Church at Murnau (Kirche in Murnau)

Church at Murnau (Kirche in Murnau) is a pivotal oil on board executed by Vasily Kandinsky in 1909. Classified in catalog records as a drawing, perhaps reflecting its quick, sketch-like execution and exploratory nature, this piece captures the Bavarian village environment where Kandinsky spent several formative summers leading up to World War I. This period, roughly 1908 to 1911, was critical for the artist, marking his decisive shift away from representational art toward the emotional and spiritual abstraction that would define his subsequent career.

The technique used in this painting demonstrates the heavy impasto and non-local color application characteristic of Kandinsky's early Expressionist phase. Kandinsky applies blocks of vivid, contrasting pigment directly to the board, often simplifying architectural forms, such as the central, dominating church tower and surrounding structures, into geometric fields of color. The forms retain definition but are radically distorted by the emotional intensity of the palette. Though the artist was Russian working primarily in Germany, the radical approach to color and structure seen here reflects the broader European modernism that was influencing contemporary groups, including the Fauves and the French avant-garde.

The intensity of the colors in this work reveals Kandinsky’s emerging theoretical belief in the spiritual resonance of pure color, a concept he would soon elaborate upon in his seminal text, Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Completed in 1909, this foundational work vividly documents the initial stages of his rapid break with conventional perspective and naturalistic rendering. This significant example of early modernism currently resides within the esteemed collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). While the original resides at MoMA, high-quality prints of this early Expressionist work are frequently sought after by collectors, making the image widely accessible for research and educational purposes.