Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian painter and art theorist was deeply influenced by Goethe’s ideas. In his book “Concerning the Spiritual in Art,” Kandinsky argued that both music and painting could be seen as expressions of the spiritual realm. He believed that just as music could bypass language and directly communicate with the soul, painting had the potential to tap into the innermost emotions and spiritual dimensions of the viewer and that both art forms had the power to transcend the limitations of the physical world and access deeper levels of human experience. 

 “A painter, who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, however artistic, in his longing to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non-material of the arts today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply the methods of music to his own art.” 

 Fascinated by the synæsthesic relationship between music and painting, he believed that through the use of color, form, and composition, he could create a visual equivalent of musical harmonies, rhythms, and melodies.  

Improvisation No. 30 by Wassily Kandinsky

His symphonic configurations, were categorized into three distinct types: “impressions”, “improvisations” and “compositions”. Whilst “impressions” were still somehow inspired by external reality, “improvisations”, and more developed “compositions” were rooted in unconscious, spontaneous expressions stimulated by inner feelings and subjective experience.

In a letter to Arthur Jerome Eddy, a friend and collector from Chicago, Wassily Kandinsky commented on Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons) : 

“The cannons … could probably be explained by the constant war talk going on through the year [but] the true contents are what the spectator experiences while under the effect of the forms and color combinations of the picture.”