Kandinsky's Spiritual Quest


Ellen Stuttle

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The first five excerpts below constitute an overview of Kandinsky's artistic thesis and goals.

They're taken from the 1914 English translation by M. T. H. Sadler of Kandinsky's 1911 Über das Geistige in der Kunst: Insbesondere in der Malerei (Concerning the Spiritual in Art: Especially in Painting).

The sixth excerpt comes from an article titled "Pioneer in Non-Objective Painting" which was published about a year and a half after Kandinsky's death.

(Kandinsky was born on December 16, 1866 [O.S. 4 December] and died on December 13, 1944, just short of turning 78.)

The article is by Hilla Rebay, who was then the Director of the Museum of Non-Objective Art in New York City. It was originally published in the May 1946 issue of the "Carnegie Magazine" and was subsequently used as the Preface to the 1947 English translation by Howard Dearstyn and Hilla Rebay of Kandinsky's 1926 Punkt und Linie zu Fläche (Point and Line to Plane).

Ellen

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Kandinsky: "The nightmare of materialism..."

The full text of Concerning the Spiritual in Art can be found on aolib.com and as a pdf on semantikon.com.

Concerning the Spiritual in Art - aolib.com link

pp. 1-2, 1947 Library of Alexandria reprint link

[bold emphasis added]

[....] When there is a similarity of inner tendency in the whole moral and spiritual atmosphere, a similarity of ideals, at first closely pursued but later lost to sight, a similarity in the inner feeling of any one period to that of another, the logical result will be a revival of the external forms which served to express those inner feelings in an earlier age. An example of this today is our sympathy, our spiritual relationship, with the Primitives. Like ourselves, these artists sought to express in their work only internal truths, renouncing in consequence all consideration of external form.

This all-important spark of inner life today is at present only a spark. Our minds, which are even now only just awakening after years of materialism, are infected with the despair of unbelief, of lack of purpose and ideal. The nightmare of materialism, which has turned the life of the universe into an evil, useless game, is not yet past; it holds the awakening soul still in its grip. Only a feeble light glimmers like a tiny star in a vast gulf of darkness. This feeble light is but a presentiment, and the soul, when it sees it, trembles in doubt whether the light is not a dream, and the gulf of darkness reality. This doubt, and the still harsh tyranny of the materialistic philosophy, divide our soul sharply from that of the Primitives. Our soul rings cracked when we seek to play upon it, as does a costly vase, long buried in the earth, which is found to have a flaw when it is dug up once more. For this reason, the Primitive phase, through which we are now passing, with its temporary similarity of form, can only be of short duration.

These two possible resemblances between the art forms of today and those of the past will be at once recognized as diametrically opposed to one another. The first, being purely external, has no future. The second, being internal, contains the seed of the future within itself. After the period of materialist effort, which held the soul in check until it was shaken off as evil, the soul is emerging, purged by trials and sufferings. Shapeless emotions such as fear, joy, grief, etc., which belonged to this time of effort, will no longer greatly attract the artist. He will endeavour to awake subtler emotions, as yet unnamed. Living himself a complicated and comparatively subtle life, his work will give to those observers capable of feeling them lofty emotions beyond the reach of words.

Ellen

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Kandinsky: "spiritual revolution"

The full text of Concerning the Spiritual in Art can be found on aolib.com and as a pdf on semantikon.com.

Concerning the Spiritual in Art - aolib.com link

pp. 13-14, 1977 Dover reprint link

[one paragraph break added]

[bold emphasis added]

[T]he number is increasing of those men who put no trust in the methods of materialistic science when it deals with those questions which have to do with "non-matter," or matter which is not accessible to our minds. Just as art is looking for help from the primitives, so these men are turning to half-forgotten times in order to get help from their half-forgotten methods. [....] Mme. Blavatsky was the first person, after a life of many years in India, to see a connection between these "savages" and our "civilization." From that moment there began a tremendous spiritual movement which today includes a large number of people and has even assumed a material form in the Theosophical Society. This society consists of groups who seek to approach the problem of the spirit by way of the inner knowledge.

The theory of Theosophy which serves as the basis to this movement was set out by Blavatsky in the form of a catechism in which the pupil receives definite answers to his questions from the theosophical point of view. Theosophy, according to Blavatsky, is synonymous with eternal truth. "The new torchbearer of truth will find the minds of men prepared for his message, a language ready for him in which to clothe the new truths he brings, an organization awaiting his arrival, which will remove the merely mechanical, material obstacles and difficulties from his path." And then Blavatsky continues: "The earth will be a heaven in the twenty-first century in comparison with what it is now," and with these words ends her book.

When religion, science and morality are shaken, the two last by the strong hand of Nietzsche, 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. Perhaps they even grow dark in their turn, but on the other hand they turn away from the soulless life of the present towards those substances and ideas which give free scope to the non-material strivings of the soul.

Ellen

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Kandinsky: "a striving towards the abstract, the non-material"

The full text of Concerning the Spiritual in Art can be found on aolib.com and as a pdf on semantikon.com.

Concerning the Spiritual in Art - aolib.com link

pg. 19, 2007 Cosimo, Inc. reprint link

[bold emphasis added]

[T]here has never been a time when the arts approached each other more nearly than they do today, in this later phase of spiritual development.

