Wassily Kandinsky: Concerning the Spiritual in Art
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Kandinsky Wassily
Concerning the Spiritual in Art
 List Price: Price: $18.00 You Save: $2.00 (10%) DescriptionThe book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Aesthetics; Painting; Art / Collections, Catalogs, Exhibitions; Art / Individual Artist; Art / SubjectsCustomer ReviewsDestroyer.This book destroyed any notion I had as an artist about why I was doing what I was doing, which at the time was surrealism. Not every statment can be agreed with, but if this book is not loaded with quads of relative and relevant directions to a more complete and whole understanding of why one should make art in a more sincere method, then I am not writing this review. Too often over shadowed by the philosophical statements of Duchamp, this book, as much, revolutionized art. If you feel uncertain that the principals by which you make art are honest, read this book, then make your judgement. As did witnessing Ad Reinhardt's black canvases, this book recreated my spirit, unexpectedly. Time to call back the soul in art [Please note - page numbers in this book and the references to Sadler's introuduction apply to the Dover edition, which is the best-seller on Amazon in the UK but is buried in the depths of the American Amazon at this link: Concerning the Spiritual in Art] This is a fantastic short book. I am amazed I hadn't heard of it before. It only came to my attention recently when one of my students, Nic Green, used it as a basis for her essay at the Centre for Human Ecology: the student teaching the teacher. Kandinsky, who was one of the founders of modern art, sets out to confront the crass materialism of his era and the trite art that it was producing. He understands "spirituality" as being the interiority of things, their inner source of meaning and life. He attacks artistic narcissism, saying, "This neglect of inner meanings, which is the life of colours, this vain squandering of artistic power is called 'art for art's sake'." (p. 3). Consistent with his Russian Orthodox background, Kandinsky says, "We are seeking today for the road which is to lead us away from the outer to the inner basis. The spirit, like the body, can be strengthened and developed by frequent exercise. Just as the body, if neglected, grows weaker and finally impotent, so the spirit perishes if untended. And for this reason it is necessary for the artist to know the starting point for the exercise of his spirit. The starting point is the study of colour and its effects on men." (pp. 35-6). And I love his honesty in a footnote where he says, of his colour schema, "These statements have no scientific basis, but are founded purely on spiritual experience." (p. 37). If only we saw more awareness in the world of the importance of not confusing categories of thought between scientific evidence and artistic perception. To Kandinsky, Art's function is to reveal the spiritual. It "must learn from music that every harmony and every discord which springs from the inner spirit is beautiful, but that it is essential that they spring from the inner spirit and from that alone." (p. 51). This has a social function, for "each period of culture produces an art of its own which can never be repeated". (p. 1) As such, "Painting is an art, and art is not vague production, transitory and isolated, but a power which must be directed to the improvement and refinement of the human soul." (p. 54). Ultimately, "If the artist be priest of beauty", then she has "a triple responsibility to the non-artist: (1) He must repay the talent which he has; (2) his deeds, feelings, and thoughts, as those of every man, create a spiritual atmosphere which is either pure or poisonous. (3) These deeds and thoughts are materials for his creations, which themselves exercise influence on the spiritual atmosphere. The artist is not only as king, as Peladan says, because he has great power, but also because he has great duties." (pp. 54-55). And the bottom line? "That is beautiful which is produced by the inner need, which springs from the soul." He concludes: "this property of the soul is the oil which facilitates the slow, scarcely visible but irresistable movement of [the human condition] onwards and upwards." As will be apparent, this sense of spiritual progress may be modern thinking, but it is decidedly not postmodern. How strange, then, that Kandkindy is seen as a progenitor of "modern" art and its seamless, to my eye, drift into the incohate abstractions of postmodernity. It is here that my criticism of Kandinsky takes effect. Kandinsky's mindset is, at the same time, premodern in its perception of the spiritual essence, but postmodern deconstructive in its artistic articulation. His spirituality is not an incarnational one, where the Spirit interpenetrates and quickens matter, but a dualistic one, where they can be separated or "abstracted". His purpose is laudable. It is to reveal the spiritual and make it visible anew "towards the close of our already dying epoch" (p. 47). But the problem is that he seeks to do this by abstraction, separation. This takes us into a world that predicates the transcendent, but implicitly denigrates the immanent. Thus, "The more abstract is form, the more clear and direct its appeal. In any composition the material side may be more or less omitted in proportion as the forms used are more or less material, and for them substituted pure abstractions, or largely dematerialised objects. The more an artist uses these abstracted forms, the deeper and more confidently will he advance