When Wassily Kandinsky left Germany in December 1933 with all his belongings, this was not the first time he had taken such a major step. In 1914, while still a Russian citizen, he was expelled as a citizen of a "hostile" nation. This move, by comparison, was carefully considered and executed. Upon arrival in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris, Kandinsky lost all desire to paint for some weeks.

Only after a period of acclimatisation did he start to create any new works in February 1934. He gave them French titles. This was not the only way in which Kandinsky's art changed during his exile, as evidenced, for example, in Parties diverses in 1940. In this painting it is not the constituent geometric forms such as circles, triangles and squares which stand out, rather the numerous imaginative hybrid forms. This inclination to depict organisms, which the artist was clearly inspired to do from his reading of scientific texts, is one of the characteristic features of his time in emigration.

His use of colour in the pictures is also noteworthy. Kandinsky's tonality evokes associations with Asian cultures. For this reason, art-history researchers have repeatedly posed the question of whether the Russian-born artist was not actually reactivating former influences during his exile. For exile researchers, this poses questions surrounding the concepts of home and identity that have meaning and justification even in the works of a supposedly abstract painter who was largely cut off from the outside world such as Kandinsky.