Excerpt: ...There is, however, in art another kind of external similarity which is founded on a fundamental truth. When there is a similarity of inner tendency in the whole moral and spiritual atmosphere, a similarity of ideals, at first closely pursued but later lost to sight, a similarity in the inner feeling of any one period to that of another, the logical result will be a revival of the external forms which served to express those inner feelings in an earlier age. An example of this today is our sympathy, our spiritual relationship, with the Primitives. Like ourselves, these artists...
Excerpt: ...There is, however, in art another kind of external similarity which is founded on a fundamental truth. When there is a similarity of inner...
In Concerning the spiritual in art, Kandinsky compares the spiritual life of humanity to a large triangle similar to a pyramid; the artist has the task and the mission of leading others to the top by the exercise of his talent. The point of the triangle is constituted only by some individuals who bring the sublime bread to other people. It is a spiritual triangle which moves forwards and rises slowly, even if it sometimes remains immobile. During decadent periods, souls fall to the bottom of the Triangle and men only search for external success and ignore purely spiritual forces. When we look...
In Concerning the spiritual in art, Kandinsky compares the spiritual life of humanity to a large triangle similar to a pyramid; the artist has the tas...
A pioneering work in the movement to free art from its traditional bonds to material reality, this book is one of the most important documents in the history of modern art. Written by the famous nonobjective painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866 1944), it explains Kandinsky's own theory of painting and crystallizes the ideas that were influencing many other modern artists of the period. Along with his own groundbreaking paintings, this book had a tremendous impact on the development of modern art. Kandinsky's ideas are presented in two parts. The first part, called "About General Aesthetic,"...
A pioneering work in the movement to free art from its traditional bonds to material reality, this book is one of the most important documents in t...
"I had the impression that here painting itself comes to the foreground; I wondered if it would not be possible to go further in this direction." Thus did the young Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) react to his first viewing of Monet's Haystack, included in an 1895 Moscow exhibit of French Impressionists. It was his first perception of the dematerialization of an object and presaged the later development of his influential theories of non-objective art. During study and travel in Europe, the young artist breathed the heady atmosphere of artistic experimentation....
"I had the impression that here painting itself comes to the foreground; I wondered if it would not be possible to go further in this direction."
