1. Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky was born in Moscow, on December 4th, 1866. His parents both played piano, so he was
encouraged to learn how to read and play music at an early age. Young Kandinsky played cello and
piano, and even though we know him best as a painter, music has always been the main inspiration behind
his work. When he was only 5 years old,, his parents divorced, so he moved in with his aunt in
Odessa, continuing to play music, and learning to paint; but the gifted young man did not choose to study art
or music when he later enrolled at Moscow University, choosing instead the "safer" fields of
Economics, Politics, and Law. During his years at the university, Kandinsky explore spirituality through
writing. He also taught at the Moscow Faculty of Law. For Kandinsky, the arts were no more than a
hobby. Kandinsky, himself an accomplished musician, once said “Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the
harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or
another, to cause vibrations in the soul.” The concept that color and musical harmony are linked has a long
history, intriguing scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton. Kandinsky used color in a highly theoretical way
associating tone with timbre (the sound's character), hue with pitch, and saturation with the volume of
sound. He even claimed that when he saw color he heard music.