Concerning the Spiritual in Art

Take your time reading.If overwhelmed by the information, reread the last paragraph you read then put the book down.Mediate on those last read words. Simply think of that kernel of truth.Go on with your day or continue to read after digesting what you read.Don’t rush. The book has been in print longer than we have drawn breath. Enjoy the ideas, notice them in other media you see. Compare and contrast. Look up the artists he mentions if you aren’t familiar. This is a book to keep and go back to periodically. A treasure.The information, for the most part, has not dated itself out of usefulness. Quite the opposite. But keep in mind when it was written, the earliest part of last century. Abstract art isn’t the same art he witnessed or created. It is far more beautiful now than he probably ever thought it could be.

I’ll have to say I feel like I have only gleaned the surface of Kandinsky’s meaning relative to the spiritual in art. What follows are some key themes that spoke to me:Art offers revolutionary possibility and is the sphere turned to in time of societal stress, breakdown, and chaos. “When religion, science and morality are shaken. . . . 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” (p. 25).Artists and their art connects humans to a deeper or transcendent meaning. “To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the duty of the artist” (citing Schumann, p. 16). “No other power can take the place of art. . . at times when the human soul is gaining greater strength, art will grow in power, the two are inextricably connected” (p. 63).Art communicates – without the use of words. I’m increasingly tired of the primacy of words and speech acts as the preferred communication method – particularly when the rhetoric is 2D, hateful, and divisive. “At different points along the road are the different arts, saying what they are best able to say, and in the language (emphasis mine) which is peculiarly their own” (p. 31).One’s hermeneutic must move beyond impression or observation (what the art is, what it depicts, or its specific configuration or construction) to an allowance for the art to communicate its meaning. “Our materialistic age has produced a type of spectator or ‘connoisseur,’ who is not content to put himself opposite a picture and let it say its own message. Instead of allowing the inner value of the picture to work. . . . his eye does not probe the outer expression to arrive at the inner meaning” (p. 58).Kandinsky's Spiritual Triangle represents a societal and personal progression from solely material to spiritual concerns where the primary movement is influenced by artists and their work. “Painting is an art, and art is not vague production, transitory and isolated, but a power which be directed to the improvement and refinement of the human soul – to, in fact, the raising of the spiritual triangle” (p. 62).My curiosity about this notion of 'spiritual in art' arises from a bias that there's something about aesthetic experience that facilitates a moment where humans transcend individual interest solely captivated by the awe or beauty of the experience of art, music, theater, dance, etc. andinsky's work provides a framework via the triangle to understand art and artist's importance beyond the material toward meaning, purpose and transcendence. I realize in using the word transcendence I'm not defining it - this too is a term I want to learn more about. Reading Kandinsky is but a starting point in this exploration - finally, this work was written early in Kandinsky's career - it would be good to read more of his ideas to further clarify definition and meaning of key constructs: spiritual, sacred, inner meaning, and inner need, for examples.This would be a good read for those interested in art history, spirituality, aesthetics, and experience. I can imagine those interested in place design also benefiting from this book especially Kandinsky's discussion of color.Note: My review is based on 2010 version

Kandinsky started a staid, respectable career in law, working his way up through university appointments. Then, a bit like Gaugin, something happened. Whatever it was, it was wonderful.Much of this book is written in a mystical style, in words about something that can only be known through direct experience. Originally, a Russian wrote it in German, and it was translated into English. Again and again, I felt that something must have been lost, most likely in the transition from the inside of Kandinsky's mind to its outside.I am left with more questions than answers. At points, Kandinsky rails against material vs. pure form - he's speaking of vision, but I am a person of my hands. Pure form would be free of the unique character of metal, stone, or wood, physical character that I connect with very deeply. I am left wondering whether some other sense of the word "material" would have been more informative. He writes at length about the characters of many colors, and develops a color wheel with some significant differences from the one I know. I am sure there is insight there, but it has not opened itself to me. I am curious, however, about some assertions (p.43) about red against blue - I'm sure that parts of his discussion could have been enriched by noting the colors' different indices of refraction at each step in the human eye.He writes about personality, style, and artistry - I just have to listen, I can not claim to have risen to the level he describes. I am especially interested at his predictions about how future man will see and create things, somewhat the way Mondrian made similar predictions. I'm interested because now, most of a century later, I really can't see how people have evolved in the required directions.I respect this writer, and respectfully withold agreement on many matters. That's fine by me. I came to listen, and this speaks in a very clear voice.//wiredweird

I wanted to read this to find out what one of the innovators of abstraction thought about it enough to try to inform the rest of us. Comparing it to music works for me, but now there are Many Types of music when I'm sure he was talking about Classical Music. Some plan everything, but others just "let it fly."Why have rules for structure like some kind of code to decypher when expression doesn't have to mean anything unless the viewer wants it to? At the time he wrote this it all made perfect sense, and there are good pieces of information on color and composition, but if you're on "some brazen frontier light years from home" nothing has as much weight as what happens in that moment. In the infancy of abstraction there was an emphasis on making sense of it. 100 years later, that STILL works, but it's a bigger Universe with many examples he wasn't aware of, where there's Spirituality in just being there with your eyes open and paying attention. This is where you make your own rules.