Discover the story of Kandinsky's monumental work - The Colourful Life | Christie's

A kaleidoscopic vision of human experience. Vignettes of joy and chaos, love and loss. On this monumental canvas Vasily Kandinsky created a world bursting with colour and folk stories from childhood to death and everything in between. Paris, 1907. Kandinsky was living and painting alongside his partner, German artist Gabriella Münter. The couple had gravitated to the crucible of modern art, a city buzzing with radical new ideas about what art could be. Kandinsky and Münter immersed themselves in everything Paris had to offer, visiting exhibitions, galleries and pioneering collectors, gaining an in-depth knowledge of the radical ideas vibrating around them. Kandinsky absorbed these styles and combined them with his own unique painterly idiom. With the energy of the Parisian avant-garde and the memories of the traditions and stories of his native Russia, Kandinsky created something unmistakably his own. Painting on his largest canvas to date, Kandinsky made a bold statement of ambition, a declaration that he was ready to take his place among the pioneers of modern art taking Paris by storm. In this grand celebration of life, he tests the possibilities of painting, pushing it towards something freer, more expressive and abstract. Colour provides structure within the scene, strokes of vibrant pigment defining the rich cast of characters. The result is a bold, imaginative composition, pulsing with life.