In each manifestation is the seed of a striving towards the abstract, the non-material. Consciously or unconsciously they are obeying Socrates command - Know thyself. Consciously or unconsciously artists are studying and proving their material, setting in the balance the spiritual value of those elements, with which it is their several privilege to work.

And the natural result of this striving is that the various arts are drawing together. They are finding in Music the best teacher. With few exceptions music has been for some centuries the art which has devoted itself not to the reproduction of natural phenomena, but rather to the expression of the artists soul, in musical sound.

A painter, who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, however artistic, in his longing to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non-material of the arts today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply the methods of music to his own art. And from this results that modern desire for rhythm in painting, for mathematical, abstract construction, for repeated notes of colour, for setting colour in motion.

This borrowing of method by one art from another, can only be truly successful when the application of the borrowed methods is not superficial but fundamental. One art must learn first how another uses its methods, so that the methods may afterwards be applied to the borrower's art from the beginning, and suitably. The artist must not forget that in him lies the power of true application of every method, but that that power must be developed.

[....]

Painting today is almost exclusively concerned with the reproduction of natural forms and phenomena. Her business is now to test her strength and methods, to know herself as music has done for a long time, and then to use her powers to a truly artistic end.

And so the arts are encroaching one upon another, and from a proper use of this encroachment will rise the art that is truly monumental. Every man who steeps himself in the spiritual possibilities of his art is a valuable helper in the building of the spiritual pyramid which will some day reach to heaven.

Ellen

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Kandinsky: "the hour of pure composition"

The full text of Concerning the Spiritual in Art can be found on aolib.com and as a pdf on semantikon.com.

Concerning the Spiritual in Art - aolib.com link

pp. 46-47, 1977 Dover reprint link

[bold emphasis added]

Painting is, however, in a different position [from music]. The revolt from dependence on nature is only just beginning. Any realization of the inner working of colour and form is so far unconscious. The subjection of composition to some geometrical form is no new idea (cf. the art of the Persians). Construction on a purely abstract basis is a slow business, and at first seemingly blind and aimless. The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul, so that he can test colours for themselves and not only by external impressions.

If we begin at once to break the bonds which bind us to nature, and devote ourselves purely to combination of pure colour and abstract form, we shall produce works which are mere decoration, which are suited to neckties or carpets. Beauty of Form and Colour is no sufficient aim by itself, despite the assertions of pure aesthetes or even of naturalists, who are obsessed with the idea of "beauty." It is because of the elementary stage reached by our painting that we are so little able to grasp the inner harmony of true colour and form composition. The nerve vibrations are there, certainly, but they get no further than the nerves, because the corresponding vibrations of the spirit which they call forth are too weak. When we remember, however, that spiritual experience is quickening, that positive science, the firmest basis of human thought, is tottering, that dissolution of matter is imminent, we have reason to hope that the hour of pure composition is not far away.

Ellen

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Kandinsky: "the inner, objective element"

The full text of Concerning the Spiritual in Art can be found on aolib.com and as a pdf on semantikon.com.

Concerning the Spiritual in Art - aolib.com link (continued on next page)

pp. 33-34, 1977 Dover reprint - link (pg. 33 doesn't show)

[bold emphasis added]

The inner need is built up of three mystical elements: (1) Every artist, as a creator, has something in him which calls for expression (this is the element of personality). (2) Every artist, as child of his age, is impelled to express the spirit of his age (this is the element of style) - dictated by the period anparticular country to which the artist belongs (it is doubtful how long the latter distinction will continue to exist). (3) Every artist, as a servant of art, has to help the cause of art (this is the element of pure artistry, which is constant in all ages and among all nationalities).

A full understanding of the first two elements is necessary for a realization of the third. But he who has this realization will recognize that a rudely carved Indian column is an expression of the same spirit as actuates any real work of art of today.

In the past and even today much talk is heard of “personality” in art. Talk of the coming “style” becomes more frequent daily. But for all their importance today, these questions will have disappeared after a few hundred or thousand years.

Only the third element - that of pure artistry - will remain for ever. [....]

[M]any centuries have to pass away before the third element can be received with understanding. But the artist in whose work this third element predominates is the really great artist.

Because the elements of style and personality make up what is called the periodic characteristics of any work of art, the "development" of artistic forms must depend on their separation from the element of pure artistry, which knows neither period nor nationality. But as style and personality create in every epoch certain definite forms, which, for all their superficial differences, are really closely related, these forms can be spoken of as one side of art - the subjective. Every artist chooses, from the forms which reflect his own time, those which are sympathetic to him, and expresses himself through them. So the subjective element is the definite and external expression of the inner, objective element.

The inevitable desire for outward expression of the objective element is the impulse here defined as the “inner need.”. The forms it borrows change from day to day, and, as it continually advances, what is today a phrase of inner harmony becomes tomorrow one of outer harmony. It is clear, therefore, that the inner spirit of art only uses the outer form of any particular period as a stepping-stone to further expression.

In short, the working of the inner need and the development of art is an ever-advancing expression of the eternal and objective in the terms of the periodic and subjective.

