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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Wassily Kandinsky was born in Moscow in 1866 and spent his early childhood in Odessa. He grew up in a cultured family: his parents played the piano and the zither. Kandinsky himself learned to play the piano and the cello at an early age - the influence of music in his paintings later in life was enormous, down to the names of his works Improvisations, Impressions and Compositions. In 1886 Kandinsky began to study law …

…mere scale of this work gives it a great impact on the viewer making it more difficult to focus on one point as the long, sweeping lined brushstrokes point the eye to a different section of the painting in a guided dance - another feature which could refer to the artist's attraction to music and its abstract quality. Shapes of lances, sabres and hills signal to the nature of the Cossack people and their environment.