Which artists helped create early abstract art before World War I?

In the years immediately preceding World War I, several artists pioneered the development of abstract art by moving away from the representation of the visible world toward nonobjective forms.1

Key figures who contributed to this early shift include:

• Wassily Kandinsky: Traditionally regarded as the first modern artist to create purely abstract paintings (c. 1910–11), he explored the connection between music and visual art, notably through his work with the Der Blaue Reiter group.231
• Hilma af Klint: A Swedish artist whose work has recently challenged the traditional narrative of abstract history. She began creating nonobjective paintings as early as 1906, though she worked in relative isolation and with different spiritual motivations than her contemporaries.41
• Robert Delaunay: A central figure in Orphism, a movement that derived from Cubism and emphasized the expressive power of color and light.51
• František Kupka: A proponent of Orphism who exhibited abstract works in 1912, such as Disks of Newton, which sought to unite musical and visual ideas.5
• Kazimir Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin: Both artists were also instrumental in the turn toward fundamentally abstract art during the years leading up to the war.1

While these artists were pivotal, it is important to note that the transition to abstraction was not uniform, and many progressive artists of the time still viewed the total abandonment of representation with skepticism.1