Wassily Kandinsky
Born Dec. 4, 1866, Moscow, Russia—died Dec. 13, 1944, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Russian-born artist Wassily Kandinsky was an artistic pioneer in the early 20th century who helped redefine western art. Initially inspired by Claude Monet and other Impressionists, Kandinsky began experimenting with lines, shapes, and color in ways that defied many conventions, a form of art that became known as abstract modernism. A deeply spiritual man, he came to believe that color connected people to emotions and made it possible to transcend the here and now. He also embraced German composer Richard Wagner’s concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, the notion that the component pieces of a building, piece or music, or piece of art could draw from different disciplines and media yet merge to become a cohesive whole or what was sometimes referred in his time as a ”total work of art.” He is also associated with the Blue Rider Group and the German Bauhaus movement, an effort to build on that idea by using art, craft, and design to create new, more harmonious ways of living.