Wassily Kandinsky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Youth and Inspirations

Kandinsky's youth and life in Moscow brought inspiration from a variety
of sources. As a child he would later recall being fascinated and unusually
stimulated with color. This is probably due to his synaesthesia which allowed
him to quite literally hear as well as see color. The fascination with color
continued as he grew up in Moscow, although he seems to have made no
attempt to study art. In 1889 he was part of an ethnographic group that
traveled to the Vologda region north of Moscow. His study of the folk art
in the region, in particular the use of bright colors on a dark background
was reflected in his early work. Kandinsky would write a few years later
that 'Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano
with the strings'.

It was not until 1896, at the age of 30, Kandinsky gave up a promising career
teaching law and economics to enroll in art school in Munich. Also in 1896,
prior to leaving Moscow, he saw an exhibit of Monet and was particularly
aken with a depiction of a haystack which, to him, had a powerful sense of
color almost independent of the object itself."

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Lots of beautiful work at the link.

(flumed from bibi's box)
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