"Riding Couple"

My favourite painting is Wassiliy Kandinsky's "Riding Couple". I saw it first in 1985 in Norwich, where I spent a year as an exchange student. The original is in the Museum Lenbachhaus in München and I have visited it lots of times. Looking at it, I thought what a enviable close relationship those two riders must have, they look to each other and seem lost to the world riding through a birch grove on a Russian river bank with the city in the back. Eloping?  - and the next moment my sensible me tells me that those two riders will probably be thrown off at the next tree or down into the Moskwa or at least get bruised by brushing trees because none of them is looking ahead. Horses are able to find their own way - and this horse seems to walk in perfect pose - but hardly ever do they take heed of the rider's width and height on a narrow path and knees and more will be bruised. I speak from experience; I have been through lots of dense forest on the back of my horses in Germany. And I would not want the riders to suffer Absalom's fate ...
Still - it is my favourite picture and I imagine a perfect world, where all the white birches wave their lofty branches and yellow leaves and make way to let the couple pass unharmed.

Kandinsky : Reitendes Paar