The Blue Rider (1903)
Foundation E.G. Bührle Collection, Zurich
Cloaked rider galloping through a meadow; the motif later named his artists' group
Image: Wassily Kandinsky · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Art
Wassily Kandinsky
1866–1944 · Russian (later French)
Expressionism / Abstract art
Wassily Kandinsky was a Russian-born painter and theorist credited as one of the pioneers of pure abstract art. He co-founded the Munich group Der Blaue Reiter, wrote the influential treatise Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and later taught at the Bauhaus, treating colour and form like music.
How to spot them
- ▸Musical abstraction: explosive colours, swirling lines and shapes with no clear subject (the Compositions and Improvisations)
- ▸Bauhaus-era geometry: circles, triangles, grids and crisp lines floating on flat grounds
- ▸Early works: folk-tale horsemen and bright Bavarian landscapes around Murnau
- ▸Quiz clue pattern: synaesthesia, music titles (Composition, Improvisation, Impression), Der Blaue Reiter, Franz Marc, the Bauhaus
Key works
Composition VII (1913)
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Vast, turbulent abstraction often called the high point of his pre-war work
Image: Wassily Kandinsky · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
On White II (1923)
Centre Pompidou, Paris
Sharp black diagonals and colour planes on white; a Bauhaus-period geometric work
Image: Wassily Kandinsky · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Yellow-Red-Blue (1925)
Centre Pompidou, Paris
Angular yellow forms on the left contrast with dark blue circles on the right
Several Circles (1926)
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Overlapping translucent coloured circles on a dark ground, like planets in space
Composition X (1939)
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf
Last of his ten Compositions: bright forms floating on a black ground
Image: Wassily Kandinsky · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Quick-fire facts
- •Kandinsky was born in Moscow and first studied law and economics, turning to painting at about 30
- •He said seeing one of Monet's Haystacks paintings and hearing Wagner's Lohengrin inspired his move to art
- •He co-founded Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) with Franz Marc in Munich in 1911
- •His book Concerning the Spiritual in Art (Über das Geistige in der Kunst) was published in 1911 (dated 1912)
- •He taught at the Bauhaus from 1922 until its closure in 1933
- •He is thought to have had synaesthesia, associating colours with sounds
- •He painted ten large works titled Composition, from Composition I (1907) to Composition X (1939); the first three were lost or destroyed
- •He became a German citizen in 1928 and a French citizen in 1939, dying at Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944
Drill it — 10 cards
1 / 10new card
Sources
- Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum — Several Circles, 1926
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Wassily Kandinsky