Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) The multi-faceted artist Kandinsky is considered one of the founders and the most important theoretician in abstract art. When he turned 30, the promising Muscovite lawyer Kandinsky decided to attend art school in Munich after all. There, he developed into an influential thinker and, in 1901, he was one of the founders of the avant-garde Phalanx movement. Initially, his paintings revealed Jugendstil characteristics, however he was quickly influenced by Fauvism and his work ultimately became more abstract. He said that he gradually arrived at the conviction that depicting recognisable objects got in the way of his search for deeper spirituality. Inspired by Arnold Schonberg's atonal music, he devised his influential colour theory in which he argued that every colour speaks its own language, with its own shapes and soul. The trick is to compose colours into harmony that elicits 'eine seelische Vibration' in the viewer. He described this in detail in the article 'Über das Geistige in der Kunst' in the Der Blauwe Reiter magazine that was founded by the eponymous art collective that he started with Frans Marc in 1911.