First published in Munich in 1911, Wassily Kandinsky's "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" explores the artist's ideas on the different forms of art and what role art plays in the spiritual life of mankind. Considered to have painted the first truly abstract work of art, Kandinsky was a highly influential and important pioneer in the modern art movement. "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" is organized into two parts. In the first part titled "About General Aesthetic", Kandinsky makes the argument that art should transition ...
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First published in Munich in 1911, Wassily Kandinsky's "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" explores the artist's ideas on the different forms of art and what role art plays in the spiritual life of mankind. Considered to have painted the first truly abstract work of art, Kandinsky was a highly influential and important pioneer in the modern art movement. "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" is organized into two parts. In the first part titled "About General Aesthetic", Kandinsky makes the argument that art should transition from being an exact and realistic representation of the material world to becoming instead an abstract reflection of the inner mind of the artist. In the second part, titled "About Painting", the artist describes the different psychological and emotional meanings of colors and the social and spiritual responsibilities of the artist. Kandinsky believed that humanity was a pyramid and at the top are the greatest of artists and those artists had the ability and duty to lead society to its spiritual pinnacle. Over a hundred years later, Kandinsky's work continues to be a valuable and illuminating read into the artistic mind of Wassily Kandinsky. This edition follows the 1912 translation of Michael T. H. Sadler and is printed on premium acid-free paper.
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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.