Master of abstract art: 150th anniversary of Wassily Kandinsky's birth

With his first abstract watercolor, Kandinsky raised eyebrows in 1911. For some, he was a revolutionary, while others considered him insane. In retrospect, the Russian painter, graphic artist and art theorist, who was born on December 4, 1866 in Moscow, was the founder of Abstract Expressionism and had a tremendous impact on the other artists of his day.

This painting was one of Kandinsky's earlier works and shares the name of his artists' group, The Blue Rider, which he founded with Franz Marc in 1912. Apparently, Marc loved horses and Kandinsky liked to paint riders. Since both liked the color blue, they quickly settled on the name.

Kandinsky spent a lot of time in Murnau, in Bavaria, where he painted churches, villages and forests in brilliant colors. It's already clear that he was straying from realistic depictions. For him, the emotional impression that colors left was more important.

The internal world of human thoughts was fascinating to Kandinsky - more so than the external world. He looked for rules and structure in his work - which already existed for music in the form of notation. Borrowing from music, he named his works improvisations, impressions or compositions. Instruments and their sounds were depicted with colors. Bright yellow stood for high trumpet tones.

The new art form, in which colors and forms were liberated, irritated many conservative art lovers. At exhibitions, The Blue Rider art collective was spit on and insulted. Kandinsky's "Composition V" was even banned from an exhibition.

Kandinsky liked to use primary colors like red, blue and yellow because he felt they calmed people. At the Bauhaus school in Weimar and Dessau, he developed color charts that were based on the theories of Wolfgang von Goethe, who had studied our perception of color and its psychological impact.

Wassily Kandinsky was a synesthete. Like some composers of his time, he dreamed of creating a "Gesamtkunstwerk" by combining music, art, dance and poetry. He made an attempt to synthesize various art forms with his stage play "Pictures at an Exhibition." Based on the music of Modest Mussorgsky, he designed geometric elements and dancing figurines.

During his time at the Bauhaus school, Kandinsky's works were characterized by geometric forms. He changed his style while living in exile in Paris. In his later works, he created amorphous forms and shapes which appeared surrealistic. But very few Paris galleries were willing to show his paintings. In exile, Kandinsky was no longer able to achieve the fame he'd enjoyed in Russia and Germany.