Ellen

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Hilla Rebay's Preface to Point and Line to Plane

The Preface was originally published as "Pioneer in Non-Objective Painting" in the May 1946 issue of the "Carnegie Magazine."

See post #1 for further publishing history.

The full text of Point and Line to Plane can be found on archive.org, but without the drawings.

The complete Preface by Hilla Rebay, in the 1979 Dover reprint, can be read via Google books - link.

Neither source is copyable.

[several paragraph breaks added]

][bold emphasis added]

[in 1922, following his relocating in Berlin after some years in Moscow,] Kandinsky exhibited his first open-space canvasses, in which one sees his turning from lyrical organizations of effervescent colour expressions to a more dramatic clarification of definite form and space precision. With infinite care he studied the dimension of open-space in contrast to colour value and form extension, as well as line direction and the intensity of the point. [....]

[...] Kandinsky increasingly refined the precision of balance in the given space of the painting, as the innermost powerful essence of its rhythmic tension. Like every creative painter of our day, he ceased to be satisfied with representation, however artistic, but felt more and more the desire to express his inner life in a cosmic organization. He was, however, the first to proclaim this principle: and when he realized that the musician's incorporeal freedom from earthly inspiration for his art was also the privilege of the painter, he became one of the most violently attacked pioneers. He courageously maintained this conviction, in spite of the all-powerful objective tradition and mass belief.

With his God-given freedom in the artistic, esthetic creation of rhythm, he invented the first painting for painting's sake, and not for the sake of informative make-believe, as had been the ideal of the past.

He found that a non-objective painting's rhythmic life, expressing creative invention, can be profound if done by a visionary master. It can also have a strong ordering influence on the observer. This, he found, was denied to representative painting, through its imitative, lifeless limitation. Yet this is equally denied to those schematic, mediocre, condensed patterns by most so-called abstract painters, whose decorations are as far removed from being art as the organ-grinder is from musicianship, or as the scale is from the sonata.

The rhythmic law of constructive counterpoint, contained in a creative masterpiece, sets into motion life itself, through a rhythm displayed between harmonies and the contrasts of colour and form, with which the given space is beautified. [....]

Because the non-objective painter reacts intuitively to a superior influence and realization of the universal law, thus enabling him to give his message, this sensitive and prophetic artist of our day has refined his senses to receivership of those invisible, spiritual forces which he intuitively expresses. He then derives with subtle sensibility his visionary inspiration from the spiritual domain which is indestructible and his very own, in the same degree in which he has developed his faculty to receive. Thereafter, his creations develop with a wealth of variation those visions of beauty, which, controlled by laws of counterpoint, make his artistic message as endlessly alive and original as nature itself.

The artistic expression of our day no longer responds to materialistic objectives; it has advanced to become spiritually creative. [....] [The painter] is now free to follow a higher evolution beyond the pretense of make-believe.

Unknown to some painters who miss their epoch and are still shackled by the caveman's outdated urge for reproduction, the freedom of art has become infinite, through the painter's vision of new possibilities and esthetic expressions which are spiritually conceived and of superior value.

The eyes of the painter have been liberated to vision, freed from the bonds of imitation and the pretense of a perspective make-believe, of a faked third dimension, to a visionary reality. [....]

The prophetic, immaterialistic ideal of the modern painter proclaims the coming era of spirituality. His reaching into the absolute emphasized the subconscious desire of all men to such advance. [....]

Non-objective painting helps to free the human soul from materialistic contemplation and brings joy through the perfection of esthetic enlightenment. Therefore, Kandinsky was not only a painter and a scientist, but also a prophet of almost religious significance. The ideal of his art was conceived even before the utter illusion of the density of matter had been proved by science, and before the reality of frequencies and invisible forces had opened the imagination of man to unlimited expectations. The profound truth of Kandinsky's theories at once impressed those who were equally capable of feeling esthetic enjoyment through his paintings and of realizing the importance of Kandinsky's mission at its advent.

[....]

Ellen

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I think I get it, Ellen. Kind of like a villain, tain't he? I hope he wasn't a relative or something.

In The Fountainhead, Ellsworth Toohey, describes the socialist ideal this way:

"A world where no man will hold a desire for himself, but will direct all his efforts to satisfy the desires of his neighbor who will have no desires except to satisfy the desires of the next neighbor who will have no desires--around the globe, Peter. Since all must serve all . . . . "Let all live for all. Let all sacrifice and none profit. Let all suffer and none enjoy."

Why he was talking to me, I dunno.

Peter

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That was Rand being logical. The socialists weren't so stupid to believe their own bs. The practical effect was a communist totalitarian state with everyone being selfish in the worst ways possible for there were no other ways to be. Totalitarianism has come and gone. The Nazis were smashed. Even the Nazis weren't as bad as the Soviets under Stalin or Red China under Mao, unless you were a Jew. Stalin was going to do the Jews too, but he died. The last remaining purely totalitarian state is North Korea. The maintenance of a totalitarian state requires too much effort over time, especially for the huge countries of Russia and China. Germany was another case. The Nazis had to go to war. They had this Triumph of the Will mentality momentum and no where else to go with it. They couldn't do giant rally upon even bigger giant rally on the principle of diminishing returns. Stalin wasn't so dumb as to rule a state in a state of fulmination and settled for the big parades through Red Square each May. Nor were the Soviets so stupid--Hitler could be very stupid--as to ever declare war on the United States. (After Pearl Harbor and Midway Japan should have immediately surrendered, but the Imperial Japanese were stuck in their own special martial stupidity.)

