Kandinsky was a gifted child. He played the cello and piano brilliantly and began drawing at an early age.
When Kandinsky's parents divorced, his upbringing was taken over by his mother's older sister. It was his aunt who instilled in the future artist a love of art, and in 1912 he dedicated to her the book 'Concerning the Spiritual in Art', in which he provided a theoretical justification for abstract art.
He graduated from the law faculty of Moscow University with a first-class degree. Surprisingly, the future abstract artist received a higher legal education and devoted ten years of his life to the law.
He was interested in ethnography and the life of the Russian North. Kandinsky was a man of wide-ranging interests. One of his passions was ethnographic expeditions, which pushed him to begin his career as an artist. A trip to the Vologda province inspired him to create a series of works dedicated to Russian folklore.
He was married to his cousin — Anna Chemiakina. They had been friends since childhood; Anna was six years older than Kandinsky and reminded him of a mother. Their marriage lasted only a few years.
At 30 he became a professional artist and went to Munich. He studied at the prestigious studio of Anton Ažbe and at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, where he befriended Yavlensky, Verevkin, Dobuzhinsky and other artists who joined the 'Blue Rider' group.
Kandinsky was a synesthete. When listening to or playing music, he simultaneously saw color images that he captured in his paintings. His visual art is inextricably linked to music.
With his second wife, Nina Andriyevskaya, he lived for the rest of his life. The marriage produced a son who died at the age of three. From then on, the subject of children became taboo for the couple.
His art was not accepted in the USSR and Nazi Germany. For seventy years Kandinsky's theoretical works and art were banned in the USSR. They were labeled 'degenerate art.' After the revolution Kandinsky moved to Germany to live and work, but when the Nazis came to power he and his wife had to flee to France.
He spent the rest of his life in France. Kandinsky worked until his death and died in the French town of Neuilly-sur-Seine three days before his 78th birthday.
