One of the early exponents of the Abstractioninst movement in the Western and of the German Expressionism. In his works, he explored a plethora of styles —industrial Constructivism, Fauvism, Art Nouveau, vibrant Color Contrast, and Surrealism—, indicia of his innovative, creative mind.
The painter and art theorist Wassily Kandinksy was born in Moscow in 1866, during the time Russia was still an empire.
Kandinksky's artworks include:
Tropes found in Kandinsky's artistic production:
- Color Contrast: His paintings from the Der Blaue Reiter era are easily recognizable for their focus not on shape but on color. They are full of triadic and dual color palettes that vividly contrast each other. His "Squares with Concentric Circles", for example, explores all kinds of combinations, even some unusual ones (yellow/blue, green/orange, red/blue, etc.). His "Landscape With Two Poplars" uses a green/yellow juxtaposition.
- Heavenly Concentric Circles: Aware of the spiritual symbology of circles, he set out to distill that feeling into something less influenced by religion but just as profound. For Modernists in general, circular shapes meant renewal and progress. For Kadinsky in particular, dots (the building blocks of art) were equated to the smallest circles. While his famous grid arrangement of concentric patterns is not connected to higher planesnote , these ideas eventually led him to represent cosmic objects such as planets and moons as brightly-colored round shapes. More often than not, the circles would overlap. Sometimes, moons would form this pattern when aligned with their planets.
- Surrealism: In his pursuit of the ultimate abstraction, Kandinsky's paintings would evolve from kinda realistic, if very rich in color, portrayals of mundane scenery and objects to increasingly distorted depictions that prioritized raw shapes over stylized ones and color over both.
