Oil Paintings Reproductions

About The Artist - Wassily Kandinsky (December 16 1866 - December 13, 1944)

Wassily Kandinsky is one of the most renowned artists of the 20th century. He famously wrote, "Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammer, the soul is the piano with the strings."

About The Painting - The Blue Rider

Der Blaue Reiter: The Blue Rider was the name of a group of artists from the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (New Artists' Association) secessioning in Munich, Germany. This German movement lasted from 1911 to 1914 and was fundamental to the art movement - Expressionism. The founding members of this group included Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, August Macke, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, Lyonel Feininger, Albert Bloch and others. Kandinsky and Marc were the key members while artists such as Paul Klee and Gabriele Munter were also involved with Der Blaue Reiter.

Kandinsky's painting of the same name - The Blue Rider - painted in 1903 was the name giver to this movement. Some people also believe that the name may have been derived from Franz Marc's liking for horses and Kandinsky's love for the blue color. Blue was the color of spirituality for Kandinsky and the darker this color was, the more intense was the human desire to seek the eternal.

The Blue Rider is the most important of Kandinsky's abstract art oeuvre from the 1900s decade. This painting shows a small figure in a blue cloak riding a horse and rushing through a hilly meadow. The rider's cloak is of blue color, but interestingly, the shadow of the cloak is of a darker shade of blue. Amorphous blue shadows make up the foreground, perhaps the shadows of the falls trees depicted in the background.

The blue rider in this painting thought prominent is not clearly defined. Moreover, the horse has an unnatural pace (a fact that Kandinsky must have realized). There is a mystery shrouding the rider. Some believe that the rider is holding a child, though this may be a second shadow of the rider.

Kandinsky's deliberate disjunction allows the viewers to participate in his creation and later was expressed more freely in his abstract works from 1911-1914. An expression using colors rather than painted details, the painting, many believe, expresses Kandinsky's belief that abstract art doesn't try to represent the external elements but rather expresses the innermost feelings of the man's soul.