This dynamic watercolor was painted by Kandinsky in the mid-1920s, when his art was experiencing a powerful upsurge – both in the theoretical as well as in the practical sense. Having returned to Germany from Moscow in June of 1922, the artist quickly immersed himself in the German art world. He began teaching in the Bauhaus school in Weimar, took part in a number of exhibitions and threw himself into the study of theory, which some years later would form the basis of the book Point and Line to Plane.

It was during these years, under the emerging influence of Constructivism, that Kandinsky’s painting style begins changing course from free and flowing lines and shapes towards geometric precision. His canvases start featuring an increasing number of circles, triangles and straight angles. Yet the artist eshews constructivist utilitarianism, which is vividly expressed, among other places, in the works of the Soviet artists of that time. For Kandinsky, the most important things were always the poetical and spiritual aspects of creativity.

5 November 2015 sold for $5.74 million on Sotheby's, New York

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