Orange

The work Orange is a key example of geometric abstraction created by Vasily Kandinsky in 1923. Executed as a lithograph, this print technique allowed Kandinsky to explore color and form in a reproducible medium, a significant consideration for artists associated with the Bauhaus movement during this period. The creation of prints like this one reflects a pivotal shift in the artist's style following his return from Russia, moving away from the purely intuitive compositions of his earlier years toward a more structured and theoretical approach to visual language.

Created when Kandinsky was heavily involved in teaching at the Bauhaus in Germany, this piece displays the formal rigor that characterized his output in the early 1920s. Though firmly rooted in German artistic education at the time, this work—classified culturally as French—demonstrates the international scope of the abstraction movement. Kandinsky utilized precise geometric forms, including circles, triangles, and trapezoids, juxtaposed against a predominantly warm background that gives the piece its titular hue. The arrangement of these elements suggests a cosmic or musical structure, concepts central to Kandinsky’s theories on non-objective art and the spiritual properties of color.

The lithograph medium emphasized the clarity and sharp delineation of these abstract shapes, allowing Kandinsky to achieve a calculated balance between linear structure and chromatic intensity. Such experiments in color and form were vital to the development of non-representational art throughout the 20th century. This important 1923 work, which embodies the transition from Expressionism to objective formalism in abstraction, is held in the prestigious collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.