Sangerin (The Singer)

This print reveals the new pictorial language of simplified forms and surface pattern that would be foundational for Vasily Kandinsky’s later, more abstract imagery. Its subject—evoking piano notes and song—references his great passion for music, which would also inform his theories of abstraction. Kandinsky learned about printmaking techniques while working as the art director of a printing firm in Moscow in 1895. After moving to Munich a year later, he became particularly engaged with the experimental and artistic potential of woodcut, which became a central preoccupation for him.