Vasily Kandinsky
“Must we not then renounce the object altogether, throw it to the winds and instead lay bare the purely abstract?” Vasily Kandinsky posed this question in December 1911, in Concerning the Spiritual in Art, a text that laid out his argument for abstraction.1 That same month, he seemed to answer his own question, making a radically new picture type, Komposition V. Both his text and his painting established Kandinsky as a central actor in the move toward abstraction that was playing out across a network of artists, poets, and musicians in the years immediately preceding World War I.
An earlier painting from 1909, Picture with an Archer, suggested the direction Kandinsky was taking his work. In this landscape, certain forms remain discernable, such as the archer astride a horse and drawing his bow, two men in Russian dress, a collection of houses, and a central tower. But the painting’s color thrums with vibrancy, forming a patchwork of rich, non-naturalistic hues that nearly consumes the canvas. Soon, in works like Study for Painting with White Form and Improvisation, the artist would liberate line from its traditionally descriptive function. No longer used to bound form, it became purely expressive.
Kandinsky believed that the most advanced art would awaken “emotions that we cannot put into words.”2 For him, abstraction provided a vehicle for direct expression, circumventing language. He believed that color and form possessed their own affective power, acting on the viewer independently of images and objects. "Color is a means of exerting direct influence upon the soul,” he wrote in Concerning the Spiritual in Art. “Color is a keyboard. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano, with its many strings.”3
Throughout his career, music remained an important touchstone for Kandinsky. One of his first proto-abstract canvases had been inspired, he said, by a concert of Arnold Schoenberg’s atonal work in 1911. In late 1912 or 1913, he produced a volume of poetry known as Klänge (Sounds), in which he paired semi-abstract woodcuts with 38 prose poems. “I wanted to create nothing but sounds,” he declared.4
Compelled to leave Munich immediately after the outbreak of World War I, in August 1914, Kandinsky returned to his native Russia. There, he served as the first director of the Museums of Painterly Culture, working to establish a network of regional museums, in 1919. One year later, he became the first director of INKhUk (the Institute of Artistic Culture) in Moscow, a state-funded interdisciplinary research center for the study of culture. In 1922, he returned to Germany to join the faculty of the Bauhaus, an avant-garde art and design school based in Weimar and, later, Dessau. He remained at the Bauhaus until the Nazis shuttered it in 1933, prompting him to relocate one final time, to France.
Kandinsky made color theory an important part of the Bauhaus curriculum, and his preoccupation with primary form (basic geometric shapes including the triangle, circle, and square) and primary colors (red, blue, and yellow) influenced a new generation of artists, among them Herbert Bayer and Sonia Delaunay-Terk. During this time, his abstractions became increasingly hard-edged, as in Orange, with the circle emerging as his favored form—“a precise but inexhaustible variable,” he said, that “points most clearly to the fourth dimension.”5 In this, Kandinsky remained steadfast in his belief in the power of color and form to supplant language and to open our perception to a transcendent plane.
Natalie Dupêcher, independent scholar, 2018
Vasily Kandinsky, On the Spiritual in Art (1911), translated in Kandinsky: Complete Writings on Art, vol. 1 (1901–1921), ed. Kenneth C. Lindsay and Peter Vergo (Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1982), 169.
Kandinsky, quoted in Ralph Jentsch, Illustrierte Bücher des deutschen Expressionismus, exh. cat., Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum, Berlin (Stuttgart: Edition Cantz, 1989), pp. 60–61.
Vasily Kandinsky to Will Grohmann, October 12, 1930; quoted in Will Grohmann, Wassily Kandinsky: Life and Work (London: Thames and Hudson, 1959), 188.
- Introduction
- Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; Russian: Василий Васильевич Кандинский, tr. Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, IPA: [vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj]; 16 December [O.S. 4 December] 1866 – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as the pioneer of abstract art. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa (today Ukraine), where he graduated at Grekov Odessa Art school. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics. Successful in his profession—he was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat (today Tartu, Estonia)—Kandinsky began painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30. In 1896, Kandinsky settled in Munich, studying first at Anton Ažbe's private school and then at the Academy of Fine Arts. He returned to Moscow in 1914, after the outbreak of World War I. Following the Russian Revolution, Kandinsky "became an insider in the cultural administration of Anatoly Lunacharsky" and helped establish the Museum of the Culture of Painting. However, by then "his spiritual outlook... was foreign to the argumentative materialism of Soviet society", and opportunities beckoned in Germany, to which he returned 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. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944, a mere three days prior to his 78th birthday.
