Wassily Kandinsky Essay

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Art I 28 February, 2013 Wassily Kandinsky Wassily (or Vasily) Kandinsky was a very influential artist and can be called a pioneer of abstract art. He was born in Moscow on December 4, 1866--December 16 by the Gregorian calendar (Biography.com). Kandinsky lived a very eventful life, changing careers on impulse, founding and being a part of exciting art movements, teaching, and writing a book and his many theories. Although his work didn’t sell very well while he was alive, it cannot be denied that he was a great artist. Wassily’s childhood was filled with art. He parents Lidia Ticheeva and Vasily Silvestrovich Kandinsky were both musicians. Later on, after his parents divorced and he went to live with his aunt, he learned how to play the cello in grammar school and also started drawing. His works from an early age showed he had an excellent eye for nice color combinations. His adult life didn’t start out in a very artistic way. In 1886, he went to the University of Moscow to study law. He ended up getting a position on the Moscow Faculty of Law in 1892. However, at the age of 30 in 1896 his art career began. Seeing Claude Monet’s Haystacks at Giverny and hearing Wagner’s Lohengrin inspired him to quit his job as a lawyer, move to Munich, and study art full time. Kandinsky enrolled in the Munich Academy of Arts, but spent a lot of time studying on his own. He was able to form his own theories about art with the knowledge he gained. Due to his musical background, he believed color and music were directly related. “Color is the key. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano with its many chords. The artist is the hand that, by touching this or that key, sets the soul vibrating automatically.” (Wassily Kandinsky). He spent a lot of time forming his theories on color. Wassily was also a part of many artistic movements and groups. He formed the New Artists

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