Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love II) by Wassily Kandinsky

This painting features a reclining bather, akin to the work of Degas or Renoir, but the style is anything but. We find Kandinsky expressing himself with bright tones of colour and wild abstract forms.

To title this as a garden of love helps to point us all in the right direction with regards identifying the various elements of the scene. It is still a difficult task, certainly, but at least we are now knowledgeable on the theme and therefore able to contruct a reasonably accurate summary of the content in front of us. Kandinsky produced large numbers of related paintings within a series called his improvisations, dating from around 1910-1912. The style persists throughout of wild colours and expressive forms, normally created from dark black lines that intersect these huge plains of colour. In this example he makes use of reds, yellows, blues and greens, never mixing too many different variants of the same colour so that the overall finish is clear and bold. He was well skilled in traditional painting but preferred to paint in a much more contemporary manner for the majority of his career.

Kandinsky would collaborate with other artists during his career and so you may find cross over in styles from time to time. European art was an exciting place during the early 20th century and there were just so many new ideas being formulated at the time, with Paris being the biggest hub of creativity, but Germany also contributing a number of crucial contributors. Swiss painter Paul Klee as well as Franz Marc were two of the best, but Kandinsky's own oeuvre has always been regarded as superior and this is reflected in the levels of international fame that the three continue to enjoy today. Whilst being Russian, Kandinsky was much loved within the nation and he helped to spearhead a dominant period in German art, where other Europeans were starting to take note of all these new ideas flooding in from a variety of sources.

We see here one of the most significant artists of the first half of the 20th century, whose highlights included Squares with Concentric Circles, Several Circles and The Blue Rider. Improvisation 27 may not be one of his more famous artworks but it was an important part of his development towards what he would eventually become. Most of his improvisation series can now be found in the German city of Munich, with a number of others elsewhere in the country. It is only his most notable artworks that have found their way abroad, though this helps to keep his name fresh in the minds of younger generations, discovering all of these great names from the past for the very first time.