- Wikidata
- Q61064
- Introduction
- Kandinsky was raised and educated in Moscow, but left for Munich in 1896 to attend art school. There he was exposed to the paintings of the French Impressionists and the music of Wagner, which inspired him. In Germany, he was active in the foundation of several different art schools and artists' groups, most notably "Der Blaue Reiter." His theoretical texts were also published internationally. In 1914, he returned to Moscow, where he collaborated with Malevich and Tatlin. In 1922, he began teaching painting at the Bauhaus in Weimar, while continuing to paint and publish treatises on painting. Kandinsky became a naturalized German citizen in 1928, and later a French citizen. Russian artist. Comment on works: Abstract
- Nationalities
- Russian, French, German
- Gender
- Male
- Roles
- Artist, Author, Teacher, Engraver, Decorative Artist, Painter, Theorist
- Names
- Vassily Kandinsky, Vasilii Vasilevich Kandinskii, Vasilij Vasil'evic Kandinskij, Vasily Kandinsky, Vasilij Kandinskij, Vasilij Kandinski, Wassili Kandinsky, Wassily Wassiljewitsch Kandinsky, Wahsili Kang-ting-ssu-chi, Vasili Vasilevich Kandinsky, Wassily Kandinsky, Vasily. Kandinsky, Vasily Vasil'yevich Kandinsky, Vasilĭi Vasilʹevich Kandinskĭi, Kandinsky, Wa-hsi-li Kʻang-ting-ssu-chi, Kʻang-ting-ssu-chi, Vasilij Vasil'evič Kandinskij, Basile W. Kandinsky, w. kandinsky
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- 500021093
Exhibitions
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504: New Expression in Germany and Austria
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513: Design for Modern Life
Through summer 2021
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A Revolutionary Impulse: The Rise of the Russian Avant-Garde
Dec 3, 2016–Mar 12, 2017
MoMA
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Inventing Abstraction, 1910–1925
Dec 23, 2012–Apr 15, 2013
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German Expressionism: The Graphic Impulse
Mar 27–Jul 11, 2011
MoMA
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Vasily Kandinsky has
116 exhibitionsonline.
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Vasily Kandinsky Poster for the 1st Exhibition of the "Phalanx" (Plakat für die erste Ausstellung der "Phalanx")_
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Vasily Kandinsky Verses Without Words (Stichi bez slov) (1903)
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Vasily Kandinsky Title page from Verses Without Words (Stichi bez slov) (1903)
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Vasily Kandinsky The Rhine (Rejn) from Verses Without Words (Stichi bez slov) (1903)
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Vasily Kandinsky Towards Evening (Vecer) from Verses Without Words (Stichi bez slov) (1903)
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Vasily Kandinsky Roses (Rozy) from Verses Without Words (Stichi bez slov) 1903
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Vasily Kandinsky Mountain Lake (Gornoe ozero) from Verses Without Words (Stichi bez slov) (1903)
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Vasily Kandinsky Spectators (Zriteli) from Verses Without Words (Stichi bez slov) (1903)
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Vasily Kandinsky Old Village (Staryj gorodok) from Verses Without Words (Stichi bez slov) (1903)
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Vasily Kandinsky The Dragon (Zmej) from Verses Without Words (Stichi bez slov) (1903)
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Vasily Kandinsky Bustling Life (Gomon) from Verses Without Words (Stichi bez slov) (1903)
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Vasily Kandinsky Departure (Prošcanie) from Verses Without Words (Stichi bez slov) (1903)
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Vasily Kandinsky Night (Noc) from Verses Without Words (Stichi bez slov) (1903)
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Vasily Kandinsky Duel (Poedinok) from Verses Without Words (Stichi bez slov) (1903)
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Vasily Kandinsky The Hunt (Ochota) from Verses Without Words (Stichi bez slov) (1903)
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Vasily Kandinsky Eternity from Verses Without Words (Stichi bez slov) (1903)
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Vasily Kandinsky Table of contents (Oglavlenie) from Verses Without Words (Stichi bez slov) (1903)
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Vasily Kandinsky The Night - Large Version (Die Nacht - Grosse Fassung) (1903)
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Vasily Kandinsky Church at Murnau (Kirche in Murnau) 1909
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Vasily Kandinsky The Archer (Bogenschütze) (plate facing page 14) from Onze Peintres (Eleven Painters): Taeuber, Kandinsky, Leuppi, Vordemberge, Arp, Delaunay, Schwitters, Kiesler, Morris, Magnelli, Ernst 1949 (executed 1908-1909, reprinted posthumously).
