“Black is like the silence of the body after death, the close of life.”
- Wassily Kandinsky, 1911
Wassily Kandinsky (b. Dec. 4 [Dec. 16, New Style], 1866, Moscow, Russia--d. Dec. 13, 1944, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Fr.), Russian-born artist, one of the first creators of pure abstraction in modern painting. After successful avant-garde exhibitions, he founded the influential Munich group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider; 1911-14) and began completely abstract painting.