Kandinsky’s art does not reflect and is not burdened by the fate of other Russian avant-garde masters. He left Russia well before the semi-official Soviet aesthetic turned its back on modernist art. He had been to Paris and Italy, even giving Impressionism its due in his earliest works. However, it was only in Germany that he aspired to study. It is obvious that in his preference for Munich over Paris, Kandinsky had been thinking more about schools than about artistic milieu. The qualities of salon Impressionism, a hint of the dry rhythms of modernism (Jugendstil), a heavy “demiurgic stroke” reminiscent of Cézanne, the occasionally significant echoes of Symbolism and much…