Following Kandinsky: A journey of abstraction

His vision evolved through encounters: with music, theatre and new artistic movements; with the landscapes of Bavaria; and with the artists, composers and thinkers he met across Europe. For the first time in more than 25 years, Rome will host a major exhibition dedicated to his work, following this remarkable artistic journey. Opening at Palazzo Bonaparte on 15 September, it brings together more than 70 pieces, including paintings and personal effects from the collections of the Centre Pompidou.

A city of continual progression, Rome is a fitting place to encounter an artist so preoccupied with the possibilities of the new. There is a certain symmetry, too, in experiencing his work from Hotel de Russie, itself a longstanding meeting place for artists and cultural figures. Picasso and Jean Cocteau stayed here in 1917 while preparing the first Cubist ballet; today, the hotel's partnership with the Kandinsky exhibition organisers Arthemisia gives guests rare, private access to masterpieces that seldom leave Paris.

Kandinsky may have become almost inseparable from the idea of abstract art. But ask curator Angela Lampe whether “father of abstract art” is the title that best defines him, and her answer is immediate:

“Not at all.”

Lampe has been looking at Kandinsky from a different perspective. Not as a solitary pioneer who suddenly broke painting free from representation, but as an artist working within a much wider network of ideas and influences. By 1911, when he created what is considered his first abstract piece, others including Piet Mondrian and Francis Picabia were already moving in the same direction. Kandinsky's distinctive contribution was to develop a coherent theoretical framework for it.

So what should we look for when we encounter his work in Rome?

Perhaps, first, listen.

Music was fundamental to Kandinsky's understanding of art. He experienced synaesthesia, associating colour with sound, and came to think about painting in almost musical terms. A colour could have its own “sonority”; lines and forms could create rhythm; a composition could provoke an emotional response without depicting anything recognisable. He was captivated by Wagner from an early age, while later encounters with musicians, including the Modernist composer Arnold Schönberg, helped him imagine a new visual language.

Lampe describes Yellow, Red, Blue as the “emotional high point” of the exhibition. In Rome, the monumental work is presented alone, surrounded by historic frescoes and accompanied by music. It is an unusually immersive way to encounter the painting — one that brings Kandinsky's ideas about colour, sound and emotion to the forefront.

But to understand how he arrived at the work we encounter in Rome, we need to go back to Munich.

Kandinsky arrived in the Bavarian capital at the turn of the 20th century, entering a world of artists, musicians and new ideas. In Schwabing, the bohemian quarter, he met Gabriele Münter – who would later become his long-term partner – and Franz Marc, and found himself at the centre of a circle that would become Der Blaue Reiter. Their shared interests would push painting in new directions, with Kandinsky increasingly looking beyond representation.

Today, the Lenbachhaus holds the world's largest collection of Der Blaue Reiter art, with more than 2,000 works by over 30 artists. Much of its Kandinsky collection came from Münter herself, who donated more than 1,000 pieces in 1957. For guests of The Charles Hotel, a private viewing here offers a rare opportunity to encounter these works together, in the city where this pivotal chapter in his story began.

The Lenbachhaus is just one expression of the artistic riches surrounding the hotel. Set in Maxvorstadt, a short stroll from the Kunstareal, it is close to an extraordinary concentration of collections – Old Masters at the Alte Pinakothek, modern and contemporary art at the Pinakothek der Moderne and Museum Brandhorst, and Germany's first museum dedicated to urban art at MUCA. Even the neighbourhood bears the name of an artist: Franz von Lenbach's former home and studio are now part of the museum quarter, while works by the painter feature in the hotel’s own collection.

Munich was pivotal, but it was only the beginning. The Rome exhibition follows Kandinsky through the successive chapters of his career: from his early landscapes and the emergence of abstraction to his return to Russia, the Bauhaus and his final years in Paris. It also brings him back together, in a sense, with Gabriele Münter, his former partner and fellow artist, whose work will be shown in Italy for the first time, alongside his.

After his death, his second wife, Nina Kandinsky, devoted herself to preserving his work, carefully maintaining his archive and estate and helping establish the legacy we encounter today.

That legacy allows us a way to explore Kandinsky anew, the man and the art. For Lampe, the exhibition is about creating the conditions in which his ideas can still be felt, not simply understood. She hopes visitors will experience “how the interplay of line, colour, and, at moments, music can evoke an inner sensation” — what Kandinsky called a “vibration of the soul.”

From 15 September 2026 to 14 February 2027, follow Kandinsky’s journey from Rome to Munich, with private access to the Palazzo Bonaparte exhibition before discovering the world of Der Blaue Reiter at the Lenbachhaus. Continue the journey from Hotel de Russie in Rome to The Charles Hotel in Munich.