Pioneer of abstract art
One of the founders of abstract art, acknowledged to have painted the first fully non-representational works of Western modernism. He believed that color and line, like the notes of music, could move the heart directly without depicting any concrete thing. So he turned the canvas into a "visual symphony" composed purely of points, lines, planes, and color. He also wrote Concerning the Spiritual in Art, laying the theoretical ground for abstraction.
By Kandinsky’s own account, he returned to his studio one dusk and saw a painting so beautiful he could not look away — yet could not tell what it depicted. Only up close did he find it was one of his own paintings someone had carelessly set upside down. In that instant he grasped it: a painting need not "depict something"; form and color alone are enough to move us. The door to abstract art thus swung open.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.