--Brant

ISIS has effectively declared war on the world and everybody not ISIS in it--see how long that lasts

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I think I get it, Ellen. Kind of like a villain, tain't he? I hope he wasn't a relative or something.

A villain? Not in my opinion. A dedicated and brilliant visionary, very eloquent and meticulous in his efforts to lay the basis for "pure composition" in painting. And I love his painting.

However, what he hoped for didn't come to pass.

--

Stephen, I thought you'd be interested. :smile:

Ellen

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The article is by Hilla Rebay, who was then the Director of the Museum of Non-Objective Art in New York City.

Speaking of the Guggenheim, y'all should read what Wright had to say about the capability of form and color to have deep, meaningful impact on people. Just like Kandinsky, he could be very clear, rational and objective when limited to analyzing the effects and technical causes of our responses to abstract compositional elements, but could also be a bit nutty when unfortunately trying to tie those rational explanations into his magical beliefs (which differed from Kandinsky's magical beliefs).

Magical beliefs have been very common throughout history, including in the arts. I think that almost all artists have had magical beliefs, and that they've tainted their aesthetic theories with them. Artistic creators have thought that art affected us via nonsensical things like holy resonances, celestial vibrations, sacred chord structures, etc. When people don't know the answers to the questions of why certain things affect us, they tend to resort to their own personal magical beliefs to try to explain them, rather than just saying, "I don't know yet."

Rand was one of them. She was the opposite side of the same counterfeit coin as Kandinsky (to borrow a Randian phrase). Where he wanted to cleanse art of the objective and material, Rand wanted to cleanse it of the subjective. Both were mistaken goals based on their magical beliefs (Rand's magical belief was her need to believe that she was purely objective, and that no thought or emotion or response of hers was subjective). But their errors don't invalidate the art forms that they were trying to explain. Rand's silly goal of hoping to force music to become objective, and her need to believe that someone would one day discover its alleged "objective vocabulary," doesn't erase from reality the fact that people can have deep, meaningful experiences through music, though not "objective" ones. The same is true of architecture. Although Rand didn't dare to go anywhere near to trying to explain how the non-representational, non-objective, abstract compositions of forms and colors of architecture deeply affect people, including herself, her failure to explain it doesn't invalidate the real effects it has on people as an art form. Kandinsky did address the effects of abstract forms and colors, and, in certain limited respects, he was much more rational and objective than Rand was in regard to any of the abstract art forms (music, architecture, dance, abstract painting and sculpture), but he also threw in a lot of his magical beliefs. His doing so doesn't invalidate the art form.

J

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Ellen,
In recent discussions, you've mentioned a few times that music is based in the mathematical relationships of the proportions of the harmonic overtone series, but that the effects of color are not based on such a proportional system. And, technically, you're kind of right, but also kind of not.

Light, being different from sound, is more complex in its constituent elements, and in their interaction with each other, which makes color significantly more difficult of an issue. Instead of a mere series of harmony, you have three layers of interactive serieses of harmony, but they are mathematically proportional (any one hue desaturating/neutralizing its opposite is the simplest proof of that), and technical advances in computing and graphics allow those relationships to be more easily seen and understood.

Here's a good, basic, elementary example: https://color.adobe.com/

Click on the "Color Rule" menu, and then choose, explore, and compare Triad, Complementary, Compound, and the various other "chord" schemes. Push, pull and rotate each and all of the handles and observe the results of the proportional relationships.

J

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However, what he hoped for didn't come to pass.

It didn't? None of it? On what grounds do you make such a statement? By what means would you measure what he hoped for and whether or not it came to pass?

Personally, I don't think that he succeeded on every point, but he was much more convincing, influential and successful at making the artworld more spiritual and appreciative of the subjective nature of art than Rand was at trying to convince the artworld of the falsehood that there was no room anywhere, including in art, for even the smallest little bit of subjectivity.

So, again, by what criteria do you base your conclusion that he didn't succeed?

J

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Kandinsky: "this modern sense of insecurity"

One of the many features of Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art which interest me is the direct contemporaneous window Kandinsky provides onto the agitated thought and spiritual consternation of the time in which he was writing.

The "modern sense of insecurity" Kandinsky describes is the title-conferring theme of Unamuno's The Tragic Sense of Life - the work which I believe catalyzed Rand's theory of benevolent-versus-malevolent-universe premises and her technical notion of "sense of life."

Kandinsky summarizes his assessment of the intellectual/cultural scene in the first four and a half pages of Chapter III, "Spiritual Revolution."

A prefatory explanation of the "spiritual triangle" image is needed to follow what he says. He introduced the "spiritual triangle" image in Chapter II, "The Movement of the Triangle":

Concerning the Spiritual in Art - aolib.com link

From Chapter II

pg. 6, 1977 Dover reprint

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.

