This invaluable scholarly monograph on abstract Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) reproduces scores of recently rediscovered paintings that had languishd for decades in Soviet museums and in private collections. German art historian Hahl-Koch provides a wealth of new details on Kandinsky's life and art, discussing, for example, his little-known experimental stage plays which strove for a synthesis of all the arts, and his friendships with Paul Klee, Arnold Schonberg and composer Thomas von Hartmann, who introduced the artist to Sufism, the mystical offshoot of Islam. Most chapters include generous excerpts from Kandinsky's newspaper articles, essays and unpublished letters, creating the impression of a tolerant nonconformist who saw art as inseparably linked with the higher laws of the cosmos. The wonderful reproductions furnish an exciting glimpse of Kandinsky's leap into abstraction after his early absorption of folk and religious art, fauvism and neo-impressionism. (Jan.)