While still a law student in Moscow, Kandinsky saw a work from Monet’s Haystacks series, but failed to recognise the subject. Even after reading that it was a haystack, he still didn't recognise it, and later wrote that he had ‘the dull sensation that the picture’s subject was missing. And I was amazed and confused to realise that the picture did not merely fascinate but impressed itself indelibly on my memory and constantly floated before my eyes, quite unexpectedly, complete in every detail.’ He had a similar experience with one of his own paintings years later when on returning studio, he was surprised to find a beautiful canvas with no recognisable subject. It was, in fact, his own work that was on its side. He thought this painting was glowing “with inner radiance,” and realised that its figures were secondary elements.

Another key, albeit unintentional, influence on the birth of abstraction was Pablo Picasso. He was not a supporter of abstraction, believing that 'you always have to begin with something',  but several of his pictures influenced Kandinsky. In 1910 Picasso produced a small series of paintings which featured angled planes defined by linear scaffolding that shifted across the works' surface (a prelude to some of his cubist works). Only the faintest traces of a figure or still life were discernible. Kandinsky saw photographs of these pictures in late 1911,  which assisted him in moving along the path from the theory of abstraction to its practice, as you can see above.

Artist Robert Delauney, who had been corresponding with Kandinsky, saw three of his works at the at the Salon des Independants in Paris in early 1912, and "understood these works to herald the birth of abstraction".  Soon afterwards, Delauney's art also moved in this direction, with his works being shown in Zurich, which further exposed the style of art withinin Europe. Swiss artist, Paul Klee, saw these works and proclaimed that Delauney "has created the type of autonomous picture, which leads, without motifs from nature, to a completely abstract life form".

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Sonia Delaunay Terk was formally trained in Russian Empire and Germany before moving to France., where she was influenced by the Post-Impressionists and the Fauvists. Her work in modern design included the concepts of geometric abstraction, and the integration of furniture, fabrics, wall coverings, and clothing into her art practice.She co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes, with her husband Robert Delaunay and others.She and Robert Delaunay became involved in public art projects, and they collaborated on vast murals for the Paris Exposition of 1937. She was the first living female artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre in 1964, and in 1975 was named an officer of the French Legion of Honour.

In October 1911, Frantisek Kupka exhibited two paintings, both with musical titles, at the Salon d'Autome in Paris, which demonstrated independance from traditional subject matter. Kupka was a member of artistic circles in Paris in which ideas about avant-garde practices were being discussed (and you will see several of these names throughout the sections on abstract  and cubist art). He met with Marcel Duchamp, the Delauneys, Picabia, Leger, poet Apollinaire, Gino Severini, Albert Gleizes, Emile Le Fauconnier and Jean Metzinger.

Francis Picabia exhibited a work at the Salon d'Autome in Paris with Kupka which invoked a figurative reference through its title, Amorpha, but was nonetheless a declaration of abstraction. Fernand Léger also exhibited a work at the Salon, Femme en Blueu (Woman in Blue), which rather than portraying woman dressed in blue, seemed the efface the figure with large arcing planes of that colour, so that there is almost no trace of a reference to a human figure at all.

Poet Guillaume Apollinaire also played an important role in publicising the advent and developments in this new mode of art. In  the February 1912 issue of  Les Soirées de Paris he declared that "the new painters paint pictures that no longer have any real subject matter". As a friend of many of the artists he encouraged and supported the idea of abstract art. (Sources: ...isms Understanding Modern Art, The Illustrated History of Art, Inventing Abstraction 1910 - 1945.