Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was a Russian-born painter and art theorist, considered to be one of the leading figures of abstraction in Western art. During his years with the Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) collective (1911-1914), Kandinsky often completed his paintings on larger canvases, but utilized smaller works, like Color Study (Squares with Concentric Circles) from 1913, to develop his art theory around color, form, and spirituality. Utilizing watercolor, gouache, and crayon on paper, Kandinsky repeats the simplistic form of the circle within demarcated squares, breaking the small composition into 12 parts. The concentric circles allow for an experiment in the effects of color, which for Kandinsky, was imbued with synesthetic and spiritual meaning. He once wrote: “Color directly influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul.”

Learn more about the artist that inspired this pin HERE.