BEELDEN IN VEELVOUD

affio [sic], as an admirer and witness of hls master's deviant and revolutionary
ideas. The sixth chapter is entirely devoted ro h is diary in which hè
jotted down Leonardo's pieces of artistic wisdom, and his recommendations
and formulas. In one of his more extensive notes hè relatcs
Leonardo's explanation of how one should depict the Delugc. In the
English translation of 1931 this note reads as follows:
'Discoursing of how an artist ought to compose the ideas for pictures,
the master told us, by wayof an example, of a representation of the delugc
that hè had conceived: 'Abysses and maelstroms, lit up by lighcnings.
Branches of enonnous oaks, with people clinging to them, carried
along by a waterspout. Waters, strewn with fragments of household
furniture, upon which people seek to save themselves. Hcrds of
quadrupeds, surrounded by water, on high table-lands, — some with
their Icgs on the backs of others, crushing and trampling one another. A
horde of people, defending, with arms in. hand, the last patch ofground
from fcral beasts. Some are wringing their hands, gnawing them so that
the blood runs; others stuff their ears so as not to hear the rumble of the
thunder-sbocks; or else, not content with having shut their eyes, place
one hand atop the other, pressing them to their eyelids, in order not to
see their impending death. Some commk suïcide, suffocating, strangling
themselves, impaling themselves upon swords, casting themselves
into the raging deep from cliffs; and mothers, cursing God, seize their
children to smash their heads against stones. Decomposed corpscs float
up to the surfacc, colliding with and striking one another, and rebounding
like little balls inflated with air. Birds perch on them; or,
sinking down from exhaustion, descend on the living men and animals,
finding no other place to rest.'15
Kandinsky himself refers to a German transiation in U b er das Geestige.16
Although hè does not mention the passage about the deluge, hè can hardly
not have known it. Given Kandinsky's belief in past and future cultural
revolutions, this passage must have sounded like a call to arms.
Merczhkovsky's novel may have inspired Kandinsky to deal with the theme
of the deluge, or at any rate stimulatcd his interest in it.17 Yet to what extent
was the novel helpful to him in finding a suitable formal idiom? His
earlier, paraphrased description of the origins of Composïtion VI proved
that in around 1913 Kandinsky had already experienced a great deal of
difficulty in depicting the story of the deluge. In the earlier littie painting
on glass based on the same subject (fig. 3) hè stïll included 'various figurativeforms,
partlycheerfulones (Igotalotof pleasureout ofcombining the
serious forms with cheerful external images): naked figurcs, arks, animals,
palm trees, lightning flashed, rain, etc.'.18 But with regard to more serious
forms of art — hè had made the glass painting more for his own pleasure
/icS Paul van den Akker