Portrait of Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky

avant-garde painter of Russian origin, 1866–1944

Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was a Russian painter and art theorist active in Germany during the late Belle Époque and Interwar eras. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstraction in Western art. Born in Moscow, he began painting studies at the age of 30.
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Composition VII

Composition VII

1913200 × 300 cmTretyakov Gallery

Composition VII is a 1913 abstract oil painting by Russian-born painter Wassily Kandinsky. It is in the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery, in Moscow. Art historians have concluded that the work is a combination of the themes of Resurrection, Judgment Day, the Flood and the Garden of Eden.

Kandinsky's preliminary study was his first abstract watercolor. Untitled (Study for Composition VII, Première abstraction) was painted in 1913, and is the first of Kandinsky's "Compositions" and "Improvisations" series that began to emerge during his Blue Rider Period. Preliminary watercolor →

The work demonstrates characteristics of Cubism and Futurism and is similar to the abstract work of Robert Delaunay, Francis Picabia, František Kupka, Léopold Survage, Piet Mondrian, and Hilma af Klint. Context →

Wassily Kandinsky · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Composition VI

Composition VI

1913195 × 300 cmHermitage Museum

Composition VI is a 1913 oil painting on canvas by the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky, now in the Hermitage Museum, in Saint Petersburg.

Composition VI was the artist's main entry for the Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon (First German Autumn Salon), organized in 1913 in Berlin by Herwarth Walden, alongside painters such as August Macke and Franz Marc. Exposition →

Wassily Kandinsky · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

In Grey

In Grey

1919129 × 176 cmMusée National d'Art Moderne

Wassily Kandinsky · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

On White II

On White II

1923105 × 98 cmMusée National d'Art Moderne

Auf Weiss II (Sur blanc II), in English: On White II, is a 1923 oil-on-canvas painting by Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky. It was created when the artist was a teacher at the Bauhaus in Weimar. The painting initially hung in the dining room of Wassily and Nina Kandinsky's apartment at Bauhaus Dessau.

In this image, art historian Vanessa Morisset sees a whirlpool of centripetal forces emanating from its surface. The white, understood as clarity and simplicity, creates the feeling that the "struggle with the canvas" of Kandinsky had succeeded. Reception →

The composition of the painting consists mainly of diagonals. Description and analysis →

Wassily Kandinsky · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Composition VIII

Composition VIII

1923140 × 201 cmSolomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Xyxyzyz · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons

Yellow-Red-Blue

Yellow-Red-Blue

1925128 × 202 cmMusée National d'Art Moderne

Wassily Kandinsky · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Several Circles

Several Circles

1926141 × 140 cmSolomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Wassily Kandinsky · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Composition X

Composition X

1939130 × 195 cmKunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen

Composition X is an abstract oil painting created in 1939 by the Russian émigré artist Wassily Kandinsky, then living near Paris. It is part of the collection of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Kandinsky compared abstract painting to the process of musical composition, and called his major conceptual works "compositions", as opposed to his lesser "improvisations". Composition X is the last of the ten compositions he painted during his lifetime (he was 73 at the time). Compositions →

Wassily Kandinsky · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Sky Blue

Sky Blue

1940100 × 73 cmMusée National d'Art Moderne

Wassily Kandinsky · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Tempered Elan

Tempered Elan

194442 × 58 cmMusée National d'Art Moderne

Wassily Kandinsky · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Text: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Images: Wikimedia Commons, public domain or Creative Commons (attribution with each work) · Part of The Museum at THEODORA