into the kingdom of the abstract." (p.32). And for Kandinsky such abstraction becomes a crusading obsession: "Taking the work of Henri Rousseau as a starting point, I go on to prove that the new naturalism will not only be equivalent to but even identical with abstraction." (p. 52). In his wonderful Introduction to the text, Michael Sadler suggests that this extreme abandonment of representation of the real world is why, "The question most generally asked about Kandinsky's art is: 'What is he trying to do?'" Saddler suggests, "this book will do something towards answering the question. But it will not do everything." (p. xviii). In contrast, he says, Cezanne "saw in a tree, a heap of apples, a human face, a group of bathing men or women, something more abiding than either photography or impressionist painting could present. He painted the 'treeness' of the tree.... But in everything he did he showed the architectural mind of the true Frenchman. His landscape studies were based on a profound sense of the structure of rocks and hills, and being structural, his art depends on reality.... The material of which his art was composed was drawn from the huge stores of actual nature." (p.xvii). Where does all this leave us today, in 2010, 99 years after first publication of Kandinsky's little book in German? When I look at the nihilism of Britart, or the sheer inability to draw and express beauty in what seems to be coming out of some of our contemporary art schools (the students tell me they are discouraged by their tutors from trying to express beauty!), then it is clear that abstraction has gone too far. Like postmodern deconstruction generally, it is all very well to deconstruct, but what about the grace of reconstruction? Kandinsky's aim to reveal the spiritual was laudable. That is the true meaning of the word "apocalypse" - to unveil and reveal that which has been hidden. But abstraction on its own and as the highest ideal is like pulling up a plant to see how the roots are growing. It causes disincarnation, which is another word for death, and so both the material and the spiritual wither. The art that we need for these our troubled times needs to be an apocalyptic art of incarnation. It needs to reveal the spiritual, but not separate it off from the material world. This will be a new art of the sacred. And here is where we need a debate to start, and artistic action around that debate. A resource that I would suggest is a book by the theologian Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination - especially the Introduction on pp. 3 - 10. Wink argues that we must reject the dualistic idea of Heaven being separate from Earth. We need what he calls an "integral worldview", what is also sometimes called an incarnational spirituality. Here Heaven and Earth are interfused in a single reality (Christians can read Luke 17:20-21; Hindus the Bhagavad Gita; Taoists the Tao te Ching, etc.). And we need art, in the full artistic and theological senses of these words, to "magnify" and "illuminate" what incarnational spirituality looks like. To open the mind and the heart, and give fresh hope to the world. Sadler's remarks on Cezanne are a pointer in this direction. Kandinsky's little book provides a crucial intellectual stepping stone. We have lived through a century of dying and dead "modern" art. We cannot go on like that. It is time to call back the soul. Great ebook! Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky. Published by MobileReference (mobi). I love the way Kandinsky writes. It is so captivating. He is a very spiritual artist. He has helped me to see beauty in everything. Read the book, it is very good! Inciteful... This book was purchased for a college research project and it was just perfect. It talks of Kandinsky's color theory and how music and color co-exist. The seller was professional and I got the book when it was promised. I would order from this seller again...definately! "to break the bonds which bind". . . "to an impoverishment of possibility" Kandinsky had risen to positions of influence in other disciplines (political science/economics and law) before directing his considerable intellect to painting. His insights extended into the historic 'meta' trends of the arts and sciences, including the physical sciences, and had his interests been directed more to the history and philosophy of science instead of the history and philosophy of art, he might have written Kuhn's observations regarding paradigm change a half century before Kuhn did: "Here and there are people with eyes which can see, minds which can correlate. They say to themselves: 'If the science of the day before yesterday is rejected by the people of yesterday, and that of yesterday by us of today, is it not possible that what we call science now will be rejected by the men of tomorrow?' And the bravest of them answer, 'It is possible.'" Instead, Kandinsky extended the frontiers of painting and authored philosophic writings on the future of art that are among the most important of such works. M.T.H. Sadler, who translated this work into English, was a friend of Kandinsky's and was among his early admirers. The notes he has written in the front of the book (Translator's Introduction) are therefore more helpful than could be the opinions of many other critics, including myself: "Anyone who has studied Gauguin will be aware of the intense spiritual value of his work. The man is a preacher and a psychologist, universal by his very unorthodoxy, fundamental because he goes deeper than civilization. In his disciples this great element is wanting. "Kandinsky has