Wassily Kandinsky was a principal figure in the history of abstract art. His painting style had a resounding influence on early 20th century art, propelling the proliferation of abstraction. Dunkle Zacken (Dark Points) (Lot 1051), painted in 1931, perfectly displays the aesthetic of Kandinsky’s 1930s Bauhaus period, in which points, lines, and planes mutate and fuse to create pleasant resonances. In June 2021, Sotheby’s London sold Tensions calmées, a museum-quality work by Kandinsky, for £21 million, setting a record for a 1930s painting by the artist and establishing the artistic value of work from this golden era. This year, the West Bund Museum and the Centre Pompidou collaborated on the first large-scale Kandinsky retrospective in China, and the artist’s standing in Asia has never been higher. Dunkle Zacken at Sotheby’s Hong Kong offers collectors the rare opportunity to purchase a painting by the father of abstract art.

From the early 20th century to the post-war period, many artists from Asia studied abroad, and many of whom greatly admired Kandinsky. This season, Dunkle Zacken is presented with the work of Asian masters to highlight the interactions between Eastern and Western artists. Kandinsky’s poetic symbols resonate with Zao Wou-Ki’s symbolic vocabulary derived from oracle bone inscriptions, Chu Teh-Chun’s lyrical abstractions, and Richard Lin’s succinct geometric structures. Kandinsky was also deeply interested in Eastern culture. Over many years, he assembled a range of publications on the subject, and he collected Japanese woodblock prints and an anonymous painting from a Chinese painter’s reference book. He spent his later years in Paris, where he developed a deep interest in ancient Chinese bronze vessels. A retrospective this year in Shanghai showed Shang and Zhou bronzes on loan from the Shanghai Museum together with masterworks by Kandinsky to represent an artistic dialogue across time and space, and this auction offering intends to perpetuate this spirit.

By the time he painted Dunkle Zacken, Kandinsky had already abandoned narrative modes of expression, returning to compositions of pure colour and shape that explored the rhythms and emotions produced by elements in his paintings. Before World War II, Kandinsky taught at the Bauhaus, which could be considered his creative peak. His early compositions were romantic and fantastical, but they gradually transformed into rhythmic geometric compositions reminiscent of musical notes on a staff. Kandinsky had studied classical music from a young age, and he wanted to combine painting and music in his work. In Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1910), the artist put it beautifully: “Colour is the keyboard. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano, with its many strings. The artist is the hand that purposefully sets the soul vibrating by means of this or that key.” In Dunkle Zacken (Dark Points), conventional shapes such as semi-circles, triangles, and balancing lines are concentrated along a central axis in the painting, appearing to float upward. The shapes, reminiscent of musical notes, seem to follow mysterious orbits, like stardust floating through the universe. Kandinsky said, “The forms that appear[ed] before [my] eyes while listening to music.”

在抽象藝術的歷史上，康丁斯基是不可或缺的先鋒人物，他的繪畫語言在二十世紀初的藝壇上引起了旋風式的迴響，由此衍生出各種精彩的表現形式，成就抽象藝術遍地開花的盛況。創於1931年之《暗點》（拍品編號1051），即完美展現康丁斯基在三〇年代包浩斯時期所銳化的經典美學，在點、線、面的蛻變與融匯之間，奏起了宛如悅耳樂章的靈性共鳴。今年六月，倫敦蘇富比曾呈獻康丁斯基之珍罕博物館級別鉅作《緩和的張力》，並以2,100萬英鎊勇創藝術家三〇年代作品拍賣紀錄，力證此黃金時期的藝術與歷史價值；放眼全球，隨著本年上海西岸美術館與龐畢度中心共同籌劃中國首個康丁斯基大型回顧展，藝術家在亞洲的關注度亦達致前所未見的高峰。如今《暗點》登臨香港蘇富比拍場，將為藏家獻上一次購藏抽象藝術之父筆下珍品之難得機會。

二十世紀初至戰後期間，眾多來自亞洲的藝術家渡洋留學，為求在國際藝壇上爭一席位，而有「抽象藝術之父」之稱的康丁斯基，正是是一眾莘莘學子所敬仰的對象之一；本次《暗點》與同場亞洲大師的作品互相輝映，尤其突顯了東、西方藝術家之間的交流與傳承。康丁斯基筆下的詩性「符號」，與趙無極擷取自漢拓與甲骨文的符號性語言、朱德群筆下富有詩意的抒情抽象畫風、林壽宇簡潔而精準的幾何結構等，皆有著明顯的共鳴。同樣地，康丁斯基對東方文化亦深感興趣，多年來收藏不少相關的讀物，更曾珍藏日本浮世繪，以及《中國畫冊——畫樣譜》中的一幅佚名畫作等，其晚年移居巴黎後，更對中國古代青銅器發展出濃厚興趣，在本年於上海舉行的回顧展中，即獲上海博物館借出商周青銅與康丁斯基的鉅作同場亮相，上演一場穿越時空的藝術對話，而此番博古通今的精神，在本場拍賣中獲得了昇華的延續。

在創作《暗點》時，康丁斯基早已摒棄敍事的表現方式，並將構圖回歸至色彩與形狀的純粹語言，以探討畫中元素所產生的節奏與情感。在咆哮的二〇年代直至二戰以前，康丁斯基在德國包浩斯設計學院任教，同時進入一段創作的巔峰時期，早期浪漫與自由的幻想式構圖，逐漸幻化成如五線譜般富有韻律的幾何式曲譜。從小學習古典音樂的康丁斯基，致力將繪畫與音樂結合，早在1910出版之《藝術中的精神》一書中，即曾優美地寫到：「顏色是琴鍵，眼睛是和聲，靈魂是有很多弦的鋼琴。藝術家就是演奏的手，撫弄著一個又一個琴鍵，讓靈魂震顫。」在《暗點》中，規整的形體如半圓、三角、平衡線等集中在畫面的中軸線，並呈往上浮升的狀態，營造一幕如星塵在宇宙劃過的神秘軌跡，一個又一個像音符般的形狀，正是康丁斯基所言：「聽著音樂時在我眼前浮現的造型」。