Kandinsky, The Music of Colors: the exhibition to see (and hear) at the Philharmonie de Paris - our photos

Calling all lovers of beautiful harmonies and chromatic flat tints! From October 15, 2025 to February 1, 2026, the Musée de la Musique - Philharmonie de Paris will be dancing colors and swinging brushes with Kandinsky. The music of colors. In partnership with the Centre Pompidou, this synesthetic exhibition finally gives music the place it deserves in the work of the master of abstraction.

Here, there's no question of looking at paintings in silence. No, everything vibrates, resonates and can be heard! Nearly 200 works and objects - paintings, drawings, scores, records, books, studio tools - tell the story of how music influenced Kandinsky's life and art, from his first Russian landscapes to his last Compositions. This is the great solo of a painter for whom the ear guides the eye.

Because before shaking up the history of art, Kandinsky had above all had a revelation: the "Wagner shock" in Moscow in 1896. From then on, the painter saw music as a springboard to free painting from any imitation of reality. He became close to avant-garde musicians - Nikolaï Kulbin, Sergueï Taneïev, Thomas von Hartmann - and composed his canvases like a conductor. Each stroke has its own pulse. Each color, its tonality.

Theexhibition takes you into this whirlwind of sounds and shapes via headphones, for a totalimmersion experience. You'll see (and hear) how Stravinsky, Schönberg and Scriabin inspired his paintings. All the modernity of the 20th century resonates here in major colors.

• To be read
• This week's top deals in Paris and Île-de-France, from December 22 to 28, 2025
• Free museums and landmarks: Must-visit sites this Sunday, January 4th, in Paris and Île-de-France
• Free museums and monuments in Paris and the Ile-de-France region: cultural tips

In one corner of the room, a passionate amateur's cabinet reveals his treasures: annotated scores, beloved records, popular engravings, photos of his musical accomplices. And let's not forget the tools from his studio, which whisper how Kandinsky sought the "sonority" of each hue, like tuning an instrument before a concert.

And because he never confined himself to a single discipline, the tour also highlights his word-melody poems, his stage projects and the essential Almanach du Blaue Reiter, a four-handed visual and sound manifesto. The tour concludes with a series of re-enactments: a staging of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (1928), the Berlin Music Salon (1931)... a live Kandinsky version.

With La musique des couleurs, art undergoes a symphonic revolution. An exhibition like a grand fugue, where each painting sets the tone. Visit with your eyes, ears and full volume!