WASSILY KANDINSKY

Happy Birthday to Wassily (Vasily) Kandinsky. The celebrated Russian painter and innovator was born on this day in 1866. Kandinsky's work went through an interesting transformation between the turn of the 20th Century and the 1920s, when he moved away from representational imagery to explore Constructivist and Suprematist ideas to create early abstractions using delineated shapes and overlapping planes. His interest in expression brought him to the Bauhaus in 1922, where he explored the psychological and spiritual effects of colors and forms. According to an article in the Telegraph, Kandinsky apparently had Synaethesia, a condition that enables a person to experience sounds, colors, and words with multiple senses at the same time. You can see a timeline of Kandinsky's work at the Guggenheim here. Image below: Composition 8 (1923). Learn more: Painting Music (NY Times), Birthday tribute at the Independent, Bauhaus design at The Met, The Bauhaus UNESCO World Heritage Sites here, Art at Bauhaus.