The whole triangle is moving slowly, almost invisibly forwards and upwards. Where the apex was today the second segment is tomorrow; what today can be understood only by the apex and to the rest of the triangle is an incomprehensible gibberish, forms tomorrow the true thought and feeling of the second segment.

Concerning the Spiritual in Art - aolib.com link (continues onnext page)

From Chapter III

pp. 10-13, 1977 Dover reprint

[one paragraph break added]

[bold emphasis added]

The spiritual triangle moves slowly onwards and upwards. Today one of the largest of the lower segments has reached the point of using the first battle cry of the materialist creed. The dwellers in this segment group themselves round various banners in religion. They call themselves Jews, Catholics, Protestants, etc. But they are really atheists, and this a few either of the boldest or the narrowest openly avow. Heaven is empty, God is dead. [....]

[....]

The men of the segment next below are dragged slowly higher, blindly, by those just described. But they cling to their old position, full of dread of the unknown and of betrayal.

The higher segments are not only blind atheists but can justify their godlessness with strange words; for example, those of Virchow - so unworthy of a learned man - "I have dissected many corpses, but never yet discovered a soul in any of them."

[....]

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. And the higher the segment in the triangle, the better defined is this fear, this modern sense of insecurity. Here and there are people with eyes which can see, minds which can correlate. They say to themselves: "If the science of the day before yesterday is rejected by the people of yesterday, and that of yesterday by us of today, is it not possible that what we call science now will be rejected by the men of tomorrow?" And the bravest of them answer, "It is possible."

Then people appear who can distinguish those problems that the science of today has not yet explained. And they ask themselves: "Will science, if it continues on the road it has followed for so long, ever attain to the solution of these problems? And if it does so attain, will men be able to rely on its solution?" [....]

And as we rise higher in the triangle we find that the uneasiness increases, as a city built on the most correct architectural plan may be shaken suddenly by the uncontrollable force of nature. Humanity is living in such a spiritual city, subject to these sudden disturbances for which neither architects nor mathematicians have made allowance. In one place lies a great wall crumbled to pieces like a card house, in another are the ruins of a huge tower which once stretched to heaven, built on many presumably immortal spiritual pillars. The abandoned churchyard quakes and forgotten graves open and from them rise forgotten ghosts. Spots appear on the sun and the sun grows dark, and what theory can fight with darkness? And in this city live also men deafened by false wisdom who hear no crash, and blinded by false wisdom, so that they say "our sun will shine more brightly than ever and soon the last spots will disappear." But sometime even these men will hear and see.

But when we get still higher there is no longer this bewilderment. There work is going on which boldly attacks those pillars which men have set up. There we find other professional men of learning who test matter again and again, who tremble before no problem, and who finally cast doubt on that very matter which was yesterday the foundation of everything, so that the whole universe is shaken. [....]

[The contrasting section which I quoted in post #3 follows.]

Ellen

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Personally, I don't think that [Kandinsky] succeeded on every point, but he was much more convincing, influential and successful at making the artworld more spiritual and appreciative of the subjective nature of art than Rand was at trying to convince the artworld of the falsehood that there was no room anywhere, including in art, for even the smallest little bit of subjectivity.

Where do you get that Kandinsky was trying to make anyone "appreciative of the subjective nature of art"? He wasn't keen on the "elements" (personality and style) he called "subjective" but instead on what he called the "inner, objective element." See post #6.

He was hoping for an art of "pure composition" directly expressing that element. Do you think that any such art has arrived?

Ellen

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Personally, I don't think that [Kandinsky] succeeded on every point, but he was much more convincing, influential and successful at making the artworld more spiritual and appreciative of the subjective nature of art than Rand was at trying to convince the artworld of the falsehood that there was no room anywhere, including in art, for even the smallest little bit of subjectivity.

Where do you get that Kandinsky was trying to make anyone "appreciative of the subjective nature of art"? He wasn't keen on the "elements" (personality and style) he called "subjective" but instead on what he called the "inner, objective element." See post #6.

He was hoping for an art of "pure composition" directly expressing that element. Do you think that any such art has arrived?

Ellen

Go back and read your post #6 and pay attention to all of the words, not just the word "objective," and see it you can pick up on a larger "big picture" context. And then return and compare that big picture context to my statement above.

J

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Jonathan,

The "big picture" I see is that Kandinsky's hoped for art of "pure composition" hasn't arrived, that instead developments occurred which I think he would have considered "poisoned food" spreading in the spiritual triangle and not what he meant at all.

---

Re your post #13, which you conclude by saying that Kandinsky's "[throwing] in a lot of his magical beliefs [...] doesn't invalidate the art form":

If that was addressed to an argument you assumed I was making, I wasn't. (And I wouldn't call any of Kandinsky's beliefs which I've read so far "magical." "Mystical" - a belief in an underlying spiritual reality - but not "magical.")

---

Ellen,

In recent discussions, you've mentioned a few times that music is based in the mathematical relationships of the proportions of the harmonic overtone series, but that the effects of color are not based on such a proportional system. And, technically, you're kind of right, but also kind of not.

Light, being different from sound, is more complex in its constituent elements, and in their interaction with each other, which makes color significantly more difficult of an issue. Instead of a mere series of harmony, you have three layers of interactive serieses of harmony, but they are mathematically proportional (any one hue desaturating/neutralizing its opposite is the simplest proof of that), and technical advances in computing and graphics allow those relationships to be more easily seen and understood.

