The Artist's Road Painting the World's Beautiful Places

Painter of Sound

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Autumn in Bavaria     1908     Wassily Kandinsky

   Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was one of the most colorful artists in his time and perhaps still is today. His fascination with color began early in his childhood in Russia and extended throughout his life living in Russia, Germany and ultimately France, both in his work as a teacher of color theory and in the creation of his vibrant paintings.

   Kandinsky may have been a true synesthesiac, with a great sensitivity to music, experiencing colors from the musical compositions he listened to and hearing notes and sounds correlating to colors—grapheme-color synesthesia. He called his paintings, “improvisations” and “compositions”. He believed that combining tones of color was creating visual “chords”. He wrote, “ . . . the sound of colors is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would express bright yellow with bass notes or dark lake with treble.”

   After listening to a performance of Wagner’s “Lohengrin" at the Bolshoi Theatre, Kandinsky immersed himself in studying painting at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, abandoning his former law studies. He wrote, “I saw all my colors in spirit, before my eyes. Wild, almost crazy lines were sketched in front of me.”

   He likened painting to composing music, 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.”

   In the 1930s, a Nazi raid resulted in confiscation of several of Kandinsky’s works, which were later labeled as “degenerate” and destroyed. American patrons, including Solomon R. Guggenheim acquired his work creating a collection of over 150 pieces in the museum today. 

   Here are some examples of the lyrical work of Wassily Kandinsky:

293     1913     Wassily Kandinsky

Fugue     1914     Wassily Kandinsky

Composition VIII     1923     Wassily Kandinsky

In Blue     1925     Wassily Kandinsky

Mit Und Gegan     1929     Wassily Kandinsky