Comments to Painting with white Border

From Hans K. Roethel and Jean K. Benjamin: Kandinsky, Hudson Hills Press, 1979

Because of morphological evidence there can be no doubt that the basic iconographical idea of Painting with White Border is another of Kandinsky's renderings of the fight between the knight on horseback and the dragon. It is the most dramatic work in the series that he had formerly entitled "Saint George".

In the center of the picture is the well-known abstraction of a rider on horseback who apparently carries a long white lance with which he pierces the mouth of some dragon-like monster. However, in the Sturm Album Kandinsky says that the painting—for which he made the first sketches in December 1912—is the result of some deep experience that he underwent in Moscow during a recent trip. Then he adds that it truly represents his impressions of Moscow; in his hand list he even gave it the subtitle "Moscow." It should be recalled that he thought of Moscow in terms of a dramatic confrontation of opposing elements. After a lengthy and enigmatic comment in the Sturm Album about the painting he concludes with the following thoughts:

"It took me a long time to decide about the white border. All the sketches that I had made did not help me although some of the details had already become clear to me—still I could not make up my mind to paint the picture. I suffered. After weeks I would look again at mysketches, and again I felt that I was not ripe for it yet. It took me years to learn to be patient in such circumstances and not try and hurry through it. After almost five months I looked again at one of my larger sketches during the hour of twilight and suddenlyit became clear to me what had been missing—it was the white border. And since the white border brought the solution to the painting I entitled it accordingly.