Wassily Kandinsky Influence On Art

On December 16th, 1866, Wassily Kandinsky was born in Moscow, Russia to musical parents, where he was raised in a middle class family. At the age of 5 his parents divorced and he moved to Odessa with his aunt, where he was first introduced to the arts, and started to learn how to play the piano and chello while in grammar school, as well as studying how to draw with a private coach (biography 3). These learning periods in his life led to his upcoming artistic talents of drawing and writing that he was gifted with. In his drawings, it was revealed that he used rather specific color combinations (biography 3). It was assumed that it he did this due to his synesthesia, the sense of impression relating to one sense of the body by stimulation of another sense of the body, allowed him to hear as well as see color. Kandinsky thought that "each color lives by its own mysterious life" (biography 3).
As Kandinsky got older, he wanted to follow his families wish of him going into law. In 1886 he entered the University of Moscow, which he graduated from with honors. By1892 he became a law teacher at the Moscow Faculty of Law. He also married his cousin, Anna. Wassily and Anna were

divorced by 1911. While he taught he also managed an art-printing works on the side (biography 4). Not long after, Kandinsky decided to abandon his legal career at the age of 30 so that he could become an artist. He was accepted into the Munich Academy of Arts, a private school in Munich, Germany, which he attended from 1918 until 1921. Wassily worked at the Bauhaus, in Dessau, Germany. He also took the initiative to teach himself about music. Most of his studying was self- directed.
Wassily Kandinsky was an abstract painter and theorists who produced most of his work in Russia. Abstract art is defined as art that does not attempt to represent an accurate depiction of a visual reality but instead use shapes, colours, forms and gestural marks to achieve its effect (Tate 1). He also took trips to Paris where he became familiar to the art of Gaugin, (a French post-impressionist artist), neo-impressionism, (painting by using tiny adjacent dabs of primary colour to create the effect of light pointillism (Tate 1)), pointillism, (form of painting in which tiny dots of primary-colors are used to generate secondary colors and images (Artcyclopedia 1)), and fauvism, (more primitive and less naturalistic form of expression (Artcyclopedia 1)) which all effected Kandinsky and the way he created his art (Ebscohost Columbia University Press 2).
Kandinsky created abstract forms of art that was based on natural forms of nature. Most of his paintings were based off of landscapes. He developed ideas concerning the power of pure color and nonrepresentational painting (Ebscohost Columbia Press 1). He felt paintings possessed the same power as music and that line, sign, and color should all correspond to the vibrations of the human soul (Berggruen 2). Kandinsky used certain arrangements and colors to make you feel the piece instead of just seeing it. Kandinsky did this by using brilliant colors and complex patters. He also had a strong belief that paintings should be painted in the way that it is easy to recognize the subject. Since he felt this way he created a group of expressionist painters who felt the same way as he did, that have personal perspective and distorting it for emotional effect in order to arouse moods or ideas, called Der Blaue Reiter (Ebscohost Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia 2). Wassily's way of art was slowly easing into the art world. Since Wassily was so involved with music, he titled his art works as impressions, compositions, or improvisations. He used abstract and figurative works which were characterized by colors and complex patterns. He also examined the physiological effects of color and his concept of kinship between music and art (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia 1). Kandinsky wanted to express feelings and music through the colors and shapes of his paintings. In 1910 he created his first completely abstract work, it was a water titled Composition I or Abstraction, an arrangement in blue, red, and green that makes no reference to objects of the physical world and derives it inspiration and title from music (Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia 2). He created most of his paints as oil on canvas, such as one of his most popular pieces, Composition VI. He didn't just create paintings but he also wrote books about art. His first book was published in 1912, titled Concerning the Spiritual in Art, this book was the first treatise on abstraction (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia 1). In 1926 he also wrote Point and Line to Plane which was an analysis of geometric forms in art. During when most of his art was made WorldWar I was going on, which took him back to Russia. When he arrived his artistic eye was influenced by the constructivist movement, based on hard lines, dots and geometry (Biography 10). He assigned shapes to feelings so that you could feel the piece more when you looked at it, he believed the triangle caused aggressive feelings, the square would cause calm feelings, and the circle would give spiritual feelings (Ducksters 5). War also changed Kandinsky such as in the early 1920's, his style evolved from riotous bursts of color in his "improvisations" to more precise, geometrically arranged compositions (Ebscohost Literary Reference Center 2). One example of this is Composition VIII which is composed solely of lines, circles, arcs,and other simple geometric forms.
Kandinsky soon moved to Germany to sell some of his work. When he arrived
there he started working at the Bauhaus
Composition VIII school in Berlin, where he wrote poems and plays (Biography 11). In 1933, the Nazis seized power and shut down the school (Biography 11). Also about 57 of the works were confiscated by the Nazis that were featured in an exhibit. No where else would take his work either because he was a Russian, and he stopped being successful with the selling of his paintings. By 1934, Wassily left Germany due to the Nazis, and the downfall of his work. He and his wife Nina, who he married while in Russia moved to Paris, France. He lived there with Nina until he died of cerebrovascular disease in 1944 (Biography 11).
Although not much of Wassily Kandinsky's art survived, what did is very influential on the art that is created today.

Although he was not the first abstract artist, he is now considered one of the founders of pure abstraction in painting (Biography 1). He is know for not just his knowledge of art, but his knowledge of music, and combining them into one to give a message in an art piece. He used different techniques such as being expressive, and colorful but not figural, recognizable abstract painting, and geometrical paintings (Ducksters 9). He also influenced many art styles today such such as the uses of color and design with physiological issues. Kandinsky's art is showcased all around the world today such as Germany, America, and Paris, and his paintings can go for as much as $25

million.