When most people look at a painting by Wassily Kandinsky, they see an abstract collection of colours, lines, and shapes. There’s no obvious subject, no recognisable face, tree, or landscape. To some, it might even seem like chaos. But to Kandinsky, these were not vague expressions or random strokes - they were literal representations of how he experienced the world. His paintings weren’t about what he saw with his eyes, but what he saw in his mind when he listened to music.
Kandinsky was thought to have a rare neurological condition called synaesthesia, where the senses become cross-wired in the brain. In his case, sound - particularly music - triggered intense visual experiences.
A violin’s note might appear as a burst of bright yellow. A cello might curve across his vision in deep green. Entire compositions played out as shifting forms and patterns of colour, shapes and lines.
For Kandinsky, music and painting weren’t separate - they were two sides of the same experience. In his book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, he described colour as a direct line to the soul, saying, “Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul.”
This fusion of sound and sight shaped his artistic journey. Kandinsky originally studied law, but the vivid visual world music revealed to him was so overwhelming - and so inspiring - that he left that career behind to pursue art full time. Throughout his life, music remained central to his creative process. Many of his works bear titles like Composition and Improvisation, reinforcing the idea that his paintings weren’t just influenced by music - they were music, captured in paint.
Synaesthesia, though rare, affects roughly 2 to 4 percent of the population and takes many forms. One of the most common is grapheme-colour synaesthesia, where letters or numbers appear in specific colours. Kandinsky likely experienced a version called chromesthesia, in which sounds consistently evoke colours and shapes. And he’s not the only creative mind shaped by this extraordinary blending of senses.
Billie Eilish has said that she sees her songs in colours and textures. Lorde describes her music as having distinct visual palettes. Billy Joel and Beyoncé have both spoken about associating musical notes or sounds with colours. Even Marilyn Monroe reportedly experienced a form of synaesthesia, though she rarely discussed it publicly.
Understanding Kandinsky’s synaesthesia doesn’t just explain his choice of style - it transforms how we see his work. What might appear abstract, confusing, or purely expressive is, in fact, a sincere and detailed translation of his internal world. His art is not about making the invisible visible in a metaphorical sense - it’s about showing us what he quite literally saw when the music played.
For artists and viewers alike, Kandinsky’s work is a reminder that not all art is about what’s in front of us. Sometimes, it’s about what’s within us - those intangible, emotional, sensory experiences that don’t always have a name or a face. And whether or not we experience the world the same way he did, we can all relate to the idea that colour, movement, and rhythm can stir something deep within.
Image Credit: "File:Wassily Kandinsky - Träumerische Improvisation - 14091 - Bavarian State Painting Collections.jpg from Wikimedia Commons. The painting is in the Public Domain. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. No edits made.
