Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky (Vasíliy Vasílʹevich Kandínskiy) is credited with painting one of the first recognized purely abstract works. Born in Moscow, he studying law and economics and began painting studies at the age of 30.

Kandinsky was unsympathetic to the official theories on art in Communist Moscow and moved to Germany in 1920.

There, he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933.

He then moved to France, where he lived for the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1939 and producing some of his most prominent art.

A Virtual Tour of Kandinsky

“Blue Painting” by Vasily Kandinsky
“Improvisation 28 (2nd version)” by Vasily Kandinsky
Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love II)
Landscape with Factory Chimney by Wassily Kandinsky
Composition VI
Composition 8

A Highlights Tour of Kandinsky

Blue Painting

“Blue Painting” by Vasily Kandinsky was produced during his Bauhaus period, in Germany, where Kandinsky taught basic design and advanced color theory, and where he also conducted painting classes.

His examinations of the effects of forces on straight lines led to his contrasting tones on curved and angled lines. Geometrical elements took on increasing importance, particularly the circle, half-circle, the angle, straight lines, and curves. Museum: The Guggenheim

Improvisation 28 (2nd version)

“Improvisation 28 (2nd version)” by Vasily Kandinsky (also spelled Wassily) is an expressive abstract that is independent of forms and lines. Music was an important catalyst for early abstract art, and Kandinsky used musical terms to identify his works.

He called his spontaneous paintings “improvisations” and described elaborate works as “compositions.” In many of Kandinsky’s works, identifying the forms and the masses present on the canvas requires a more elaborate analysis.

The art’s inner reality requires a more profound observation of the relationship of all the elements and their harmony. Museum: The Guggenheim

Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love II)

Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love II) by Wassily Kandinsky depicts three embracing couples surrounded by serpentine forms. One of the embracing couples is to the left of the sun in the center of the painting.

A green and red pair are positioned on top of the sun. On the bottom right, a black figure is on top of a white figure. The painting’s subject is indicated in the subtitle “Garden of Love II,” which references biblical Eden. Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art – MET

Landscape with Factory Chimney

“Landscape with Factory Chimney” by Wassily Kandinsky is an abstract landscape with a factory chimney. In many of Kandinsky’s works, identifying the forms and the masses presented on the canvas require elaborate analysis. The inner reality of the art requires more profound observations of all the elements’ relationship and their harmony. Museum: The Guggenheim

Composition VI

Composition VI Kandinsky by Vasily Kandinsky is an artwork in which Kandinsky spent nearly six months preparing and procrastinating in creating this painting. He initially intended the work to evoke the idea of a flood, destruction, and rebirth.

However, Kandinsky was overcome by an uncharacteristically long artistic block. His breakthrough came when he started repeating the word “uberflut,” meaning “flood” or “deluge,” and focusing on the sound of the word rather than its meaning.

With this technique, he released his mind to focus on the music of the world. Kandinsky was thus able to complete the painting in three days, all the while repeating the word “uberflut,” like a mantra. Museum: Hermitage Museum

Composition 8

“Composition 8” by Vasily Kandinsky (also spelled Wassily) is a composition of geometric elements with erratic and unpredictable positions and colors.

Kandinsky has restricted himself to paint geometric shapes, with larger objects dominating the left side of the canvas, and on the right, the smaller forms clash and overlap with each other. The shades of color are all different from each other, and the geometric patterns consist of only critical components like circles, semicircles, angles, rectangles, and lines.

Composition 8 was created, during Kandinsky’s Bauhaus era, when he had moved from the Soviet Union to the Weimar Republic because of the increasing restrictions on artistic freedom in the Soviet Union.

The Weimar Germany of the early 1920s, in which Kandinsky painted Composition 8, was transitioning into a democratic republic and one of Europe’s most liberal countries.

The Bauhaus era provided a nurturing environment for the avant-garde that inspired Kandinsky. Museum: The Guggenheim

Name: Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky
Russian: Vasily Vasilyevich Kandinsky
Russian:: Васи́лий Васи́льевич Канди́нский
Born: 1866 – Moscow, Russian Empire
Died: 1944 (aged 77) – Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Nationality: Russian, later French
Movement: Expressionism; abstract art
Notable work:
- “Blue Painting” by Vasily Kandinsky
- “Improvisation 28 (2nd version)” by Vasily Kandinsky
- Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love II)
- Landscape with Factory Chimney by Wassily Kandinsky
- Composition VI
- Composition 8

Wassily Kandinsky: 6 Minute Art History Video

10 Amazing Facts about Wassily Kandinsky

A Tour of Artists and their Art

Sandro Botticelli (1445 – 1510)
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519)
Albrecht Durer (1471 – 1528)
Michelangelo (1475 – 1564)
Raphael (1483 – 1520)
Titian (1488 – 1576)
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525 – 1569)
El Greco (1541 – 1614)
Johannes Vermeer (1632 – 1675)
J.M.W. Turner (1775 – 1851)
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780 – 1867)
John Everett Millais (1829 – 1896)
Edgar Degas (1834 – 1917)
Paul Cézanne (1839 – 1906)
Claude Monet (1840 – 1926)
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841 – 1919)
Mary Cassatt (1844 – 1926)
John William Waterhouse (1849 – 1917)
Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890)
John Singer Sargent (1856 – 1925)
Rupert Bunny (1864 – 1947)
Wassily Kandinsky (1866 – 1944)
Goyō Hashiguchi (1880 – 1921)
Amedeo Modigliani (1884 – 1920)
Artists and their Art

Helen Mirren on Vasily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky: A collection of 366 works

Wassily Kandinsky Quotes

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‘The more abstract forms, the more clear and direct its appeal.”

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“The arts are encroaching one upon another, and from the proper use of this encroachment will rise the art that is truly monumental.”

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“Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and color, and that you be a true poet. This last is essential.”

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“Color provokes a psychic vibration. Color hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body.”

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“An empty canvas is a living wonder… far lovelier than certain pictures.”

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“Color is a power which directly influences the soul.”

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“I value those artists who embody the expression of their life.”

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“Color is a means of exerting direct influence on the soul.”

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“That is beautiful, which is produced by the inner need, which springs from the soul.”