Kandinsky Basic Art

The Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), who later lived inGermany and France, is one of the pioneers of 20th-century art. Nowadayshe is regarded as the founder of abstract art and is, moreover, the chieftheoretician of this type of painting. Together with Franz Marc and othershe founded the group of artists known as the "Blauer Reiter" in Munich. Hisart then freed itself more and more from the object, eventually culminatingin the "First Abstract Watercolour" of 1910. In his theoretical writingsKandinsky repeatedly sought the proximity of music; and just as in music,where the individual notes constitute the medium whose effect stems fromharmony and euphony, Kandinsky was aiming for a pure concord of colourthrough the interplay of various shades. Gauguin had demanded thateverything "must be sacrificed to pure colours". Kandinsky was the firstto realize this and thus to influence a whole range of artists.