Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VII, 1913

The world became increasingly chaotic. As Kandinsky settled down to paint Composition VII, argued by many to be his most important pre-Great War, a collision of social, cultural, and political ideologies occurred.

Composition VII, a complicated and tiring work, contains nods to the futurists, the fauvists, Picasso, and countless others. The shades of gray and black work into a mechanical representation of the world. This not only reflects the rapid industrialization of pre-war society, but also an interest in the futurists, a group of men obsessed with fire and machines. The color is undoubtedly a fauvist element. The pinks and purples contrast with the whites and yellows to create further chaos and lay a stark contrast. The Kandinsky lay within the shapes and the drawings. The main drawings in the painting sit in an oval shape dead center in the frame. Art historian Mark Harden argues that the oval operates as the center of a compositional hurricane.

As I thought about the "compositional hurricane," I became more and more angry with Harden. To suggest that the entire center of the painting can be boiled down to the eye of a storm is overly simplistic and frankly cheats Kandinsky of the recognition he deserves. After months of preparation, it took the painter a mere four days to create a painting that is arguably the most important pre-WWI painting of his time. The painting should not be reduced to the parts of a storm, unless it was as a prescient warning of the iron thunder that would become The Great War.