1909
oil on canvas
96,3 х 128,5

Entered the collection in 1929 from the State Museum of New Western Art In the early years of the 20th century Kandinsky was a follower of Symbolism and Art Nouveau. He contributed to the magazine World of Art (Mir Iskusstva), which was the main publication of Russian Symbolism. In his work we see the themes that were typical for artists of this circle relating to gentry culture of the 18th century and first half of the 19th century. Ladies in Crinoline is one of the central works on such a theme. It combines an Impressionistic understanding of color, whereby color is understood to be the result of a certain intensity of illumination of an object, a striving for monumental and decorative generalization that was typical of Art Nouveau, and Symbolism’s feeling of something left unsaid coming from an indistinct subject line. The masters of the World of Art literally resuscitated the world of noble estates, viewing the past with a certain detachment that came from their ironic and lyrical intonation and a certain “playfulness” in building images. The artist constructs the composition without dependence on action of the subjects: it is organized on the basis of the rhythm in the placement of the figures which arise like some specters from the past. The artist tries to convey the aroma of a bygone way of life. The picture is a remembrance of the culture of the nobility without any striving to draw close to its ideals.