Skip to main content Skip to Search Box

Definition: Kandinsky, Wassily from Philip's Encyclopedia

Russian painter and theorist. His experiments with abstraction were revolutionary. His early abstract paintings, including the many numbered Compositions, express great lyricism. From 1911 he was an active member of the Blaue Reiter. His writings, especially Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1914), show the influence of Oriental art philosophy. After World War 1, his work became more controlled. White Line (1920) and In the Black Circle (1921) show the beginnings of a refinement of geometrical form that developed during his years at the Bauhaus (1922-33).


Kandinsky, Wassily

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
(kăndĭn'skē, Rus. vӘsē'lyē kӘndyēn'skē), 1866–1944, Russian abstract painter and theorist. Usually regarded as the originator of abstract art, Kandinsky abandoned a legal career for painting at 30 when he moved to Munich. In subsequent trips to Paris he came into contact with the art of Gauguin , neoimpressionism (see postimpressionism ), and fauvism . He then developed his ideas concerning the power of pure color and nonrepresentational painting. His first work in this mode was completed in 1910, the year in which he wrote an important theoretical study, Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912, tr. 1947 and 1977). In this work he examines the psychological effects of color and his concept of the kinship between music and art. Kandinsky exhibited with the Brücke group, and with Franz Marc and others he founded the Blaue Reiter group. In 1915 he returned to Moscow, where he taught and directed artistic activities. During the early 1920s his style evolved from riotous bursts of color in…
744 results
Russian-born painter and writer on art. He was an important pioneer of abstract art. With Franz Marc he edited the Blaue Reiter Almanac. The force that propels the human spirit on the clear way forward and upward is the abstract spirit. 1912 ‘On the Question of Form’, in Blaue Reiter Almanac. We…
| 173 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article Kandinsky

From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary Full text Article Biographical Names
| 14 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article Abstract expressionism

From Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable
The dominant movement in US painting in the late 1940s and 1950s, characterized by the conveying of powerful emotions through the sensuous qualities of paint. The term was originally used in 1919 to describe certain paintings by Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) but in its current sense was first used…
| 106 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article Kandinsky's palette (wood)

From Bridgeman Images: The Bridgeman Art Library
Kandinsky's palette (wood)
| 45 words , 1 image
Key concepts:

Full text Article Blaue Vier, Die

From Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable
| 65 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article Blaue Reiter, Der

From Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable
| 80 words
Key concepts:
| 81 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article Kandinsky, Wassily

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
(kăndĭn'skē, Rus. vӘsē'lyē kӘndyēn'skē), 1866–1944, Russian abstract painter and theorist. Usually regarded as the originator of abstract art, Kandinsky abandoned a legal career for painting at 30 when he moved to Munich. In subsequent trips to Paris he came into contact with the art of Gauguin , …
| 339 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article Kandinsky, Wassily

From Chambers Biographical Dictionary
Russian Vasili Vasilyevich Kandinsky 1866-1944 French painter Born in Moscow, Russia, he was the originator of Abstract painting. After studying law in Moscow, he went to Munich to study art, and at the age of 30, he began painting. A watercolour he produced in 1910 is considered to be the first…
| 265 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article Kandinsky, Wassily

From A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes
(16 December 1866–13 December 1944; b. W. Wassilyevich K.) Born in Moscow, Kandinsky studied law and social science at the local University, where he later taught law. Impressed by the first Russian exhibition of French Impressionists in 1895, he traveled in 1897 to Munich to study painting. Older…
| 267 words
Key concepts:
Mind Map

Stack overflow
More Library Resources