Here's a good, basic, elementary example: https://color.adobe.com/

Click on the "Color Rule" menu, and then choose, explore, and compare Triad, Complementary, Compound, and the various other "chord" schemes. Push, pull and rotate each and all of the handles and observe the results of the proportional relationships.

J

I'm aware of the relationships of colors, but I wasn't talking about "effects of color" but of principles of form. What do the relationships of color give you in principles of compositional form? For instance, what series, arranged how, defines a landscape? a portrait? a still life? Etc.?

With music, one can state the formal characteristics, based on the mathematical proportions of musical tones, which define a sonata form movement, a minuet, a rondo, a theme and variations, etc.

Ellen

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Jonathan,

The "big picture" I see is that Kandinsky's hoped for art of "pure composition" hasn't arrived, that instead developments occurred which I think he would have considered "poisoned food" spreading in the spiritual triangle and not what he meant at all.

But how would you measure and know any of the above? You're just reading some of Kandinsky for the first time now, and you really don't know much of anything about those who followed him and practiced abstract composition. So, what do you think you're basing your opinion on? Identify which conditions would have to be met so that art of "pure composition" could be judged to have "arrived." Then demonstrate that those conditions have not been met.

Re your post #13, which you conclude by saying that Kandinsky's "[throwing] in a lot of his magical beliefs [...] doesn't invalidate the art form":

If that was addressed to an argument you assumed I was making, I wasn't.

I don't think that you were making an actual argument so much as sending up trial balloons to see if any would not be immediately shot down and therefore might be worth eventually pursuing as an argument.

(And I wouldn't call any of Kandinsky's beliefs which I've read so far "magical." "Mystical" - a belief in an underlying spiritual reality - but not "magical.")

The idea in my bringing up "magical beliefs" was to identify Kandinsky as sharing a mindset that is common among other people, including those who aren't "mystical." There are many types of "magical" beliefs, "mysticism" being just one of them. See? "Mystical" would fall into the larger category of "magical." As has been usual lately, you're missing the bigger picture due to electron-chasing/nitpicking.

Ellen,

In recent discussions, you've mentioned a few times that music is based in the mathematical relationships of the proportions of the harmonic overtone series, but that the effects of color are not based on such a proportional system. And, technically, you're kind of right, but also kind of not.

Light, being different from sound, is more complex in its constituent elements, and in their interaction with each other, which makes color significantly more difficult of an issue. Instead of a mere series of harmony, you have three layers of interactive serieses of harmony, but they are mathematically proportional (any one hue desaturating/neutralizing its opposite is the simplest proof of that), and technical advances in computing and graphics allow those relationships to be more easily seen and understood.

Here's a good, basic, elementary example: https://color.adobe.com/

Click on the "Color Rule" menu, and then choose, explore, and compare Triad, Complementary, Compound, and the various other "chord" schemes. Push, pull and rotate each and all of the handles and observe the results of the proportional relationships.

J

I'm aware of the relationships of colors, but I wasn't talking about "effects of color" but of principles of form.

No, you've forgotten what you were talking about, even though I reminded you in the comment of mine which you just quoted above. The specific mathematically proportional relationships that you were talking about were those of the harmonic overtone series.

What do the relationships of color give you in principles of compositional form?

The same sort of relationships as those of the harmonic overtone series.

Musical notes go well together, or clash, etc., due to their mathematical relationships. As do colors.

For instance, what series, arranged how, defines a landscape? a portrait? a still life? Etc.?

With music, one can state the formal characteristics, based on the mathematical proportions of musical tones, which define a sonata form movement, a minuet, a rondo, a theme and variations, etc.

Heh. Let's apply the same silly, incommensurate objection to music: What do the relationships of timbre give you in principles of compositional form? For instance, what series of timbres, arranged how, defines a sonata, a minuet, a rondo, a theme and variations, etc.?

Answer: Timbre isn't the characteristic of music which defines such things, just as color is not the characteristic of visual art which defines whether something takes the format of landscape or portrait.

J

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Ellen,

In recent discussions, you've mentioned a few times that music is based in the mathematical relationships of the proportions of the harmonic overtone series, but that the effects of color are not based on such a proportional system. And, technically, you're kind of right, but also kind of not.

[....]

I'm aware of the relationships of colors, but I wasn't talking about "effects of color" but of principles of form.

No, you've forgotten what you were talking about, even though I reminded you in the comment of mine which you just quoted above. The specific mathematically proportional relationships that you were talking about were those of the harmonic overtone series.

The "specific mathematically proportional relationships" I was talking about indeed were "those of the harmonic overtone series," and you're correct in describing me as saying "that music is based in the mathematical relationships of the proportions of the harmonic overtone series." Musical structure, musical forms are based in those relationships.

Apparently, from your next comment, you're merely thinking in terms of tone harmony or disharmony in the case of music and color harmony or clash in the case of colors. This is not what I mean. In both cases harmony or disharmony can be context-dependent, what "sounds good" or "looks good" together might be different in one context from in another - and might differ to different listeners or viewers. But with music, you have a particular note, and sets of notes in particular relationships to that note, in relationship to which compositional forms are defined. By contrast, with a landscape, for instance, you could change all the colors and their relationships, you could even have it in black and white, and it would still be a landscape. What makes it a landscape isn't the color relationships but the nature of what's depicted.

