Wassily Kandinsky - Above and Left, 1925

  

Here we find Kandinsky moving from his work with abstract representation toward the direction of his later work in what we can properly call "Platonic Geometric Formalism." I don't know if critics write about such stages in Kandinsky's career, but the distinction is useful as we feel our way toward making some intelligent points about the many curious figures in the painting.

Taking the title at face value, there are two “movements” here, as indicated by the arrows: the first moves to the top (i.e. Above), and the second moves to the Left. Interestingly enough, the “action” in the painting rather gravitates toward the upper right, toward the bottom (or below), and toward the field at the painting’s center.  But for the nonce let’s set aside the specificites of the title, if that is psychologically possible.

In the upper right field, there are figures representing a three-dimensional grid in realistic, real-life terms, complete with shadows. We see a “real” three-dimensional object in space, moreover with somewhat (though not excessively) exaggerated perspective; we can’t help but to think this exaggeration is meant to make a point, and this point is made when comparing this grid to complementary images in the lower half of the painting. Perhaps “contrapuntal” is a better word than “complementary,” though suffice it to say that there is evidently a dialogue between the figures.

The figures below in the painting are three narrow bands suggesting (but not representing in perspective) the physical space of physical reality. There are actually two figures here: the paired curving bands in Red (and Black) is the first, and the straight Red band, or ray, is the second. Note these three bands are not realistic but are rather the abstractions of three-dimensional figures. Two of these (in Red) are curving and they are interrupted by Black polygons that are driven, as it were, by the white horizontal bars cutting across the field. The straight Red band represents a projection through three-dimensional space, like a radiating beam of light; observe, however, that the contours are symbolic rather than an attempt to represent perspective with real-world geometric similitude. While the grid in the upper right is a realistic object in perspective, the figures below are abstractions of an object (or objects) and an abstraction of the movements of that object (or those objects); and again underscore that even the matter of perspective is represented in the abstract.

Note that the perspective grid in the upper right is reflected elsewhere in the painting by several similar grids or matrices: 1) the field of irregular rectangles at the center of the painting, 2) the small,  seven-line Brown and Cream rectangle immediately to the right of the central field, and 3) the grid suggested by the Black background and the three White horizontal bars below and to the left of the central field — to which we now turn our attention.

In the center of the painting we find a field of "irregularized" rectangles, which suggests to us a kind of "matrix of conception" — a locus of cognitive action, qualification, computation, judgment, emotional volition, and inspiration — and from this field emanate the painting's other images and figures; and, we could cleverly say, this is the field from which emanate our utterances about the painting. Indeed, these descriptive words are themselves utterances prompted by an accurate and, we should hope, an appropriate, ideal and simple description of what the painting shows.

Above these central rectangles are figures variously suggesting a ship’s masts with pennants flying from these masts, or maybe we see birds' heads.  If they are in fact birds' heads, then we might compare them to the heads of viewers in a gallery having a discussion that follows along with the general contours of the utterances made here by the present writer. Note (and it is hard not to!) that the field behind these birds’ heads is dominated by a sphere — or is it rather a globe hanging in shadowy space, properly complete with a terminator, as if the globe hung in space, a planet hovering in the heavens — the world of the viewers, perhaps?

Now, and with some confidence, we can return to the painting’s title. The upward dynamic (Above) expressed in the title is populated by this heavenly planet (the richly textured world of all viewers) but the arrow itself transcends this field and points to the empty field that, one might suggest, lies outside of the painting. Is this the world of the gallery in which the painting is exhibited? Meanwhile, the eponymous arrow indicating the Left dynamic suggested by Kandinsky's succinct language points to a field just inside the perimeter of the painting. Empty but pregnant with possibility; here at last is where we locate the tension between our attempts to articulate descriptions and the inevitable doubt that suggests our utterances are facile and inappropriate.  Thus we return to the patchwork of “irregularized” rectangles — the “matrix of conception,” as we call it — at the center of the painting, whereupon begins anew the cycles of emotion, reasonably uncomplicated identification, and utterance.

I now close with two questions: 

First, is the figure in the lower Left the image of a lantern, and does it illuminate the Ocher field and the objects of the painting--an illumination comparing to our self-same illuminating descriptions of the painting, compressed as they are between our utterances and the need to return to the matrix of our cycling conceptions?

Second, is the Sky-Blue field in the lower right quadrant the world outside the painting — or, better, the world outside the gallery — and moreover scattered with sufficient clouds so as to enhance our impression Above and around us of a real world in three dimensions?