Kandinsky’s Iterations

intermediate2 min readdesign · education · psychology · art · business

Success is rarely the result of a single flash of inspiration; it usually emerges from many small iterations. Each attempt provides feedback that guides improvement, as exemplified by Kandinsky’s twenty sketches before his final painting.

THE IDEA

An attempt gives us something to examine. Comparing the result with our aim can reveal a change to make in the next attempt. Too often we remove the learning process, including the inevitable failures and disappointments, in success stories. In particular, when it comes to artistic creation, we look at the final product of a painting or piece of music without seeing all the iterations that came before.

In How to Fly a Horse, Kevin Ashton tells the story of how Wassily Kandinsky created one of his most famous works, Painting with White Border. The piece was not the single output of a flash of inspiration, but from a series of small changes and adjustments based on the feedback he received from each iteration.

The artist started with what would be called Sketch I for Painting with White Border. Based on the feedback he received from looking at the effort, he continued to iterate. As Ashton describes it, “His second sketch, barely different, diffused the lines until they were more stain than stroke… More sketches followed…. He made twenty sketches, each no more than one or two steps different from the last. The process took five months.”

Ashton describes Kandinsky as working toward particular artistic goals, using each sketch to judge what still needed to change. In this account, the finished painting is the twenty-first iteration.

When to use it

In business, launching a product through iterative prototyping and user testing rather than a single grand release.
In education, having students submit multiple drafts with peer or instructor feedback before the final version.
In personal skill development, breaking a complex skill into micro-skills and practicing each with quick feedback (e.g., learning a language through short daily exercises).
In design sprints, running rapid cycles of build, measure, learn to converge on a better solution.

FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE

In practice

Kandinsky’s Iterations in Painting with White Border

Kandinsky created twenty sketches over five months, each a small step from the last. He used visual feedback from each sketch to inform the next, eventually solving the artistic problems he set out to address and producing the finished painting.

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A MOMENT TO REFLECT

Put it to work.

Think of a recent project where you aimed for a perfect first attempt. How might iterating with small changes have improved the outcome?
When have you seen a finished product and assumed it was created in a single stroke of genius, ignoring the likely iterations behind it?
What is one skill you are currently developing, and how could you incorporate more frequent feedback loops into your practice?