Horizontalee, 1939 by Wassily Kandinsky

Aubusson is a town in the French region of Creuse, well known for its manufacture of carpets ond tapestries since the fourteenth centurg. Although the use of tapestries as wall hangings had been in decline since the odvent of wallpaper, it was still considered a luxurious item to own a hanging as a decorative item.

Horizontalee is one of a number of designs by well-known artists, such as Salvador Dali, Raoul Dufg, and Pablo Picasso, who were invited to Aubusson to express their ideas in this unusual medium, wall hangings. Although not woven bg the ortists themselves, the designs still corrg a monograph or signature woven into the design.

Kandinsky chose to express his ideas in a series of horizontal bands of colour surrounded bg the 'heavenly' blue. The coloured bonds represent the six colours that make up his theory of the three main antitheses, red-green, violetorange and blue-yellow. Kandinsky brings one of his oft-used motifs into the later works; the snake, which he saw as representing eternity. The snake also represents wisdom and the power to heal.