Spirituality

Russian-born artist, one of the first creators of pure abstraction in modern painting. After successful avant-garde exhibitions, he founded the influential Munich group Der Blaue Reiter (“The Blue Rider”; 1911–14) and began completely abstract painting. His forms evolved from fluid and organic to geometric and, finally, to pictographic. A sensitive and reflective child, Kandinsky was fascinated by the fanfare of sensory experience that childhood affords, through colour and sound and music

An event that effected his abrupt change of career in 1896: seeing an exhibition of French Impressionists in Moscow the previous year, especially Claude Monet’s Haystacks at Giverny, which was his first experience of nonrepresentational art. The impressionists used values of color and light to show their subjects rather than painting in fine detail. and then hearing Wagner’s Lohengrin at the Bolshoi Theatre. Kandinsky chose to abandon his law career and move to Munich to devote himself full-time to the study of art.

He began with conventional themes and art forms, but all the while he was forming theories derived from devoted spiritual study and informed by an intense relationship between music and color. These theories coalesced through the first decade of the 20th century, leading him toward his ultimate status as the pioneer of abstract art. Color became more an expression of emotion rather than a faithful description of nature or subject matter.

Concerning the Spiritual in Art  Book

Kandinsky’s book ‘Concerning the spiritual in art’ 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.

“The spiritual life, to which art belongs and of which she is one of the mightiest elements, is a complicated but definite and easily definable movement forwards and upwards. This movement is the movement of experience. It may take different forms, but it holds at bottom to the same inner thought and purpose.”

He goes on to offer a visual metaphor for our spiritual experience and how it relates to the notion of genius:

The life of the spirit may be fairly represented in diagram as a large acute-angled triangle divided horizontally into unequal parts with the narrowest segment uppermost. The lower the segment the greater it is in breadth, depth, and area.

“When religion, science and morality are shaken … and when the outer supports threaten to fall, man turns his gaze from externals in on to himself. Literature, music and art are the first and most sensitive spheres in which this spiritual revolution makes itself felt. They reflect the dark picture of the present time and show the importance of what at first was only a little point of light noticed by few and for the great majority non-existent. “

Wassily Kandinsky, ‘Several Circles’ (1926)

“This essential connection between color and form brings us to the question of the influences of form on color. Form alone, even though totally abstract and geometrical, has a power of inner suggestion. A triangle (without the accessory consideration of its being acute — or obtuse — angled or equilateral) has a spiritual value of its own. In connection with other forms, this value may be somewhat modified, but remains in quality the same.

I chose Wassily Kandinsky as a main artist to take inspiration from in my project, especially his theories on spirituality and art, as I think it links to my previous work and is a concept i can build on in my future photo shoots and will develop my work conceptually and contextually. “This essential connection between color and form brings us to the question of the influences of form on color. Form alone, even though totally abstract and geometrical, has a power of inner suggestion.” He states that shapes have spiritual value which is something I want to draw on in my images.

Shape and Colour Theories

Like symphonies, Kandinsky’s great abstract paintings speak directly to our senses and feelings. Their constellations of mysterious marks are like waves of sound that trigger emotions. For him, the world they pointed towards was a spiritual realm, a hidden truth.

‘For Kandinsky, art was a spiritual and emotional experience. He wanted his paintings to transcend recognized forms and express feelings through colors and shapes. Kandinsky argued that artistic experiences were all about feeling, and different colors affected mood. Colour had the ability to put viewers in touch with their spiritual selves. For Kandinsky, yellow could disturb, while blue might make people feel good. Kandinsky’s thoughts on color were similar to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s belief that different colors can convey certain emotions. The warm colors – red, yellow, and orange – are usually considered lively colors that can sometimes be harsh. The cool colors – green, blue, and purple – are considered more peaceful and subdued. Kandinsky was especially fond of blue. He also discussed the neutrals, black, gray, and white. White is silence and quiet, and black is completely devoid of possibility. Gray can go either way.’

He formulates two core sensory distinctions between yellow and blue in terms of movement:

• Yellow moves towards the viewer, outward from the picture plane. Blue recedes, that is, moves away from the viewer.
• Yellow moves out of itself, that is, a yellow colour area seems to expand. The blue moves within itself, concentrically.

Kandinsky links yellow with human energy:

“The first movement of yellow, that of approach to the spectator (which can be increased by an intensification of the yellow), and also the second movement, that of over-spreading the boundaries, have a material parallel in the human energy which assails every obstacle blindly, and bursts forth aimlessly in every direction.”

Yellow is an “earthly colour”, which therefore can never have a profound spiritual meaning. This is the prerogative of blue: “The power of profound meaning is found in blue, and first in its physical movements (1) of retreat from the spectator, (2) of turning in upon its own centre. The inclination of blue to depth is so strong that its inner appeal is stronger when its shade is deeper. Blue is the typical heavenly colour.” In other words, his interpretation of this colour contrast is anchored to familiar fundamental dualities: “matter” against “spirit”, “earth” against “heaven”, “man” against “God”, etcetera (admittedly, he doesn’t actually use the word “God”).

The Color theory was published in 1911 and meant to explain the painter’s palette in two ways: the effect on the eye (person’s physical understanding of the color) and “inner resonance”, phycological effect, when it effects your spiritual experience.
The theory describes not only the colors but the geometrical objects and it’s impression on the viewer:

“According to Kandinsky…, a dull shape like a circle deserves a dull color like blue. A shape with intermediate interest like a squaredeserves an intermediate color like red. A dynamic, interesting shape like a triangle deserves an enegetic, luminous, psychotic color like yellow.