Living with abstract art: Kandinsky's Improvisation 30

Abstract art is easier to live with than it looks: it has no subject to get tired of, only colour and rhythm that change with the light.

The painting

Vasily Kandinsky (1866–1944) believed painting could work like music: directly on the feelings, without telling a story. His Improvisations were meant to be spontaneous expressions of inner feeling. Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons), from 1913, is one of the most dramatic: blues, reds and yellows collide, black lines cut across, and in the lower right corner two cannons fire, a detail Kandinsky later said had come into the painting almost unconsciously in a year full of talk of war. The original hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago.

How to hang abstract art

Link it to the room with one colour. Pick the blue, red or yellow in the painting and repeat it once, in a cushion or a lamp.
Give it space. Abstract art is busy by nature, so hang it on a calm wall, not next to shelves of objects.
Use the square format. Improvisation 30 is almost square. A 50×50 cm print suits a spot above a console table, between two windows, or as the anchor of a gallery wall with portrait prints around it.

Abstract art with other styles

Abstract works mix surprisingly well with older things: an antique chest, a wooden table, a Japanese print on the next wall. Hilma af Klint and Kandinsky were painting at the same time, and their works hang well together too.