When the thoughts and visions in an artist’s mind unite, that is when magic happens!
And Wassily Kandinsky was no lesser than a magician, he used his paintbrush to create astonishing artworks that left his audience in awe.
Kandinsky was a Russian painter and art theorist who was a master of abstract art and expressionism.
His life was not as easy as it seemed to be, but amid all his struggles, he still outshone others in the art world.
Wassily Kandinsky started painting in his 30s, and even though he started from the bottom, he made his way onto the list of some of the most famous painters of all time.
Considering the fact that not everything can be defined in brief, I present to you a detailed blog on the life of Wassily Kandinsky.
Table of contents
Kandinsky’s Early Life
Wassily Kandinsky hailed from a wealthy merchant family of Moscow He was born in 1866.
His parents divorced when he was just five-years-old resulting in him spending his primary years in Odessa.
He completed his studies in law and economics, and he began teaching law at the university in Moscow.
Soon after, in 1892, Wassily Kandinksy married his cousin, Anna Chimyakina.
Kandinsky has been highly interested in music and colors since his childhood.
And soon he left his job as a professor and started learning art at the age of 30, in an art school named Kunstacademie in Munich.
He pursued his dreams and followed his passion to be an artist. Unfortunately, his wife, Anna, had no plans to marry an artist, so the couple parted ways.
After a while, Kandinsky started a live-in relationship with a single woman named Gabriele Münter.
They were in a relationship until World War I broke out, and Kandinsky had to move back to Russia.
Kandinsky taught arts at the University of Moscow, and married his 17-year-old student, Nina Andreievskaya, at the age of 50.
The couple also had a child, who unfortunately died at the age of 3-year-old.
In 1920, Kandinsky accepted a position at the Bauhaus in Weimar and became a German citizen in 1928.
This was about Wassily Kandinsky’s early life. Now let us move ahead and read about how he got involved in art and what kinds of artwork he made.
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Inspirations Behind His Art
Wassily Kandinsky was very disciplined when it came to finding inspiration for his art.
He viewed music as the most important form of non objective art. Musicians who would see his art, often said that it provoked musical thoughts in their minds.
Kandinsky strove to produce similarly object-free, spiritually rich paintings that alluded to sounds and emotions through a unity of sensation.
His vision as an artist was quite clear, and he was also fond of writing poems, which resulted in him creating many modern level paintings.
Wassily Kandinsky’s art was used to express society’s highest and most utopian ideology.
In his art, you can see that geometric shapes and spiritual symbols became highly expressive and his detailing work became very prominent.
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Important Figures in Wassily Kandinsky’s Life
Wassily Kandinsky was a free soul who believed that whatever he drew was his vision and imagination.
But that doesn’t mean that he didn’t seek inspiration, he did, and he took it from the best.
He proved to be one of the best artists of abstraction.
Claude Monet –
Wassily Kandinsky was highly inspired by Claude Monet and his style of painting.
He got inspired by looking at the series of paintings by Claude Monet, Haystacks!
Paintings by Claude Monet inspired Kandinsky to create some of his artworks in his early stages of learning.
Even though he was influenced by other impressionists as well, Claude Monet was the one who set expectations high for him.
Image Source: Wikipedia
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Arnold Schönberg-
It is a fact that Kandinsky always had a passion for music and art, and they played an important role in the development of his abstract paintings.
When Kandinsky was on the journey of learning art, he met Arnold Schoenberg.
Wassily Kandinsky was pacing his steps to move towards serialism and atonality.
Arnold Schoenberg was a music composer, and his words were highly influential.
Image Source: Wikipedia
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Wassily Kandinsky’s Abstraction in his Famous Paintings
This painting was Wassily Kandinsky’s most famous painting, it was titled as The Blue Rider. He created this painting in 1903.
In this painting, you can see a white horse and a horse rider in blue dress galloping through a meadow in the forest.
This painting is a masterpiece and represents an important milestone in Kandinsky’s transition from impressionism to modern abstract art.
It was also marked as one of his last impressionist works and contains early signs of the abstractionism that would become his forte.
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Best Artworks
Even though every painting that was created by Wassily Kandinksy was a hit and became famous, I would like to mention some of the artworks that stole the limelight.
Color Study: Squares with Concentric Circles
One of the famous abstract painting by Wassily Kandinsky, “Color Study: Squares With Concentric Circles” is an example of Kandinsky’s portrayal of musical composition in the form of art.
This artwork focuses on the intensity of message that Kandinsky tried to portray.
According to Kandinsky’s ideology, music and art must go hand-in-hand and he believed in the theory that painting could be like music.
Houses in Munich
This painting is one of the old works by Wassily Kandinsky.
Houses in Munich reflects a sunset that reflects an orange sky turning red and melting in the sky.
The buildings are sketched roughly, and the people sitting around are also smudged perfectly.
In this painting, Kandinsky tried to convey ideas and human emotions by using vibrant colors.
Composition VII
Composition VII was painted by Wassily Kandinsky in 1913.
This artwork by Kandinsky features the use of bold and vibrant colors along with lines, symbols and shapes.
Many art critics have drawn the conclusion to the fact that Kandinsky’s work is a combination of the themes of Resurrection, Judgement Day, the Flood and the Garden of Eden.
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Style of Painting
Wassily Kandinsky was a prodigy in Abstract art, modern art, and expressionist paintings.
He used a wide range of materials and painted them over canvas, board, wood, plywood, glass, canvas-board, etc.
Kandinsky adapted a variety of surfaces and media on his own.
This all made Kandinsky’s choice of colors vivid and pigmented, and thus his artworks legendary.
He brought watercolors, gouache, tempera, and possibly mixes of these mediums.
Kandinsky applied the frontmost layer first and the background layer at the end.
He used to start his paintings with black contours and lines, following the detailed painting of the internal area and the application of the background.
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Whom He Influenced
Wassily Kandinsky was considered the pioneer of abstract art, and he created art that had an impact on artists all over the world.
His artistic vision and ambitions were way ahead of their time.
He wanted to evoke the sound of music through his art, and he created works that were equivalent to the musical elements.
Some of the artists he influenced were Jean Arp, Hans Hartung, Joan Mitchell, and many more.
He also influenced many other artists, who later turned out to be some of the most efficient artists from all over the world.
Suggested Read: Composition 8 by Wassily Kandinsky
Conclusion
Wassily Kandinsky lived a pretty simple and passionate life.
Apart from his relationships with the women he dated in his life, he was focused on his art and spent a lot of time creating some of the most famous paintings.
When Kandinsky was appointed at the Bauhaus in Weimar, he overlooked 22 art organizations.
Soon after Bauhaus dissolved, Kandinsky moved to Paris, where he spent his final years with his wife Nina.
Unfortunately, he died in 1944 due to cerebrovascular disease in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France.
All through his life, Kandinsky painted a variety of artworks that showcased his love for abstraction and art in general.
Paintings by Kandinsky are housed at some of the most prestigious museums in the world.
Do you wish to decorate your house with one of the paintings by Wassily Kandinsky?
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Author’s Note
If you are still here, then thank you so much for staying till the end!
This was all about the life of Wassily Kandinsky and how he evolved as an artist with time.
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Bye bye.
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Also Read: Impression Sunrise by Claude Monet
FAQs
Wassily Kandinsky was famously known for his abstract paintings that were very complex to understand.
Wassily Kandinsky was known as the father of abstract art.
Kandinsky used a lot of lines, shapes and symbols in his paintings. He also used a lot of bold colors to provoke emotions in the viewer’s mind.