What do the relationships of color give you in principles of compositional form?

The same sort of relationships as those of the harmonic overtone series.

Musical notes go well together, or clash, etc., due to their mathematical relationships. As do colors.

See above.

For instance, what series, arranged how, defines a landscape? a portrait? a still life? Etc.?

With music, one can state the formal characteristics, based on the mathematical proportions of musical tones, which define a sonata form movement, a minuet, a rondo, a theme and variations, etc.

Heh. Let's apply the same silly, incommensurate objection to music: What do the relationships of timbre give you in principles of compositional form? For instance, what series of timbres, arranged how, defines a sonata, a minuet, a rondo, a theme and variations, etc.?

Answer: Timbre isn't the characteristic of music which defines such things, just as color is not the characteristic of visual art which defines whether something takes the format of landscape or portrait.

The relationships of timbre don't give you anything in principles of musical compositional form, just as the relationships of color don't define visual compositional form. Agreed. You make my point.

Ellen

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Re your post #13, which you conclude by saying that Kandinsky's "[throwing] in a lot of his magical beliefs [...] doesn't invalidate the art form": If that was addressed to an argument you assumed I was making, I wasn't.

I don't think that you were making an actual argument so much as sending up trial balloons to see if any would not be immediately shot down and therefore might be worth eventually pursuing as an argument

Guess again.

(And I wouldn't call any of Kandinsky's beliefs which I've read so far "magical." "Mystical" - a belief in an underlying spiritual reality - but not "magical.")

The idea in my bringing up "magical beliefs" was to identify Kandinsky as sharing a mindset that is common among other people, including those who aren't "mystical." There are many types of "magical" beliefs, "mysticism" being just one of them. See? "Mystical" would fall into the larger category of "magical." As has been usual lately, you're missing the bigger picture due to electron-chasing/nitpicking.

The position of an electron makes a huge difference to possible chemical reactions.

I thought that your idea in bringing up "magical beliefs" was what you describe. I don't agree with the premise and classification. Possibly you classify "mystical" as a subcategory of "magical" because you don't believe that there is an underlying spiritual reality. Thus, in thinking that a mystical worldview is factually wrong, you think that it necessarily involves belief in magic. But that's importing your ideas of the nature of causality into the framework of someone who doesn't share your views and who doesn't necessarily think that there's anything "magical" about the operations of the spiritual reality in which the person believes.

Ellen

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Personally, I don't think that [Kandinsky] succeeded on every point, but he was much more convincing, influential and successful at making the artworld more spiritual and appreciative of the subjective nature of art than Rand was at trying to convince the artworld of the falsehood that there was no room anywhere, including in art, for even the smallest little bit of subjectivity.

Where do you get that Kandinsky was trying to make anyone "appreciative of the subjective nature of art"? He wasn't keen on the "elements" (personality and style) he called "subjective" but instead on what he called the "inner, objective element." See post #6.

He was hoping for an art of "pure composition" directly expressing that element. Do you think that any such art has arrived?

Ellen

Go back and read your post #6 and pay attention to all of the words, not just the word "objective," and see it you can pick up on a larger "big picture" context. And then return and compare that big picture context to my statement above.

J

I'd like to go back to the question, "Where do you get that Kandinsky was trying to make anyone 'appreciative of the subjective nature of art'?, and to your description of Rand as ruling out subjectivity.

You sound to me as if you think that Kandinsky was pro- a "subjective" factor which Rand was against, as if you think that the respective thinkers meant the same thing by "subjective." But they didn't. Nor by "objective."

What Kandinsky called the "subjective" elements were "personality," by which he meant the individualizing characteristics of a particular artist's work, and "style," by which he meant general type characteristics of the art of particular time frames.

He says in the passage from which I quoted in post #6:

In the past and even today much talk is heard of personality in art. Talk of the coming style becomes more frequent daily. But for all their importance today, these questions will have disappeared after a few hundred or thousand years.

So why would you think he was trying to make people more aware of factors which he said were talked about a lot and questions pertaining to which would disappear over the long run?

On the other hand, Rand's objection to the "subjective" in art wasn't any objection to the two factors Kandinsky classified as "subjective." Instead, those are factors she called "personal" in the one case and "cultural" in the other - and they're the factors she was attempting to explain in a series of essays about art.

What Kandinsky called "objective," by contrast, was a supposed "eternal" "inner spirit of art" which "only uses the outer form of any particular period as a stepping-stone to further expression" and to which the individual artist has a "duty."

This is not at all Rand's idea of "objective," but instead something of the type she classified as intrinsicist mystical reification of a force which humans are supposed to serve. She was opposed to such ideas, in general and in regard to art.

So I think you're drawing a contrast between the two thinkers which mispresents what each of them respectively was talking about.

Ellen

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Jonathan,

The "big picture" I see is that Kandinsky's hoped for art of "pure composition" hasn't arrived, that instead developments occurred which I think he would have considered "poisoned food" spreading in the spiritual triangle and not what he meant at all.