supplied the need. He is not only on the track of an art more purely spiritual than was conceived even by Gauguin, but he has achieved the final abandonment of all representative intention. In this way he combines in himself the spiritual and technical tendencies of one great branch of Post-Impressionism. "The question most generally asked about Kandinsky's art is: 'What is he trying to do?' It is to be hoped that this book will do something towards answering the question. But it will not do everything. This--partly because it is impossible to put into words the whole of Kandinsky's ideal, partly because in his anxiety to state his case, to court criticism, the author has been tempted to formulate more than is wise. His analysis of colours and their effects on the spectator is not the real basis of his art, because, if it were, one could, with the help of a scientific manual, describe one's emotions before his pictures with perfect accuracy. And this is impossible. "Kandinsky is painting music. That is to say, he has broken down the barrier between music and painting, and has isolated the pure emotion which, for want of a better name, we call the artistic emotion. Anyone who has listened to good music with any enjoyment will admit to an unmistakable but quite indefinable thrill. He will not be able, with sincerity, to say that such a passage gave him such visual impressions, or such a harmony roused in him such emotions. The effect of music is too subtle for words. And the same with this painting of Kandinsky's. Speaking for myself, to stand in front of some of his drawings or pictures gives a keener and more spiritual pleasure than any other kind of painting. But I could not express in the least what gives the pleasure. Presumably the lines and colours have the same effect as harmony and rhythm in music have on the truly musical. That psychology comes in no one can deny." Some aspects of Kandinsky's color theory are dubious, at best they cannot be universalized, and Kandinsky sees this. But other of his ideas and arguments are widely accepted among artists, even as being self-evident. Stating that "there is no 'must' in art, because art is free," that is, free to address external representations OR "the inner need," to merely chase after material 'objects' OR to wrestle with the mysteriously spiritual, to somehow meld the two visions OR to stay purely to exploration of the spiritual high ground, Kandinsky absolutely rejects the materialistic expectation of an art "explanation" that has been articulated by EO Wilson in his unfortunate daydream 'Consilience' (Wilson knows ants better than he knows humans, and is given to understanding humans to be essentially ant equivalents). Anyone interested in art history, painting of the past century, or the relationships/correlations/divergences of the various arts (visual, musical, literary), as well as anyone interested in the meaning and purpose of art, or in the philosophy of aesthetics, should read this important book, perhaps more than once.
Wassily Kandinsky: 1866-1944 a Revolution in Painting (Basic Art)
 List Price: Price: $9.99 DescriptionThe Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), who later lived in Germany and France, is one of the pioneers of 20th-century art. Nowadays he is regarded as the founder of abstract art and is, moreover, the chief theoretician of this type of painting. Together with Franz Marc and others he founded the group of artists known as the "Blauer Reiter" in Munich. His art then freed itself more and more from the object, eventually culminating in the "First Abstract Watercolour" of 1910. In his theoretical writings Kandinsky repeatedly sought the proximity of music; and just as in music, where the individual notes constitute the medium whose effect stems from harmony and euphony, Kandinsky was aiming for a pure concord of colour through the interplay of various shades. Gauguin had demanded that everything "must be sacrificed to pure colours". Kandinsky was the first to realize this and thus to influence a whole range of artists.Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian-born painter, became one of the founders of 20th-century abstract art, ultimately moving toward the geometric forms for which he is best known. Some of the more beautiful works included in this title are Several Circles (1926), Hard But Soft (1927), and Graceful Ascent (1934). Readers looking for a good introduction to the works of Kandinsky will be delighted with this volume. Customer ReviewsKandinskyExcellent Book! It is very informative and well written.The illustrations are great and give deep insight into the artist's life and work.Ordering from the purveyor through Amazon was a breeze as always!I recommend this title to anyone dabbling in art history or with a real interest in examining his marvelous paintings. The Book is Worth It! This book has excellent images on Kandinsky's work beginning with his representational early works to his abstract later works. The color quality of the prints are good and the information is readable - to the point and not overwhelming like many art books can be. I only wish this book was bigger with more examples of his work. ...A good resource for art educators. The Master On Display The word "visionary" is so often overused, but Wassily Kandinsky truly was one. Pick up this book and find out why! Must buy for any modern art lover This book in few pages can describe Kandinsky so well. The style of Kandisky which reflected the developments and strides physics took in first 2 decades of century is shown in his love of planes and geometry.
