Vignette next to "Exit" (Vignette bei "Ausgang") (headpiece, folio 36) from Klänge (Sounds)
Vasily Kandinsky
French, born Russia. 1866–1944
(1913)
A small woodcut headpiece Kandinsky made for his 1913 illustrated book Klänge, using calligraphic, musical gestures to usher the reader into the poem titled “Ausgang.”
You immediately notice the arresting contrast of dense black marks—curving strokes, talon‑like lines and birdlike silhouettes—hovering above the centered title, as if a musical burst has been frozen on the page.
These vignettes show Kandinsky’s early experiments in visual music, using woodcut illustration as a laboratory for abstraction and synesthetic approaches that helped shape modernist art before World War I.
Medium
Woodcut from an illustrated book with fifty-six woodcuts
Dimensions
composition (irreg.): 2 5/8 x 3 1/16" (6.7 x 7.8 cm); page: 11 1/16 x 10 7/8" (28.1 x 27.7 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
The Louis E. Stern Collection
Accession
858.1964.33
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
