Painting with Troika
January 18, 1911
Medium
Oil on cardboard; in artist's painted frame
Dimensions
69.7 × 97.3 cm (27 3/8 × 38 5/16 in.)
Classification
oil on cardboard
Department
Modern Art
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
8983
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Vasily Kandinsky, along with Franz Marc, Gabriele Münter, and Alexei Jawlensky, was a founding member of Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider), a loose alliance of artists based in Munich. Often working in a common palette using expressive brushwork, they shared a belief in the symbolic and spiritual importance of forms and colors, including their effect on emotions and memories. Blaue Reiter also promoted a spontaneous, intuitive approach to painting, looking to non-Western, European medieval, and folk art...
Art Historical Context
Created in January 1911, Vasily Kandinsky’s *Painting with Troika* captures a pivotal moment in modern art history. At this time, the Russian-born artist was living in Germany and co-founding the influential Blue Rider group, whose members sought to express inner spiritual experience through color and form. The title references a traditional Russian three-horse sleigh, hinting at Kandinsky’s cultural roots even as his imagery began to dissolve into near-abstraction. The work’s significance lies in its place within Kandinsky’s rapid evolution toward non-representational painting. Executed in oil on cardboard and housed in a frame he painted himself, the piece demonstrates his experimental approach to materials and presentation. This intimate support allowed for spontaneous brushwork and bold color contrasts that would define his later canvases. Visitors today can appreciate how *Painting with Troika* bridges folkloric imagery and pure abstraction, marking Kandinsky’s belief that art could communicate directly through color and line, independent of recognizable subjects.
About the Artist
Vasily Kandinsky
**Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944)** was a Russian painter and art theorist widely recognized as one of the pioneers of abstract art in Western painting. Born in Moscow on December 16, 1866, to a tea merchant father and a mother from a noble family with Tatar roots, he initially pursued studies in law and economics before turning to art at age 30. In 1896 he settled in Munich, where he trained first ...