Wassily Kandinsky And Gabriele Munter: Letters And Reminiscences, 1902-1914 (Pegasus Library)
 List Price: Price: $14.95 DescriptionOne of the art world’s most poignant love stories comes to life in this fascinating book.The tumultuous love affair between Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter is a story of happiness and pain, trust and betrayal, harmony and conflict, set against the backdrop of the revolutionary upheavals that attended the birth of Modernism. The fascinating story of their life in the Bavarian countryside, where they were a part of the Blue Rider group, and the underlying tensions that eventually drove them apart, is told in letters, diary entries and memoirs, and in superb reproductions of the artists’ finest paintings and sketches. This book traces the development of the couple's personal and artistic relationship from 1902 through 1914 when Kandinsky fled Germany and returned to his native Russia, before finally abandoning Münter in 1917. It shows how their relationship, though ill-fated, marked a hugely prolific period in the careers of both painters and the development of the German Expressionist movement.
Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky:
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DescriptionThis English language translation and revised edition in collaboration with
Kandinsky
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DescriptionNo other artist epitomizes the character of the Guggenheim Museum quite like Vasily Kandinsky, who is closely linked to the history of the museum and has been collected in depth in the permanent collection since its founding. Kandinsky accompanies the first full-scale retrospective of the artist's career to be exhibited in the United States since 1985, when the Guggenheim culminated its trio of groundbreaking exhibitions of the artist's life and work in Munich, Russia and Paris. This presentation of nearly 100 paintings brings together works from the three institutions that have the greatest concentration of Kandinsky's work in the world: the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; as well as significant loans from private and public holdings. This traveling exhibition's final iteration at the Guggenheim Museum will investigate both Kandinsky's formal and conceptual contributions to the course of abstraction in the twentieth century, concentrating on his innovations in painting. Kandinsky traces the artist's vision through thematic motifs such as the horse and rider, mountainous landscapes, tumultuous seascapes, apocalyptic imagery and other religious subjects.Customer ReviewsSpectacular book!I was sad that I couldn't make it to the exhibit in NY. But when I saw this volume it practically brought tears to my eyes. How did I miss a chance to see SO MANY pieces collected in one museum. Well, at least I have this book. It's amazing. Smallish Page Size Overview of Kandinsky with Overly Repetitive Essays "In transgressing and lying against the LORD, And departing from our God, Speaking oppression and revolt, Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood." -- Isaiah 59:13 Kandinsky's life is a fascinating study in political, social, and artist revolt within a spiritual context. There can be few parallels for his experiences and actions during the first half of the twentieth century. While I knew the outlines of those themes before reading the catalogue's essays, those factors are now burned into my consciousness in a way that allows me to see more in Kandinsky's work. That was the greatest gift of this book. The second greatest benefit came in seeing so many of his works reproduced in mostly chronological order, making it easier to understand his geographical periods and subperiods within them (as he described them). I admire whoever planned the catalogue for assigning so many essays from so many different perspectives. The combined effect is to cast light on many parts of Kandinsky's life and art that might otherwise have remained hidden in the shadows because the brilliant color of his triumphs eclipsed those aspects. I particularly commend the extended, well illustrated chronology compiled by Annegret Hoberg. Well done! The catalogue will also serve as a permanent reminder that I can always expect to see some wonderful Kandinsky paintings whenever I visit the Guggenheim in New York. Alongside all that praise, I do have some constructive suggestions. I believe that the essays could have been either edited or coordinated in order to make them a lot less repetitive. A number of the authors appear to have been under the impression that no other sources of information would be in the book. Naturally, when looking at an exhibition catalogue, especially for a major one like this, I would like as many plates as possible in the largest possible size. This book doesn't deliver as well as it might have in those dimensions. To keep the cost down, the page size is smaller than for a major show. Within the size that is presented here, many of the works are reproduced in quite small size. That's a major missed opportunity for the many works that display the kind of fine detail that would have made Miro proud. Unless you are a Kandinsky scholar with many works already, I still commend this work for your purchase. Too Much Background, Not Enough on Specific Paintings This is a decent book, with very good reproductions. I made the mistake of concentrationg on the essays without really looking at the paintings before heading off to the Guggenheim, which is ninety miles away. I realized immediately that I was in trouble, especially with Kandinsky's