23 January 2021
Concerning the Spiritual in Art
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," issues a call for a spiritual revolution in painting that will let artists express their own inner lives in abstract, non-material terms. Just as musicians do not depend upon the material world for their music, so artists should not have to depend upon the material world for their art. In the second part, "About Painting," Kandinsky discusses the psychology of colors, the language of form and color, and the responsibilities of the artist. An Introduction by the translator, Michael T. H. Sadler, offers additional explanation of Kandinsky's art and theories, while a new Preface by Richard Stratton discusses Kandinsky's career as a whole and the impact of the book. Making the book even more valuable are nine woodcuts by Kandinsky himself that appear at the chapter headings.
This English translation of Über das Geistige in der Kunst was a significant contribution to the understanding of nonobjectivism in art. It continues to be a stimulating and necessary reading experience for every artist, art student, and art patron concerned with the direction of 20th-century painting.
| Title | : | Concerning the Spiritual in Art |
| Edition Language | : | English |
| ISBN | : | 9780486234113 |
| Format Type | : |
Readers Also Enjoyed Concerning the Spiritual in Art
-
What saves this book is superlative phrase-turning and humor, intended or otherwise. If you've ever been tempted to bronze your subjective aesthetic and mount it in the museum between philosophy and s...
-
Theory is the lamp which sheds light on the petrified ideas of yesterday and of the more distant past. The first time I saw a painting by Kandinsky was in the Guggenheim Museum. Back then, I really...
-
I hit my artistic peak with my rendering of my uncle’s Conan the Barbarian upper arm tattoo (complete with blood splatter) when I was eight. Truly appreciating art always seemed like the province of...
-
To me, Kandinsky is the Kandinsky from the Bauhaus period, when his paintings were dominated by abstract compositions comprising lines, circles, triangles, and bold colours. Though Concerning the Spir...
-
This was worth reading. Some of the language was a little flowery so I will probably read it again at some point. It makes some interesting points. I wish the art was in color and not black and white ...
-
I am going to don my T-shirt with a print of Kandinsky's Upward and write a short review for his essay. ...
-
Picked this short treatise up used for cheap. Kandinsky has a lot of very interesting ideas about the relation of art and music and poetry, with some discussion of social status/interpersonal relation...
-
I'm finally getting around to reading Wassily Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art. In it, the artist explains his plans for the ascent of spiritually fulfilling and expressive art that surpass...
-
A professional artist/teacher friend of mine gave me a copy of Kandinsky's book at a recent workshop she was leading. Consider the long period of the 20th Century during which Kandinsky practiced what...
-
this is basically "we paint in a society", the treatise.he's more condescending than I would imagine, his spiritualism isn't, well, material enough, and it all smacks of "bourgeois nonsense." honestly...