Concerning the Spiritual in Art
by Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), an
influential Russian painter and art theorist, contains two parts and twelve
illustrations.
This short book tries to answer the
question What is he trying to do?,
question some of us formulate when we stand in front of an abstract painting.
They say, ‘Kandinsky paints music’; he actually breaks down the barrier between
music and painting. Let’s listen part of it. (It can be also absorved for
writers and other makers of art.)
PART 1: ABOUT GENERAL AESTHETIC
Food
for the soul:
“With cold eyes and indifferent mind
the spectators regard the work. Connoisseurs admire the ‘skill’, enjoy the
‘quality of painting’ (as one enjoys a pasty.) But hungry souls go hungry away.
The vulgar herd stroll through the
rooms and pronounce the pictures ‘nice’ or ‘esplendid.’
Those who could speak have said
nothing, those who could hear have heard nothing.’
The spiritual triangle: the spiritual
art, to which art belongs:
“At the apex of the top segment
stands often one man, and only one. His joyful vision cloaks a vast sorrow.
Even those who are nearest to him in simpathy do not understand him. Angrily
they abuse him as charlatan or madman. So in his lifetime stood Beethoven,
solitary and insulted.
In every segment of the triangle are
artists. The greater the segment so the greater the number who understand the
words of the artist. Every segment hungers consciously or, much more often,
unconsciously for their corresponding spiritual food. This food is offered by
the artists. ”
“In
each artistic circle are thousands of such artists, of whom the majority seeks
only for some new technical manner, and who produce millions of works of art
without enthusiasm, with cold hearts and souls asleep".
Fusion
of arts:
“Consciously or unconsciously artists
are studying and proving their material, setting in the balance the spiritual
value of those elements, with which it is their several privilege to work.
And the natural result of this
striving is that the various arts are drawing together. They are finding in
Music the best teacher.
This borrowing of method by one art
from another, can only be truly successful when the application of the borrowed
methods is not superficial but fundamental.”
PART 2: ABOUT PAINTING
Music
is not judged by how much the music sounds like noises in nature, whereas
painting is judged by how well the painter reflects the natural world. Kandinsky
points out the explanation by association by saying:
“To let the eye stray over a palette,
splashed with many colours produces a dual result. In the first place one
receives a purely physical impression, one of pleasure and contentment at the
varied and beautiful colours. The eye is either warmed or else soothed and
cooled. But these physical sensations can only be of short duration. They are
merely superficial and leave no lasting impression, for the soul is unaffected.
But although the effect of the colours is forgotten when the eye is turned
away, the superficial impression of varied colour may be the starting point of
a whole chain of related sensations.
On the average man only the
impressions caused by very familiar objects, will be purely superficial. A
first encounter with any new phenomenon exercises immediately an impression on
the soul. This is the experience of the child discovering the world, to whom
every object is new. It is realized that trees give shade, that horses run fast
and motor-cars still faster, that dogs bite, that the figure seen in a mirror
is not a real human being.
As the man develops, the circle of
these experiences caused by different beings and objects, grows ever wider.
They acquire an inner meaning and eventually a spiritual harmony. It is the
same with colour, which makes only a momentary and superficial impression on a
soul but slightly developed in sensitiveness.”
“But to a more sensitive soul the
effect of colours is deeper and intensely moving. And so we come to the second
main result of looking at colours: Their psychic effect. They produce a
corresponding spiritual vibration, and it is only as a step towards this
spritual vibration that the elementary physical impression is of importance.
The
choice of one of the elements in the harmony of form must be decided only by a
corresponding vibration in the human soul:
“The more abstract is form, the more
clear and direct is its appeal. The more an artist uses these abstracted forms,
the deeper and more confidently will he advance into the kingdom of the
abstract.”
“Meterlinck
stated, ‘The soul is curious for beauty.’”
*****
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STORYTELLER. All rights reserved.
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