Short answer (updated 28 Oct 2026, pass 5): Kandinsky's Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons), 1913, has real cannons in it, firing at lower right. But Kandinsky told its Chicago owner the cannons were not the subject. He said they "could probably be explained by the constant war talk going on through the year," and that "the true contents are what the spectator experiences while under the effect of the forms and color combinations of the picture." It's an oil on canvas, 111 × 111.3 cm, at the Art Institute of Chicago (1931.511). (Art Institute of Chicago)
The fact gap: a "war painting" that its painter said isn't about war
| What people assume | What the record says | |
|---|---|---|
| Subject | A prophecy of World War I | Painted in 1913, before the war. Kandinsky put the cannons down to that year's "war talk" and said the real content is the experience of form and color. (AIC, quoting his letter to Arthur Jerome Eddy) |
| "Improvisation" | A loose title for any abstract picture | A specific category of his. In Concerning the Spiritual in Art he called an Improvisation "a largely unconscious, spontaneous expression of inner character." A "Composition" was the slowly matured kind. (Kandinsky, 1912) |
| Fully abstract | Pure color and line | Not yet. Cannons, smoke and a tilted cluster of buildings are still readable. Between 1910 and 1914 he worked through a series of these improvisations. (AIC) |
| Shape | A landscape rectangle | Nearly square: 111 × 111.3 cm (43 11/16 × 43 13/16 in) |
| Where | A German museum | Art Institute of Chicago, Arthur Jerome Eddy Memorial Collection, since 1931 |
In Kandinsky's own words
Eddy printed the letter in his 1914 book Cubists and Post-Impressionism, with the painting in color opposite page 124. Eddy says workmen handling the canvas called it the "War Picture." He explains why: "two cannon are quite plain in the lower right-hand corner," with blue masses like smoke from their mouths, and around them "the suggestion of a helmet, a tottering tower, banners, aerial flashes or fireworks." (Eddy 1914, p. 125) Kandinsky's notebook listed it with a quick pencil sketch and the words "Blue Splashes," or "Masses," and "Cannons." In the letter, as translated in Eddy's book, Kandinsky wrote:
The designation "Cannons," selected by me for my own use, is not to be conceived as indicating the "contents" of the picture.
But I did not intend to give a representation of war; to do so would have required different pictorial means.
He also explained how the picture is built: "nearly in the shape of a cross," with a large irregular blue plane just below the middle. He added that "the blue color in itself counteracts the impression caused by the cannons." (Eddy, 1914, pp. 124–26)
Four details worth looking at
- The cannons are small. Find them at lower right, then look at how little of the canvas they take up compared with the red and blue fields. That fits what Kandinsky said about them. (AIC; our reading)
- Find the cross. Look for the large blue plane just below center, then the muddy-gray second center below it. The heavier corners carry the oblique cross out to the edges, the way Kandinsky described it to Eddy. (Eddy, 1914)
- Blue pulls back, red comes forward. Kandinsky wrote that blue moves "in retreat from the spectator" and turns "in upon its own centre." Warm red, in the same book, "rings like a great trumpet." You can test both ideas on this canvas. (Kandinsky, 1912)
- The signature. At lower left it reads "Kandsky i9i3," with his abbreviated name and the year written with i's for 1s. (AIC inscription record)
Context
- Kandinsky's 1912 book Concerning the Spiritual in Art compared painting to music as two ways to reach abstraction, with color and line no longer tied to describing things. (AIC; Kandinsky, 1912)
- It was first shown in London in July 1913, at the Allied Artists' Association salon in the Royal Albert Hall (cat. 286). (AIC exhibition history)
- Arthur Jerome Eddy (1859–1920), a Chicago lawyer and early collector of modern art, probably bought it from the artist. His wife and son gave it to the Art Institute in 1931. (AIC provenance)
- Eddy's Cubists and Post-Impressionism (Chicago, March 1914) reproduced it in color opposite p. 124. Improvisation No. 29 is in the same book. (AIC publication history; Eddy, 1914)
- Since then it has appeared in MoMA's Cubism and Abstract Art (1936), the Guggenheim's 1963 Kandinsky retrospective, the National Gallery of Art's Kandinsky: The Improvisations (1981), and Tate Modern's Kandinsky: The Path to Abstraction (2006). (AIC exhibition history)
Which one to hang
Our print reproduces the Art Institute of Chicago canvas, which the museum marks as public domain (CC0). This is No. 30 (Cannons), not Improvisation 28 or Composition VII. The sizes are true squares to match the painting's shape. → Improvisation 30, 1913 fine art print
Also from the Art Institute of Chicago:
- Water Lilies, 1906: Monet, painted seven years earlier, also nearly square and also with no horizon.
FAQ
Is Improvisation 30 about World War I? Not according to Kandinsky. It was painted in 1913, before the war began. He linked the cannons to that year's war talk and said the real content was what the viewer feels from the forms and colors.
What is the difference between an Improvisation and a Composition? In Kandinsky's own terms, an Improvisation is spontaneous and largely unconscious. A Composition is worked out slowly and deliberately.
Where is Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons)? At the Art Institute of Chicago, accession 1931.511. The museum's open data lists it on view in Gallery 392 (checked 27 Oct 2026).
Why do the Kandinsky quotes differ slightly between sources? They are two English versions of the same letter. The Art Institute quotes its own translation ("the true contents are what the spectator experiences"), and Eddy's 1914 book prints another ("These contents are indeed what the spectator lives, or feels"). The meaning is the same.
Who called it a war picture? According to Eddy in 1914, workmen who handled the canvas did, along with many casual viewers. Kandinsky answered that he "did not intend to give a representation of war."
Is it Composition VII? No. Composition VII is a different 1913 canvas, 200 × 300 cm, in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. It came there in 1929 from the State Museum of New Western Art. The Tretyakov says Kandinsky made more than thirty studies for it and painted the big canvas itself in a few days, 25–28 November 1913. That is the slow, planned "Composition" method, the opposite of this Improvisation. The Tretyakov dates most of those studies to autumn 1913, the same year as our canvas. It also reads faint echoes of his earlier Apocalypse pictures in Composition VII, such as trumpeting angels, a rider and Elijah's fiery chariot. (Tretyakov Gallery)
Sources
- Art Institute of Chicago — Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons), 1913, 1931.511 (collection page)
- Art Institute of Chicago — open-access record for 1931.511 (inscription, provenance, exhibitions)
- Arthur Jerome Eddy, Cubists and Post-Impressionism (Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1914), pp. 124–26, with Kandinsky's letter (Project Gutenberg)
- Eddy 1914, p. 125, direct page link (workmen's "War Picture", the notebook entry, the letter)
- Eddy, Cubists and Post-Impressionism, 1914 scan with color plates (Internet Archive)
- Art Institute of Chicago — public-domain IIIF image of 1931.511
- State Tretyakov Gallery — Kandinsky, Composition VII, 1913 (collection page, in Russian; size, 1929 acquisition, studies, 25–28 Nov 1913)
- Wikimedia Commons — public-domain AIC image used for the detail crop
- Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912; Sadler translation, Project Gutenberg)
Quotations are short and attributed. Everything else is paraphrased.