Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) was a Russian painter, graphic artist and art theorist who lived and worked in Germany and France after fleeing Russia. Together with, for example, František Kupka, Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian, he was one of the pioneers of abstract painting and thus one of the actors of the greatest revolution in painting since the Renaissance. His early work depicts Russian folklore and subjects from his native Moscow.