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Vasily Kandinsky Picture with an Archer 1909
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Vasily Kandinsky Xylographies (Xylographs) 1909 (prints executed 1907)
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Vasily Kandinsky Frontcover (Landscape with Figure and Phoenix) from Xylographs (Xylographies) 1909 (executed 1907)
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Vasily Kandinsky Title page (Flame) from Xylographs (Xylographies) 1909 (executed 1907)
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Vasily Kandinsky The Knights (Les Chevaliers) from Xylographs (Xylographies) 1909 (executed 1907)
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Vasily Kandinsky The Birds (Les Oiseaux) from Xylographs (Xylographies) 1909 (executed 1907)
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Vasily Kandinsky The Church (L'Église) from Xylographs (Xylographies) 1909 (executed 1907)
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Vasily Kandinsky The Birch Trees (Les Bouleaux) from Xylographs (Xylographies) 1909 (executed 1907)
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Vasily Kandinsky The Women in the Woods (Les Femmes aux Bois) from Xylographs (Xylographies) 1909 (executed 1907)
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Vasily Kandinsky Back cover (Hills, Trees, Clouds and Figure) from Xylographs (Xylographies) 1909 (executed 1907)
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Vasily Kandinsky Rock (Membership Card for the New Artists' Association Munich) [Felsen (Mitgliedskarte für die Neue Künstlervereinigung München)] (1908-1909)
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Vasily Kandinsky Über das Geistige in der Kunst: Insbesondere in der Malerei (Concerning the Spiritual in Art: Especially in Painting) 1911
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Vasily Kandinsky Standing and Falling Tower with Rider (Stehender und Stürzender Turm mit Reiter) (cover) from Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual Art) 1911
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Vasily Kandinsky Frontispiece (Frontispiz) from Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) 1911
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Vasily Kandinsky Vignette next to 'Introduction" (Vignette bei "Einleitung") (headpiece, page 3) from Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) 1911
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Vasily Kandinsky Rider Motif in Oval Form (Reitermotiv in ovaler Form (headpiece, page 10) from Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) 1911
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Vasily Kandinsky Reclining Couple (Liegendes Paar) (headpiece, page 16) from Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) 1911
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Vasily Kandinsky Vignette for "Pyramid" (Vignette next to "Pyramide") (headpiece, page 32) from Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) 1911
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Vasily Kandinsky Vignette next to "The Effect of Color" ("Wirkung der Farbe") (headpiece, page 37) from Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) 1911
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Vasily Kandinsky Vignette next to "The Language of Form and Color" ("Formen- und Farbensprache") (headpiece, page 43) from Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) 1911
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Vasily Kandinsky Vignette next to "Theory" ("Theorie") (headpiece, page 81) from Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) 1911
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Vasily Kandinsky Vignette next to "Artwork and Artist" ("Kunstwerk und Künstler") (headpiece, page 95) from Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) 1911
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Vasily Kandinsky Reclining Female Nude (Liegender weiblicher Akt) (headpiece, page 101) from Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) 1911
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Vasily Kandinsky Great Resurrection (Grosse Auferstehung) (proof) for Klänge (Sounds) (1911)
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Various Artists, Vasily Kandinsky, Franz Marc Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) 1912
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Vasily Kandinsky The Archer (Bogenschütze) (plate facing colophon page) from Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) 1912 (print executed 1908-09)
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Vasily Kandinsky Study for Painting with White Form (Entwurf zu Bild mit weisser Form) 1913
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Vasily Kandinsky Watercolor No. 13 (Aquarell No. 13) (1913)
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