Avi Ohry
Tel Aviv, Israel

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) was a Russian painter, art theorist, co-founder of the “Blue Rider” art movement, pioneer of abstract painting,¹ and part of the Fauvism and Bauhaus of Weimar movements. Neuroscientists regard him “as one of the most prominent examples of a synesthetic artist.”²

Kandinsky postulated a fundamental synesthesia between color and form or shapes.^3,4 He (and others) also related cross-modal correspondence with “the inherent belongingness between two different senses: … pitch and color.”⁵ Scientists and artists debate “whether synesthesia can contribute to an artist’s ability, whether it is a driving force or a mere idiosyncratic quirk, and whether fundamentally it is a distinct condition or an unusual form of normal perception.”⁵

Another member of the Kandinsky family was Wassily’s second cousin Victor Kandinsky (1849–1889).^6,7 He studied medicine in Moscow and became a general practitioner. He experienced his first depression with hallucinations while a physician in the Russo-Turkish War, and he was treated at a naval hospital. In 1876 he had a psychotic attack, was hospitalized, and was discharged from the army. He became a psychiatrist, published a book based on his own psychotic experiences, and finally diagnosed his “melancholia” as paranoid schizophrenia. He worked as a psychiatrist but was hospitalized many times and died in a mental asylum.

Kandinsky described the psychopathological symptoms included in the term “mental automatism” (telepathy, reading and broadcasting thoughts, enforced speaking, and enforced motor movements), a syndrome later called the Kandinsky-Clerambault syndrome⁸ or confabulatory disorder.⁷ Kandinsky contributed to general psychiatry in three main areas: psychopathology, psychiatric classification, and forensic psychiatry.⁸ Clérambault (1872–1934) was a French psychiatrist, painter, and photographer.

References

1. Braun DI, Doerschner K. Kandinsky or Me? How Free Is the Eye of the Beholder in Abstract Art? Iperception. 2019 Sep 4;10(5):2041669519867973.
2. Just DKC. Was Kandinsky a Synesthete? Examining His Writings and Other Evidence. Multisens Res. 2017 Jan 1;30(3-5):447-460.
3. Jacobsen T. Kandinsky’s questionnaire revisited: fundamental correspondence of basic colors and forms? Percept Mot Skills. 2002 Dec;95(3 Pt 1):903-13.
4. Makin AD, Wuerger SM. The IAT shows no evidence for Kandinsky’s color-shape associations. Front Psychol. 2013 Sep 11;4:616.
5. Mulvenna CM. Synesthesia, the arts and creativity: a neurological connection. Front Neurol Neurosci. 2007;22:206-222
6. Engmann B. On the origins of the concept of ‘latent schizophrenia’ in Russian psychiatry. Hist Psychiatry. 2022 Jun;33(2):230-235
7. [Acute paraphrenic states in the clinical presentation of attack-like schizophrenia]. Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova. 2015;115 (11 Pt 2):49-56. In Russian.
8. Lerner V, Witztum E. Victor Kandinsky, M.D., 1849-1889. Am J Psychiatry. 2006 Feb;163(2):209.