Wassily Kandinsky

Kandinsky painted this colourful landscape piece during his time in Murnau with Gabriele Münter, Marianne Werefkin and Alexej Jawlensky. One of several artworks depicting the local landscape from this trip, this piece is much more directly representational than his later, more abstract works. In thickly applied oil paints, Kandinsky painted the view from the Griesbräu inn using techniques influenced by fauvism. The houses are picked out in reds, blues, purples and greens, and a couple in blue walk down the pink Johannisstrasse road together.

• Artist Wassily Kandinsky
• Artwork Murnau – Johannisstrasse from a Window of the Griesbräu
• Exhibition Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider
• Material FSC Certified paper
• Date of work 1908
• Credit Original: Wassily Kandinsky Murnau – Johannisstrasse from a Window of the Griesbräu, 1908 Oil paint on card 49.8 × 69.6 cm Lenbachhaus Munich, Donation of Gabriele Münter, 1957

Wassily Kandinsky (1866– 1944) was a Russian born painter, teacher and theorist. He was a pioneer of abstract art, and a central figure in Expressionism. After studying law at Moscow University, in 1896 he retrained as an artist at the Anton Ažbé School in Munich. After founding the independent Phalanx School, he spent 1904–8 travelling with the artist Gabriele Münter. Returning to Munich, they joined Alexej Jawlensky and Marianne Werefkin in Murnau, engaging with local landscape, religious painting and architecture, and vernacular arts and crafts. In 1909 Kandinsky co-founded the NKVM artist group while working on his book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art. After meeting Franz Marc in 1911, Kandinsky concentrated on The Blue Rider (DBR) group and publication. At the outbreak of WWI Kandinsky moved to Switzerland, but soon separated from Münter and returned to Moscow, later taking up a teaching position at the Bauhaus. When the Nazis rose to power, he emigrated to France. He died in 1944, a few months after the liberation of Paris.