Wassily Kandinsky - Russia oil painting painter Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky
Russian in full VASILY VASILYEVICH KANDINSKY
(b. Dec. 4 [Dec. 16, New Style], 1866, Moscow, Russia--d. Dec. 13, 1944, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Fr.)
Russian-born artist

One of the first creators of pure abstraction in modern painting. After successful avant-garde exhibitions, Wassily Kandinsky founded the influential Munich group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider; 1911-14) and began completely abstract painting. His forms evolved from fluid and organic to geometric and, finally, to pictographic ( e.g., Tempered Élan, 1944).
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1994

Kandinsky, himself an accomplished musician, once said Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul. The concept that color and musical harmony are linked has a long history, intriguing scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton. Kandinsky used color in a highly theoretical way associating tone with timbre (the sound's character), hue with pitch, and saturation with the volume of sound. Wassily Kandinsky even claimed that when he saw color he heard music. - Russia oil paintings painter.
Born in Moscow in 1866, Kandinsky spent his early childhood in Odessa. His parents played the piano and the zither and Kandinsky himself learned the piano and cello at an early age. The influence of music in his paintings cannot be overstated, down to the names of his paintings Improvisations, Impressions, and Compositions. In 1886, Wassily Kandinsky enrolled at the University of Moscow, chose to study law and economics, and after passing his examinations, lectured at the Moscow Faculty of Law. Wassily Kandinsky enjoyed success not only as a teacher but also wrote extensively on spirituality, a subject that remained of great interest and ultimately exerted substantial influence in his work. In 1895 Kandinsky attended a French Impressionist exhibition where he saw Monet's Haystacks at Giverny. He stated, "It was from the catalog I learned this was a haystack. I was upset I had not recognized it. I also thought the painter had no right to paint in such an imprecise fashion. Dimly I was aware too that the object did not appear in the picture..." Soon thereafter, at the age of thirty, Kandinsky left Moscow and went to Munich to study life-drawing, sketching and anatomy, regarded then as basic for an artistic education.

The titles of oil painting painter Wassily Kandinsky