Wassily Kandinsky had always painted with watercolours, but around 1922 he began to assign them individual titles and record them in a separate numbered inventory (Hauskatalog or Handlist). Thus, we know that Brauner Ecke (Brown Angle) was made in November 1923 and first exhibited the following spring. The watercolour derives its title from the brown area covering the lower left corner. Even in earlier years Kandinsky had masked corners to define the space within his pictures. By 1923 the precisely demarcated areas created triangular shapes. That year Kandinsky favoured brown or black as indicated by the titles he gave his watercolours: Brauner Fleck (Brown Spot), Zwei schwarze Flecke (Two Black Spots), Im schwarzen Viereck (In the Black Square), Schwarzes Dreieck (Black Triangle) and Schwarze Begleitung (Black Accompaniment).1 Likewise, in 1924, he focused on colours - especially primary colours - in assigning titles to his pictures: Blaues Bild (Blue Painting), Im Rot (In Red), Gelbe Begleitung (Yellow Accompaniment), Tiefes Braun (Deep Brown), Schweres Rot (Heavy Red) and Grüner Klang (Green Sound).2
When Kandinsky painted Brauner Ecke in 1923, he lived in Weimar Germany and was Master in the Wall Painting Workshop at the Staatliches Bauhaus, where he also taught analytical drawing and theory of form in the preliminary course. Walter Gropius had founded the innovative art school a century ago in 1919; he invited Kandinsky to join the faculty soon after his return to Germany at the end of 1921. At the Bauhaus he was reunited with his close friend Paul Klee and became friends with his colleagues Lyonel Feininger, Georg Muche and Oskar Schlemmer. Although Kandinsky was very active teaching, participating in committees and organising exhibitions, he produced hundreds of watercolours and paintings during his years at the Bauhaus. 

Since he was a child Kandinsky had painted with watercolour, but his earliest surviving works in the medium date from about 1902. From 1911 to 1914 he often made watercolour studies for his major paintings. However, in 1915, he worked only in ink and watercolour and, again in 1918, he did not create any oil paintings. In the Cerruti Collection there is also an untitled watercolour dated February 1918 (cat. p. 682), which Kandinsky dedicated to Ludwig Baehr, a German army officer who later assisted him in negotiating arrangements for the Erste russische Kunstausstellung (first exhibition of Russian art) that took place in Berlin in the autumn of 1922. In comparison with the 1918 watercolour, Brauner Ecke has a more balanced composition and displays geometric forms. Here there is a playful contrast between the brown triangle in the centre, the large blue triangular form on the right, a small yellow triangle and the brown triangular area blocking the lower left corner. 

[Vivian Endicott Barnett]

1 Barnett 1992-94, vol. II, nos. 608, 637, 658, 661, 663. 

2 Roethel, Benjamin 1982-84, vol. II, nos. 709-710, 712, 714, 719, 723.