• This work of art was painted in 1913
• It was painted with oil on canvas
• The size of the painting is 55 3/8 in by 47 1/8 in (140.7 cm by 119.7 cm)

In the period from 1909 to 1914 Kandinsky painted 35 paintings for a collection he named “Improvisations”. According to the artist they were influenced by “a largely unconscious, spontaneous expression of inner character, non-material nature”. The year 1913 was the most productive year of artist’s pre-war era, as he mastered the abstract forms of expression.

The amorphous shapes and colorful strokes of paint in this painting have that abstract appearance, but they form some recognizable pictures which the artist created to portrait his, often biblical, subject matter.

The main motifs of Improvisation 31 (Sea Battle) are two sailing ships, engaged in battle. Their forms appear from a vortex of color, their masts painted with slender black lines. Cannons are blasting from these ships above the turbulent sea. In the upper part of the painting forms of a white city appear between a swirl of blue and red. It is assumed that Kandinsky found inspiration for these images in the apocalyptic imagery of the Book of Revelations, like in a number of his other “Improvisations”.

Although Kandinsky painted this work on the threshold of the First World War he denied it having references to any specific war, but rather to “a terrible struggle… going on in the spiritual atmosphere”. He believed that humanity was on the verge of a new spiritual era and that art could help severing the human attachment to the material world and push it into the new age.

Improvisation 31 (Sea Battle) is kept in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, as a bequest of Ailsa Mellon Bruce.