Kandinsky and O'Keeffe: Pioneers of Abstraction

Yellow-Red-Blue, 1925
Over the years Kandinsky developed elaborate theories about color, which he laid out in his 1912 book On the Spiritual in Art. He wrote that yellow was an "earthly color" that "could never have profound meaning." Blue was the "heavenly color." As for red, "it has not the irresponsible appeal of yellow, but rings inwardly with a determined and powerful intensity."

• The Worlds Within