Wassily Kandinsky

Biography

Wassily Kandinsky was born in 1866 in Moscow. After moving to Odessa in 1871 his parents soon divorced. The tensions of the divorce led Kandinsky into a world of mystery and fairy tale which proved an enduring source for his artistic imagination.

In 1886 Kandinsky moved back to his hometown of Moscow to study Law and Economics. It was a research assignment in 1889 for the Society for Natural Science that would be a significant experience and source of his artistic motivation. It wasn't until he was thirty years old that he became an artist, although he had always painted in his spare time.

In 1896 he left for Munich. Kandinsky was strongly influenced by the Impressionists at the time, and the abstract nature of these paintings appealed to Kandinsky's love of mystery and fairy tale. He produced his first abstract watercolour in 1910 and quickly embarked on his most ambitious project which was entitled 'Compositions'. He also worked on his 'Impressions' series and the two projects combined were known as the 'Improvisations' series.

With the outbreak of the First World War, Kandinsky had to leave Munich and returned to Russia. He held many positions at this time, most notably Vice President of the Academy of Arts and Science. After a time the Russian attitude to art had changed and in 1922 Kandinsky left Russia to become Professor of Art at the Bauhaus in Germany; a position he held until it was closed by the Nazi regime in 1933.

The work Kandinsky produced in the period 1920 to 1924 is referred to as his architectural period. The last phase of Kandinsky's art was in effect a synthesis of all his previous periods and he is greatly admired today for being the originator of abstract art and inventing a language of abstract forms.

Download PDF