Binz auf Rügen (Twilight)

Wassily Kandinsky's 'Binz auf Rügen (Twilight)' (1903) depicts the Baltic Sea resort on the island of Rügen — the most celebrated of German Baltic islands, Rügen's combination of dramatic chalk cliffs, sandy beaches, and distinctive Baltic light made it a popular destination for German artists from the Romantic period onward (Caspar David Friedrich's most celebrated Rügen subjects had established the island's artistic significance). Kandinsky's twilight treatment captured the specific atmospheric quality of the Baltic evening.

Kandinsky renders the Binz twilight with his characteristic atmospheric boldness — the specific quality of the Baltic twilight (the gradual darkening, the last glow on the water, the silhouettes of the shore against the fading sky) depicted through his color and formal simplification. His handling of the twilight atmosphere gives the subject its specific temporal quality within his developing style. The Baltic's distinct character from the North Sea and the Mediterranean coastal subjects he also depicted is reflected in the specific color and atmospheric conditions he rendered.