#bauhaus

This was painted not long after he started teaching at the Bauhaus, and it's often pointed to as the moment his early, looser abstraction gave way to these harder, more measured shapes he'd keep using for years after.

From what I can find, he limited himself to one shape here on purpose, just to see what color and scale alone could do without any other form to lean on. He apparently believed the circle was the most spiritual shape a painter could use.

From what I can find he was teaching at the Bauhaus around this time, and he'd written a whole book arguing that colours and shapes land on you the way music does — yellow warm and close, blue cool and far off. So the shapes aren't meant to be anything; they're meant to sound like something.

Apparently the title's a bit of wordplay - Senecio's a plant name that also echoes the Latin word for 'old man,' which is what the face is meant to be.

According to Wikipedia, this hung in his own dining room for years before his wife gave it to a museum after his death.

Painted while he was teaching at the Bauhaus, a school better known for chairs and lettering than for cats. The bird up on the forehead isn't a bird in the room, from what I've read — it's meant to be what the cat has in mind.