Concerning The Spiritual In Art And Painting In Particular

Pioneering work by the great modernist painter, considered by many to be the father of abstract art and a leader in the movement to free art from traditional bonds. 12 illustrations.

A seminal text in the history of modern art, from one of the most famous artists of the twentieth century ‘Art is the language that speaks to the soul’ Why do we make art? In Concerning the Spiritual in Art Wassily Kandinsky, one of the earliest and most famous abstract painters, argued against ‘art for art’s sake’. Exploring form and colour, spirituality and tradition, Kandinsky instead predicted a future for painting in its potential to redirect the attention of viewers away from the shallow materialism of the modern world toward the more profound intellectual and emotional concerns of their interior lives. His revolutionary work became a landmark in modern art history, helping to usher in the age of non-representational painting. This new translation also includes Kandinsky’s later essay, ‘The Question of Form’, in which he interrogates and sharpens many of his earlier ideas. A new translation by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp With an introduction by Lisa Florman

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Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky. About the Author: Kandinsky was born in the year 1866 and differently from what people can suppose he wasn't originally a painter. In fact in Odessa he went to the university of law and economics. Just in a second part of his life he will rediscover the passion for art and colours that he used to have when he was a child. The first period of Kandisnsky life and career as a painter will be based on paints dedicated to the expression of intense and deep thoughts of the artist. Is during this period that the artist together with a group of other people will give birth to "der blaue reiter" translated with the blue knight. It was a group of artists heart of the German expressionism. During his studies as artist and painter Kandinsky will meet a wide variety of sources of inspiration but topics that will most affect his work will be the colour symbolism and the psychology. To give fame to Kandinsky, or at last, to make his fame so great is the fact that to this artist is attributable one of the first abstract works of the modern art. During his life the artist will get in touch and become a member of symbolists groups and in particular will be part of the group known as the blue rose which will be (or critics think so) somehow involved in the creation of the painting: The blue mountain. In the painting the use of horses symbolize the battle of the author against traditional art in fact in the same period during which he completed "The blue mountain" he also achieved to realize many other paintings about horses and riders, actually the amount of these paintings is of at last seven. To better understand this artist, anyway, there are mainly other two elements to know and understand. These elements are the artistic movements that inspired and, in different periods, attracted the artist. Of all the possible movements to list two were particularly important to Kandinsky: Fauvism and pointillism. Fauvism was mainly known in France, it wasn't a real and officially known group of artists but they were very close to themes of the impressionism following the experiences made by Van Gogh and Gaugin. The use of bright and unnatural colours was the element that attracted Kandinsky. For basically the same reason, the artist, will spend a period close to the other group: the group of pointillist artists. Where other than the colours' use Kandinsky will be interested also to the loss of unitary shapes.

This book examines the art and writings of Wassily Kandinsky, who is widely regarded as one of the first artists to produce non-representational paintings. Crucial to an understanding of Kandinsky's intentions is On the Spiritual in Art, the celebrated essay he published in 1911. Where most scholars have taken its repeated references to "spirit" as signaling quasi-religious or mystical concerns, Florman argues instead that Kandinsky's primary frame of reference was G.W.F. Hegel's Aesthetics, in which art had similarly been presented as a vehicle for the developing self-consciousness of spirit (or Geist, in German). In addition to close readings of Kandinsky's writings, the book also includes a discussion of a 1936 essay on the artist's paintings written by his own nephew, philosopher Alexandre Kojève, the foremost Hegel scholar in France at that time. It also provides detailed analyses of individual paintings by Kandinsky, demonstrating how the development of his oeuvre challenges Hegel's views on modern art, yet operates in much the same manner as does Hegel's philosophical system. Through the work of a single, crucial artist, Florman presents a radical new account of why painting turned to abstraction in the early years of the twentieth century.

2014 Reprint of 1947 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. An updated version of the Sadleir translation, with considerable re-translation by Francis Golffing, Michael Harrison and Ferdinand Ostertag. Published in 1912, Kandinsky's book defines three types of painting; impressions, improvisations and compositions. While impressions are based on an external reality that serves as a starting point, improvisations and compositions depict images emergent from the unconscious, though composition is developed from a more formal point of view. Kandinsky compares the spiritual life of humanity to a pyramid-the artist has a mission to lead others to the pinnacle with his work. The point of the pyramid is occupied by few great artists. It is a spiritual pyramid, advancing and ascending slowly even if it sometimes appears immobile. During decadent periods, the soul sinks to the bottom of the pyramid; humanity searches only for external success, ignoring spiritual forces. This edition contains a new introduction by Nina Kandinsky, his widow, providing Kandinsky's own corrections and additions for a new edition that never appeared in his lifetime. She has also written for this edition a memoir of Kandinsky's development.