Wassily Kandinsky oil painting reproduction hand painted on canvas

Wassily Kandinsky was one of the first artists to make abstract modern art. He used the compelling relationship between color and form to make art that people could see, hear, and feel. He thought that only total abstraction allowed for deep, spiritual expression, and that copying from nature only got in the way of this. Inspired to make art that shared a sense of faith with everyone, he invented a pictorial language that had only a loose connection to the outside world but said a lot about what was going on inside the artist. His visual vocabulary changed over the course of three stages, from his early, representational canvases with their religious symbols to his later, geometric and biomorphic flat planes of color. Many artists, from his students at the Bauhaus to the Abstract Expressionists after World War II, were influenced by Kandinsky's work and ideas.

What makes Kandinsky special

    Kandinsky's painting was, above all, a spiritual act. He tried to show profound spirituality and the depth of human emotion through a universal visual language of abstract forms and colors that went beyond cultural and physical limits.

    Kandinsky thought that non-objective, abstract art was the best way to show the "inner necessity" of the artist and to share feelings and ideas that everyone has. He thought of himself as a prophet whose job was to spread this idea for the good of society.

    Kandinsky believed that music was the most transcendent kind of non-objective art because players could use sounds to make people think of pictures. He tried to make paintings without any objects that were also emotionally rich and hinted at sounds and feelings through a unity of sensation.