""Concerning The Spiritual In Art"" is a seminal work by the Russian painter and art theorist Wassily Kandinsky. Originally published in 1910, the book is a manifesto on the importance of spirituality in art and the need for artists to create work that transcends the material world. Kandinsky argues that art should be a reflection of the artist's innermost thoughts and emotions, and that true art has the power to evoke spiritual experiences in the viewer. He also explores the relationship between color and emotion, and the ...
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""Concerning The Spiritual In Art"" is a seminal work by the Russian painter and art theorist Wassily Kandinsky. Originally published in 1910, the book is a manifesto on the importance of spirituality in art and the need for artists to create work that transcends the material world. Kandinsky argues that art should be a reflection of the artist's innermost thoughts and emotions, and that true art has the power to evoke spiritual experiences in the viewer. He also explores the relationship between color and emotion, and the ways in which different colors can convey different moods and feelings. Through a series of essays, Kandinsky lays out his vision for a new kind of art that is free from the constraints of representationalism and grounded in the spiritual realm. The book is widely regarded as a key text in the development of abstract art and has had a significant influence on artists and art theorists throughout the 20th century.But despite their patent and well-ordered security, despite their infallible principles, there lurks in these higher segments a hidden fear, a nervous trembling, a sense of insecurity. And this is due to their upbringing. They know that the sages, statesmen and artists whom today they revere, were yesterday spurned as swindlers and charlatans.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.
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To me Kandinsky's book is probably of most use and interest to an art historian (which I am). The title might fool you if you're looking for, well, sort of the more familiar poetic ideas about art being moving and transcendent and something close to religion.
Not to say those aren't valid takes on art--they obviously are--but the book probably won't satisfy you in that way.. It was directed mainly at other artists and at critics and theorists of art (at the time). It can definitely be a little tedious, like an old textbook or manual. Not exactly bestseller material.
The book is very much a product of its time, an extremely idealistic European artworld before and during World War I. Much early modern art was almost intoxicated (kind of touchingly at times) with its own imagined possibilities for evolving the human species.. Kandinsky was a perfect example.
