Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky [ a ] 16 December [ O. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstraction in western art. He enrolled at the University of Moscow , studying law and economics. Successful in his profession, he was offered a professorship chair of Roman Law at the University of Dorpat today Tartu, Estonia. Kandinsky began painting studies life-drawing, sketching and anatomy at the age of He returned to Moscow in after the outbreak of World War I.
Following the Russian Revolution , Kandinsky "became an insider in the cultural administration of Anatoly Lunacharsky " [ 1 ] and helped establish the Museum of the Culture of Painting. There, he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from until the Nazis closed it in He then moved to France, where he lived for the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in and producing some of his most prominent art. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine in He studied many fields while in school, including law and economics.
Later in life, he would recall being fascinated and stimulated by colour as a child. His fascination with colour symbolism and psychology continued as he grew. In , at age 23, he was part of an ethnographic research group that travelled to the Vologda region north of Moscow. In Looks on the Past , he relates that the houses and churches were decorated with such shimmering colours that upon entering them, he felt that he was moving into a painting.
This experience, as well as his study of the region's folk art particularly the use of bright colours on a dark background , were reflected in much of his early work. A few years later, he first likened painting to composing music in the manner for which he would become noted, writing "Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmony, the soul is the piano with many strings.
The artist is the hand which plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul". Kandinsky's creation of abstract work followed a long period of development and maturation of intense thought based on his artistic experiences. He called this devotion to inner beauty , fervor of spirit and spiritual desire "inner necessity"; [ 8 ] it was a central aspect of his art.