abstract paintings. It was not a wasted trip because I knew that I needed to look closely at the individual paintings before returning to the Guggenheim. I did look at every Kandinsky painting in the book, please note that only about thirty percent of the paintings are discussed in any detail. There is no discusion of the other paintings in the book. But, I know Kandinsky's work from years ago, so I was able to use my prior knowledge to understand most of the painting. My second visit to the Guggenheim was a success - a great success, but only because I figured out how to get the most out of this book. The four stars are really for the quality of the reproductions. They are so good that, on a few occasions, the reproductions look better than the paintings. Poor Book Design In what should have the ultimate Kandinsky book is instead a major let down. The book starts off great, the cover is a nice composition and the circles are actually die cut circles in the white cover to show the colored circles underneath. After that about 2/5 of the book is devoted to critical analysis of Kandinsky. I could have done without this part in exchange for more artwork. The book itself is small in size for an art book which is a problem considering the complex compositions of Kandinsky's paintings. Once you get to the plates there is, unfortunately, too much white space around the images. So you effectively get reproductions that are postcard size---much too small to really enjoy the artwork. Because of the small illustrations I'm giving this just 1 star. There aren't a lot of Kandinsky books so you don't have much choice out there. I ended up passing on this and give it a recommendation only for the die-hard Kandinsky collectors. KANDINSKY - ARTIST OF THE YEAR - AND EVERY YEAR This is an all-inclusive catalogue (printed in Germany) of a major triple exhibition of 100 of Kandinsky's large oil paintings. Differing from Munich and Paris the Guggenheim opted for a small square format. Making this a much lighter, more easily handled tome than usual - and a perfect fit for Kandinsky's predominately squarish paintings. As one would expect it has immaculate colour reproductions and extensive biographical essays by 3 leading Kandinsky authorities. All of which reinforces how fortuitous it was for both Samuel R Guggenheim and Kandinsky they formed a business relationship whereby his most forward-looking art left Europe for the New World. Although the New York Times art critic wrote enthusiastically about the staging of this exhibition what one cannot accept is her initial remarks suggesting the Guggenheim has a tedius obligation to dust off its Kandinskys every 20 years to remind America there once was this austere Russian guy who invented Abstract Art. The implication being his work remains largely incomprehensible - except to a snooty clique who despise pretty sofa pictures. I'll admit her comment "Kandinsky never met a diagonal he didn't like" was amusing and true. It also helps to refute her other statement "he never painted a perfect picture". If she's referring to a work of art where you cannot add or subtract one musical note or one element in a painting without ruining the entire composition this exhibition contains at least 2 of his many perfect paintings. Namely "Composition 8" and "Three Sounds". The latter being one of his most ingenious compositions where despite not having one major diagonal line the central picture surface is being pulled vigourously to the 4 corners - one of which is empty! And what other artist could resolve a heavy red, black and purple circle in the upper corner of a horizontal canvas with a myriad of thin black lines and a few pale circles. "Accent in Pink" is another winner. The entire picture held together by one small white circle in the botton left corner. Although much emphasis is placed on his theoretical and spiritual approach to colour, during his Bauhaus period I see a supremely confident happily-married genius whose hobby was setting himself impossible compositional challenges - and inevitably finding the (god-given) inspiration to come-up with mind-boggling solutions. But when forced to return to Paris in 1933 it's undeniable his paintings became more whimsical and diffuse. Without the stimulating competitive atmosphere of the Bauhaus he retreated into his own world - one which even his staunchest supporters find less accessible. Nevertheless in 1935 he produced "Seccession". Not so much a painting as a lexicon. A discordant colour palette which 30 years later became the norm in the 60's Psychedelic Art era. Sadly, in virtual exile during the dark days of WW2, he could never have guessed his fame and influence would continue to grow unabated during the following 65 years. But neither would he be too pleased to know during this period not one major artist has emerged to fill his shoes. To become more familiar with the beginning of Kandinsky's roller-coaster career I'd like to recommend a wonderful catalogue for an exhibition which never left Germany in 2009 "Kandinsky - The Complete Prints". Containing 100% accurate reproductions of every single print that left Kandinsky's hand . Most of them safely stored in Gabrielle Munter's cellar to be handed over to the Lenbachhaus in 1957. The culmination of an engrossing romantic saga. Requiring the purchase of at least 4 more Kandinsky books! Kandinsky Wassily News
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The program pairs music of Russian composer Alexander Scriabin and Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky. Simmons released her first recording earlier this year