A Compressed City of Time in Light | The City in Art
by Dr. Mark David Major, AICP, CNU-A
Wassily Kandinsky painted Moscow I in 1916 after he was forced to return to Russia in 1914 because of Germany’s declaration of war against Russia during World War I. The year 1915 was a period of profound depression and self-doubt during which he tried to build a new life at age 50 after living almost two decades in Munich, Germany. He did not paint a single picture. In 1916, Kandinsky painted Moscow I. He wrote, “I would love to paint a large landscape of Moscow — taking elements from everywhere and combining them into a single picture — weak and strong parts, mixing everything together in the same way as the world is mixed of different elements. It must be like an orchestra” (Becks-Malorny, Wassily Kandinsky, 1866–1944, 115). 
Moscow I contains some of the same romantic fairy-tale qualities of his earlier paintings, fused with dramatic forms and colors. “The sun dissolves the whole of Moscow into a single spot, which, like a wild tuba, sets all one’s soul vibrating” (Kandinsky, “Reminiscences,” 360).
At first glance, Kandinsky’s Moscow I appears to be a simple collage of landmarks, freed of the constraints of gravity and space, represented in a highly abstract manner by the artist. However, upon closer examination, there appears to be a logic to the almost spherical layout of objects composing the Moscow built environment (for example, the Kremlin is clearly represented towards the lower right). Using Kandisky’s own words about this painting as a guide (see above), we can hypothesize Kandisky placed these objects within the frame of the painting in relation to the time of day when each achieves its apex in terms of natural light and vibrant color, hence the almost spherical layout and luxurious richness of the hues. The spherical layout seems to mirror the path of the sun across the sky, or perhaps the daylight hours on the face of a clock. In this sense, Kandinsky’s Moscow I is a notional ‘clock of the city’, representing for us the optimal passage of time to see the collected objects of the city as shown in the painting. If true, then it is a clever means to elevate the painting beyond mere collage, above the mere randomness of collected objects that are compressed and freed of space. It also embeds his representation of Moscow with a kinetic energy that metaphorically accounts for the activity of urban life itself, the city as more than a mere collection of things but as a thing that, in itself, is alive.
About Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky (born December 16, 1866, died December 13, 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely abstract works. With the possible exception of Marc Chagall (who was born/educated in Russia but adopted France as his home in adulthood to the point of being considered a “Russian-French” artist), Kandinsky is probably the most influential Russian artist in human history. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa but later enrolled at the University of Moscow to study law and economics. Successful in his profession, he was offered a professorship (Chair of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat where he began painting studies (life-drawing, sketching, and anatomy) at the age of 30. In 1896 Kandinsky settled in Munich, studying first at Anton Ažbe’s private school and then at the Academy of Fine Arts. He returned to Moscow in 1914 after the outbreak of World War I. Kandinsky was unsympathetic to the official theories on art in Communist Moscow and returned to Germany in 1921. There, he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933. Like Chagall, he then moved to France where he lived for the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1939, and producing some of his most prominent pieces of art. He died at Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944. Unlike Chagall, Kandinsky never attained the status of being (in part) a French artist but has always been considered a definitive Russian one (Source: Wikipedia).
The City in Art is a series by The Outlaw Urbanist. The purpose is to present and discuss artistic depictions of the city that can help us, as professionals, learn to better see the city in ways that are invisible to others. Before the 20th century, most artistic representations of the city broadly fell into, more or less, three categories: literalism, pastoral romanticism, and impressionism, or some variation thereof. Generally, these artistic representations of the city lack a certain amount of substantive interest for the modern world. The City in Art series places particular emphasis on art and photography from the dawn of the 20th century to the present day.
