As part of the Didaktika project, the Museum designs educational areas and organizes activities to complement its exhibitions. Tools and resources are provided both in the galleries and online to increase viewers’ understanding and comprehension of the artists and works on display.

In this didactic online section you will discover certain people, places, and events that proved influential in the life and practice of Vasily Kandinsky. From his foundational years in Russia through his later, productive periods in Germany and France, Kandinsky demonstrated an intellectual curiosity and pursuit of avant-gardism. His experimental drawings, investigations of the relationship between color and sound, teaching and theoretical writings, along with a glossary of key terms, are all here to discover. See how, taken together, these inflection points contributed to his pioneering role in the development of abstract, or nonrepresentational, art in the early 20th century in Europe.

INNOVATIVE TEACHING

A school of art, architecture, and design, the Bauhaus in Germany was a source of innovative learning in the first half of the 20th century. Teachers and students played a significant role together in forging a new and interdisciplinary approach to learning about the arts. It became “the place to be modern.”

In 1922 Kandinsky accepted a teaching position there and, together with equally forward-thinking artists and colleagues—Anni and Josef Albers, Marianne Brandt, Gertrud Grunow, Johannes Itten, and Paul Klee, among others—became part of one of the most experimental communities of that time. The Bauhaus closed in 1933 due to the adverse political situation in Germany and the rise of Nazism.

EXPERIMENTATION WITH COLOR, SHAPES, ANDS FORMS

Kandinsky investigated color and its psychological and spiritual effects and developed a theory of form based on geometry.

For him, yellow was a color that could disturb, while blue might make people feel good and grounded. He also believed that the triangle embodied active and aggressive feelings and the square represented peace and calm, while the circle suggested the spiritual realm. Ultimately, his fragmentation of the figure and experimentation with forms and shapes set him on a path toward abstraction.