It’s no longer an atom, it’s a planet, reminiscent of the one in El Lissitzky’s study for a page of the book Of Two Squares: A Suprematist Tale in Six Constructions of 1920. 

The bonds no longer connect atoms, but planets as Kandinsky shifts us from the sub-atomic to the astronomic, and once more makes the kind of connection between the micro- and macroscopic that he made in his 1926 publication, Point and Line to Plane, where he juxtaposed a picture of a formation of nitrite and the nebula in the constellation of Hercules to demonstrate continuity. Now, the black ground of the painting becomes space, and the bright yellow arc, a waxing or waning moon. 

Such connections of continuity underscored what Kandinsky saw as the interconnectedness of all things, the most important observation throughout his oeuvre. Repeatedly, in his writings and his paintings, he set up situations in which fundamentally different entities came into conflict and even opposition, and created the circumstances in which those elements could co-exist. Not by giving up what made them different, but by seeking out the moments of connection. Thus, for example, when he spoke if the integration of the different arts in what he called the ‘monumental art’ (based on Wagner’s ideas about a Gesamtkunstwerk or ‘total work of art’), he insisted that each art form has something special that’s not present to any other, but that there are shared qualities to all the arts, the element that allows them to co-exist. In fact, under the influence of Arnold Schoenberg, he came to see dissonant relations between art forms as a clear sign of their connection, and in later writings developed a distinctly Hegelian concept of ‘synthesis’ in which opposed forces (as thesis and antithesis) could, through their combination, rise up to a new level in which difference sustained but unity was none the less achieved. (I go on about this at great length in the book I wrote on Kandinsky’s theory.) 

So the subatomic and the astronomic are connected, at one moment this, then that, then both. But the forces that bond and separate the atoms/ planets are manifest elsewhere, in all relations of connection and difference. The bonds depicted become metaphors for connections, networks in all contexts. In Point and Line to Plane, he explores the movement of a point as its trace becomes a line, and it loses its identity as a point – when does this happen, and when is it both? And he asks at what point does the line, through its breadth, become a plane: ‘the question “when does the line stop being itself and give birth to a plane surface?” remains without precise answer.’ He asserts that such boundaries are ‘indistinct and mobile’ as relations disrupt the absolute sound of the element under consideration. Thus, he writes, the identity of each element is characterised by ‘instability, [...] flickering tension.’ This and that. Atom and planet. 

And abstract point 

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In the broadest sense – and one of fundamental importance to many of us today - we see this principle at play in his attacks on narrow (especially German) nationalism, in his assertions of an internationalism that doesn’t diminish national identities. His concept of internationalism thus relates directly to his plan for the monumental art. When he writes of his ideas for the ‘first world congress for art,’ he writes of representatives of different countries and different peoples who will contribute to ‘discussions in different languages’ manifest in ‘clarity and confusion, a thundering collision of ideas.’ Apparent disunity gives rise to an underlying unity, and it becomes possible to overcome the ‘fragmentation’ - what he also calls the ‘disease of separation’ - which ‘is a chronic ailment not only of German, but up until now of the greater part of all artistic forces throughout the world.’ An internationalism that doesn’t sacrifice national identity. 

When we look at Network, we’re looking at many and all networks.