the artists are dazzled and kandinski hears something in schaumberg's music that enables him to sgin too con september allize an abstract picture and he make -- concert which is as abstract a picture as he had made until that point. and within a few weeks of that he begins work on composition 5, which is a manifesto for abstraction. it's a huge monumental painting. he shows it in the firs first-- exhibition in december of that year and publishes his manuscript at the same time. and that is a watershed. after that moment, artist after artist across the course of 1912 shows abstract pictures in exhibition. >> rose: tell me one more time why that was the one that was sort of explosive in terms of the coming of abstraction? >> well, i don't think there's one first abstract picture but with composition 5 it was a combination of an exhibition, a brand-new group of artists showing this picture and a manifesto for abstraction. kandin scow put image and text out in the public sphere in the same moment in time. and it rippled through the world of art, artist after artist responded to his text.

and this concert that he goes to of schaumberg's music in january o 1911 seems to have helped him see the path. and he paints this work, which was as radically abstract as he had done yet. >> rose: and he said content is nothing but the sum of organized tensions. >> that's right. after this concert he goes there, the munich audience is dumbfounded. the artists are dazzled and kandinski hears something in schaumberg's music that enables him to sgin too con september allize an abstract picture and he make -- concert which is as abstract a picture a he had de until that point. and within a few weeks of that he begins work on composition 5, which is a manifesto for abstraction. it's a huge monumental painting. he shows it in the firs first-- exhibition in december of that year and publishes his manuscript at the same time. and that is a watershed. after that moment, artist after artist across the course of 1912 shows abstract pictures in exhibition. >> rose: tell me one more time why that was the one that was sort of explosive in terms of the coming of abstraction? >> wel, i don't think t