Kandinsky claims that color can have two possible effects on the viewer: a physical one, superficial and based on momentary feelings, determined by the retina registration, and a psychic one due to the spiritual vibration through which the color reaches the soul. To explain this effect he employs a musical metaphor: the color is the key, the eye is the hammer, the soul is the piano with many strings. The cool colors (for instance blue), are paired with instruments whose timbre generates emotions that are distant and indifferent, such as the flute or the clarinet; while warm colors (such as yellow) are represented by the blaring timbre of brass instruments, which are capable of transmitting an irrepressible vitality. The composition begins in counterpoint between the various sections; throughout the unfolding of this contrapuntal section, the instruments slowly join the initial melodic cell heard in the flute, each of them representing one of the colors of the rainbow. The main theme, with a chorale-like character, depicts the colors in their totality and its exposition, in different tonalities, embodies the shifting effect of visual chromaticism.

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