But how would you measure and know any of the above? You're just reading some of Kandinsky for the first time now, and you really don't know much of anything about those who followed him and practiced abstract composition. So, what do you think you're basing your opinion on? Identify which conditions would have to be met so that art of "pure composition" could be judged to have "arrived." Then demonstrate that those conditions have not been met.

At this point I've read a high percentage of Kandinsky's complete writings on art, some of it multiple times, plus a lot about Kandinsky.

I don't know much about immediate successors, but I am aware of the development called "abstract expressionism," which I think isn't what Kandinsky had in mind but instead a wallowing in emotionalism - Kandinsky's "inner need" misinterpreted and turned into a subjectivist paradise. And then there was the backlash with Andy Warhol and subsequent.

As to Kandinsky's desired art of "pure composition" arriving, actually I don't think it could, I think that he was hoping for something impossible, but I love the work that he produced himself in his quest, and I much admire his intellect and enjoy reading his writing.

Ellen

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The "specific mathematically proportional relationships" I was talking about indeed were "those of the harmonic overtone series," and you're correct in describing me as saying "that music is based in the mathematical relationships of the proportions of the harmonic overtone series." Musical structure, musical forms are based in those relationships.

Apparently, from your next comment, you're merely thinking in terms of tone harmony or disharmony in the case of music and color harmony or clash in the case of colors. This is not what I mean. In both cases harmony or disharmony can be context-dependent, what "sounds good" or "looks good" together might be different in one context from in another - and might differ to different listeners or viewers. But with music, you have a particular note, and sets of notes in particular relationships to that note, in relationship to which compositional forms are defined.

That's false. The compositional forms that you listed are not determined by the harmonic overtone series. The are the result of subjective preferences for musical forms and structures. There is nothing about the nature of the overtone series which demands that a work of music must have a certain time signature, or be constructed of a specific number of notes, or divided into a specific number or sequence of sections or movements, etc.

Like anything, music must take some form, but the overtone series does not determine which of many, many forms it may take. Likewise, every line, curve or other mark on a canvas, by definition, must also take some form, but the nature of geometric relationships and proportions doesn't require which it must take.

By contrast, with a landscape, for instance, you could change all the colors and their relationships, you could even have it in black and white, and it would still be a landscape. What makes it a landscape isn't the color relationships but the nature of what's depicted.

Duh!

This is kindergarten-level stuff. The canvas/screen/page orientation formats of "landscape" and "portrait" (as well as "square") refer to shape/form, and not to color. And yet for some reason you're acting as if you don't understand that, or are just now learning it, or that you believe that someone else (Kandinsky?) didn't understand it. What or whom do you imagine that you're arguing against? Where have you gotten the idea that anyone, ever, has claimed that color relationships determine/necessitate canvas orientation?

For instance, what series, arranged how, defines a landscape? a portrait? a still life? Etc.?

With music, one can state the formal characteristics, based on the mathematical proportions of musical tones, which define a sonata form movement, a minuet, a rondo, a theme and variations, etc.

Those specific forms/structures are not "based on the mathematical proportions of musical tones." Rather, they are subjective preferences for proportions.

One could also similarly give names to subjectively chosen structure preferences in the visual arts. I like paintings, be they abstract or representational, which have three primary forms shown. So let's call that a "Trippi," and then let's establish the Trippi as a tradition by having artists compose their canvases in that format and refer to it as such. I also like images which make use of three-point perspective in which none of the lines are parallel to the canvas edges. Let's call that structure "Circrotto," and, again, let's get everyone to refer to it as such.

There, now we have visual arts forms which are just as "based on the mathematical proportions" of geometry as you claim that specific musical structures are "based on the mathematical proportions of musical tones." In other words, not. Neither is based on or determined by the nature of the medium. Rather, they are subjective preferences for structures which have been imposed on the medium.

Heh. Let's apply the same silly, incommensurate objection to music: What do the relationships of timbre give you in principles of compositional form? For instance, what series of timbres, arranged how, defines a sonata, a minuet, a rondo, a theme and variations, etc.?

Answer: Timbre isn't the characteristic of music which defines such things, just as color is not the characteristic of visual art which defines whether something takes the format of landscape or portrait.

The relationships of timbre don't give you anything in principles of musical compositional form, just as the relationships of color don't define visual compositional form. Agreed. You make my point.

Who do you imagine has been opposing your "point"?!!! Have you been under the impression that Kandinsky was concerned only with color, and not with shape/form?

You sometimes have a lot of difficulty with metaphors, similes, analogies, comparisons, etc. That seems to be the case here. Kandinsky believed that visual composition had similarities to music. Um, Ellen, do you not understand that it doesn't therefore follow that visual composition must be like music in every way? Or that any element of visual art which you arbitrarily choose to focus on -- say, color -- must be the parallel to any musical element that you arbitrarily choose to focus on -- say, structure/form?

See, if Kandinsky were to have said that he thought that ants were like people in that they live in communities and work together to mutual benefit, it would be really weird if you were to argue that people don't have compound eyes or produce larvae and therefore Kandinsky was wrong.

Which of Kandinsky's statements has led you to the view that he held that the relationships of color must define form?

J

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