Vasily Kandinsky

In Kleine Welten (Small worlds) Vasily Kandinsky demonstrates the different effects of drypoint, lithography, and woodcut, providing four examples of each technique. As suggested by the portfolio's title, each abstract image is a world unto itself; meaning is generated exclusively through the interplay of line, plane, and color and the specific properties of the given medium. The constellation of dots orbiting the center of the drypoint Kleine Welten X penetrates deeply into the paper's surface. By contrast, the elegant marks in the lithograph Kleine Welten III seem barely to brush the surface. In the woodcut Kleine Welten V, dots made by digging into the soft, wood block with a cold, metal instrument express violent energy.
Kandinsky systematically elaborated his position on the inherent qualities of each print technique in the set's foreword and in his 1926 book, Punkt und Linie zur Fläche (Point and Line to Plane). Drypoint expressed passion and haste, foregrounding line and point. The limited number of impressions that could be pulled from a metal drypoint plate made it an "aristocratic" medium. Woodcut was more egalitarian in that it allowed for greater edition sizes; it also best conveyed planar relationships. Lithography was the most painterly, and its unlimited reproducibility made it the most "democratic," a quality that led Kandinsky to proclaim it the medium of his time.