 |
| Wassily Kandinsky Singer 1903 color woodblock print Guggenheim Museum, New York |
 |
| Wassily Kandinsky Lady with Fan 1903 color woodblock print Guggenheim Museum, New York |
 |
| Wassily Kandinsky Pond in the Park ca. 1906 oil on board Guggenheim Museum, New York |
 |
| Wassily Kandinsky Blue Mountain 1908-1909 oil on canvas Guggenheim Museum, New York |
 |
| Wassily Kandinsky Group in Crinolines 1909 oil on canvas Guggenheim Museum, New York |
 |
| Wassily Kandinsky Landscape near Murnau with Locomotive 1909 oil on board Guggenheim Museum, New York |
 |
| Wassily Kandinsky Landscape with Rolling Hills 1910 oil on board Guggenheim Museum, New York |
 |
| Wassily Kandinsky Improvisation 28 1912 oil on canvas Guggenheim Museum, New York |
 |
| Wassily Kandinsky Landscape with Rain 1913 oil on canvas Guggenheim Museum, New York |
 |
| Wassily Kandinsky White Cross 1922 oil on canvas Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice |
 |
| Wassily Kandinsky Pointed and Round 1925 oil on board Guggenheim Museum, New York |
 |
| Wassily Kandinsky Three Sounds 1926 oil on canvas Guggenheim Museum, New York |
 |
| Wassily Kandinsky Upward 1929 oil on board Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice |
 |
| Wassily Kandinsky Striped 1934 oil on canvas Guggenheim Museum, New York |
 |
| Wassily Kandinsky Yellow Painting 1938 oil and enamel on canvas Guggenheim Museum, New York |
 |
| Wassily Kandinsky Around the Circle 1940 oil and enamel on canvas Guggenheim Museum, New York |
Solstice
Each year, on this same date, the summer solstice comes.
Consummate light: we plan for it,
the day we tell ourselves
that time is very long indeed, nearly infinite.
And in our reading and writing, preference is given
to the celebratory, the ecstatic.
There is in these rituals something apart from wonder:
there is also a kind of preening,
as though human genius had participated in these arrangements
and we found the results satisfying.
What follows the light is what precedes it:
the moment of balance, of dark equivalence.
But tonight we sit in the garden in our canvas chairs
so late into the evening –
why should we look either forward or backward?
Why should we be forced to remember:
it is in our blood, this knowledge.
Shortness of the days; darkness, coldness of winter.
It is in our blood and bones; it is in our history.
It takes genius to forget these things.