Painting with Troika by Wassily Kandinsky - 1911 - 69.7 × 97.3 cm Art Institute of Chicago Painting with Troika by Wassily Kandinsky - 1911 - 69.7 × 97.3 cm Art Institute of Chicago

Painting with Troika

Oil on cardboard; in artist's painted frame • 69.7 × 97.3 cm
  • Wassily Kandinsky - December 16, 1866 - December 13, 1944 Wassily Kandinsky 1911

At some point in his artistic life Wassily Kandinsky, along with Franz Marc, Gabriele Münter, and Alexej Jawlensky, were members of the group called The Blue Rider. Formed in 1911 in Munich as an association of painters and an exhibiting society, it used a visual vocabulary of abstract forms and prismatic colors. The name also refers to a key motif in Kandinsky’s work: the horse and rider. And guess what we present today: a horse (even three horses) and a rider!  :)

The Blue Rider also promoted a spontaneous, intuitive approach to painting and looked to non-Western, medieval, and folk art traditions for inspiration. In this picture, the troika is a horse-drawn sled from Kandinsky’s native country.