These common references are extremely important in the New Testament. They map for the reader the movement and location of specific people at specific moments, most usually Jesus and his Apostles, or in recounting past events/parables during the course of the primary action of a specific text. More than a third (36%) of the common references are a non-possessive, non-relational subject or object (direct or indirect) of a sentence. (e.g. “The city was…” or “…a city”). Again, this often occurs after a proper name was previously used in the text (i.e. we already know where the action is taking place). Finally, only eleven percent (11%) of the common references in the New Testament are possessive nouns (e.g. “the priests of the city”). These possessive nouns are often important for denoting differences; for example, between insider (e.g. resident or citizen) and outsider (e.g. visitor or stranger), the powerful (e.g. priests) and the powerless (e.g. poor), or other such relationships presented as a dichotomy in the narrative.
Nearly three hundred (300) or forty-two percent (42%) of the common references to the city in Old Testament are nouns denoting the location/direction of a specific person in space. However, the Historical Books deploy these common references at a greater frequency than the rest of the Old Testament. Over forty-five percent (45%) of the common references to the city in the Old Testament occur in the Historical Books. Finally, about thirty-one percent (31%) of the common references to the city in the Old Testament are a non-possessive, non-relational subject or object (direct or indirect) of a sentence. What this suggests, whatever you might believe, is the writers of the Gospels and Acts believed they were writing histories and adopted the appropriate writing style for that endeavor drawing upon the model of Old Testament texts.
The ancient concept of a city is remarkably different to our modern one due to radical differences in population. World population is generally estimated at between 15-60 million people before the 4th century AD height of the Roman Empire. World population today is more than 7 billion people or approximately 100-500 times greater, depending upon scholarly estimates for ancient populations. The modern megalopolis would have been unimaginable to our ancient ancestors. We also have to accept the limits of translation. Biblical texts have been translated time and time again over the ages. What we might find in researching the Holy Bible will be heavily dependent upon how these ancient texts were translated in the past, hereby affecting our interpretation of the material today. This article initially relies upon the King James (KJB) version of the Holy Bible but also uses the Catholic New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) (translated “directly from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic” according to the Roman Catholic Church) as a double-check for translation issues. It is likely this is insufficient. However, it is a good place to start if we actually hope to say anything on the subject during a single lifetime.
The first city mentioned in the Holy Bible is Enoch, built by Cain and named after his son (NJB Genesis 4:17. “Cain had intercourse with his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. He became the founder of a city and gave the city the name of his son Enoch”). Some argue Cain’s Enoch is the ancient Mesopotamian city of Uruk, which was famous as the capital city of Gilgamesh, hero of the Epic of Gilgamesh. However, it is more generally accepted that Uruk is the biblical Erech, said to be founded by Nimrod, who was the great-grandson of Noah. In any case, considering he famously murdered his brother Abel (KJB Genesis 4:9 “Am I my brother’s keeper?”), Cain represents a rather inauspicious father figure for city builders and planners. One could argue (tongue-firmly-in-cheek), this represents the original sin of the planning profession for which they still seek amends to this day as modern planners explicitly desire to be their “brother’s keeper”.
Cooke implies waitresses were serving pizza sans clothing but it could have meant the roadside lunch counter was serving its pizza lunch sans toppings, i.e. Margherita. Given Las Vegas’ reputation, it is probably wise to assume both options were on the menu. In any case, architects and urban planners have shared this fascination with the ‘Modern Babylon’ of Western civilization.
The a priori conditions are a consequence of the pattern of land division imposed by the 1785 Land Ordinance. Using computer modeling such as the configurational software of space syntax, we can ‘peel’ these congruent spatial systems apart and examine their role in Las Vegas; much like peeling layers off an onion and examining the individual layers (we know together they form an onion). The results are fascinating. First, Las Vegas has a well-defined, center-to-edge spatial pattern, the focus of which is not the Las Vegas Strip (though it is partially in the core) but the historic area/Central Business District (CBD). Second, a congruent, large-scale orthogonal spatial pattern emerging from the pattern of land division over time characterizes Las Vegas. This orthogonal grid pattern did not exist in the early 20th century (though we can infer its outline from section lines) and only began to emerge during the 1950s and 1960s before fully manifesting in the late 20th century.
cuts into separate developments (with at least one development somewhere having a minimum of two entry roads). This has nothing to do with inter-connectivity and everything to do with traffic management of vehicular turning actions.