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Why did Wassily Kandinsky turn down a professorship at the University of Dorpat in 1896?
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Wassily Kandinsky
Painting with Green Center, oil on canvas by Wassily Kandinsky, 1913; in the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 1896, Wassily Kandinsky was offered a professorship in jurisprudence at the University of Dorpat (now Tartu) in Estonia. At the time, he was approaching his 30th birthday and had grown disillusioned with his career in the social sciences.
Rather than accepting the academic post, he experienced a "now or never" moment and chose to pursue his interest in art. He turned down the offer and moved to Germany with the specific intention of becoming a painter.1