| Composition VIII | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Artist | Wassily Kandinsky |
| Year | 1923 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Location | Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA |
| Dimensions | 140 x 201 cm 55 x 79 in |
| Wassily Kandinsky Famous Paintings | |
| Der Blaue Reiter, 1903 | |
| Composition IV, 1911 | |
| Composition VII, 1913 | |
| On White II, 1923 | |
| Composition VI, 1913 | |
| Composition VIII, 1923 | |
| Yellow-Red-Blue, 1925 | |
| Black and Violet, 1923 | |
| Composition X, 1939 | |
| Complete Works |
Composition VIII by Wassily Kandinsky is small oil on canvas painting dating from 1923 that is currently in the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
As the name implies, it is the eighth in a series of paintings, begun in 1911, in which the artist expresses what he is trying to achieve. Kandinsky wanted to explore the medium of painting rather than be concerned with subject matter. His goal was to paint what music sounds like.
Form
Composition VIII can accurately be described as a geometric composition. The viewer is immediately struck by the large concentric circles at the top left of the picture. The two inner circles are perfect circles, while the outer has a fuzzy outline.
The rest of the painting is comprised of other circles, semi-circles, triangles, squares, parallelograms and other shapes. Coloring throughout the painting is subtle, except for the striking black and purple of the top left circle.