The avant-garde Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky is renowned as a pioneer of abstract art. His seminal 1910 text “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” lays out his groundbreaking vision for a new form of artistic expression intrinsically linked to the spiritual realm.
In his highly influential treatise, Kandinsky provides penetrating insight into his background in Theosophy and how these mystical ideas shaped his radical conception of artistic creation. He sought to harness color, form and composition to powerfully evoke an inner spiritual resonance within the viewer – creating paintings that pulsated with the mysterious energies of music itself.
Theosophy and the Spiritual Roots of Abstraction
To comprehend the intense spirituality permeating Kandinsky’s art theories and works, one must first understand his immersion in the esoteric ideas of the Theosophical movement in the early 20th century.
Theosophy combines elements of Buddhism, Hinduism, Hermeticism and other mystical traditions into an elaborate set of teachings regarding the hidden spiritual nature of reality and humanity’s potential for inner enlightenment about transcendent aspects of the cosmos.
Two core Theosophical precepts deeply impacted Kandinsky’s artistic outlook:
- The unitary reality of matter and spirit as one interrelated living essence
- Color, number, geometry carry profound spiritual vibrations detectible by an artist
As part of mystic Rudolf Steiner’s Blaue Reiter circle in Munich, Kandinsky further cultivated Theosophical notions about the lofty aims and transcendent inner mandate obligating the modern artist.
Early Works Embed Spiritual Motifs
Even before fully embracing abstraction, spiritual and occult iconography permeated many of Kandinsky early paintings.
“The Resurrection” (1901) incorporated Christian religious imagery while “All Saints Day 1” (1911) integrated halos, angels and arcane Grail symbols. So Kandinsky demonstrated an intense interest in embedding spiritual motifs in his art right from the start of his career.
Core Tenets of Kandinsky’s Art Theories
Published in 1910, Kandinsky’s “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” seminally links visual art to mysticism and the awakening of elevated human consciousness beyond mundane existence. As he writes:
“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.”
Kandinsky passionately felt abstract art could play a pivotal role in this general spiritual reawakening. Several key interrelated ideas constitute the theoretical foundation.
Artist’s “Inner Necessity” and Inspiration
Kandinsky utilized the term “inner necessity” to describe the essential spiritual prompting that must guide an artist’s creative work if it is to penetrate through superficialities. He described it as:
“A desire to apply these elements of art to the divine world that touches the human soul.”
An artist cannot create meaningful, spiritually-attuned art based solely on external factors but must instead delve into their deepest being and give expression to powerful interior promptings – this inner mandate constitutes the wellspring of authentic inspiration.
Color and Form Have Innate Spiritual Attributes
Kandinsky developed an entire schema linking colors, forms, lines and geometric shapes to specific emotions, mystical resonances within the soul and transcendent spiritual states. For example:
- Yellow evokes worldly feelings unable to convey profound significance
- Blue intrinsically carries deeply spiritual vibrations
- The triangle encapsulates ASCENT toward the divine
By rigorously utilizing this vocabulary of visual symbols through his abstract compositions, Kandinsky felt artists could attune viewers to rarified spiritual insights as if translating cosmic truths into the language of sight.
Painting as the “Visual Music” of the Soul
Kandinsky described music itself as the best model for purely abstract art since liberated from depicting objects or nature, musical tones and harmonies impact us spiritually solely through psychic resonance. As he explains:
“Our perishable body may die, but the soul lives on…And is it not possible that our soul may speak with the soul of a man who died centuries ago through the medium of art?”
Thereby Kandinsky elevates painting to music’s level as a medium capable of resonating with and affecting the immortal aspects of human consciousness – provided artists permit this spiritual power to flow through the forms they manifest.
Kandinsky’s Pioneering Abstract Compositions
In his own groundbreaking paintings, Kandinsky systematically applied his radical theories through expressively harnessing color, form and composition to directly evoke primal psychic and mystical sensations freed from material constraints:
Compositions Embody Theoretical Vision
Beginning in 1911, he embarked on a 10-part series of large scale paintings entitled “Compositions” explicitly meant to demonstrate the potent spiritual capabilities of abstraction. These works feature enigmatic biomorphic shapes seemingly writhing in cosmic realms, rendered in brilliant hues and forceful linear elements that shatter conventional notions of pictorial space.
Pulsating with vibrant emotional energy yet detached completely from the recognizable world, Kandinsky felt such visionary compositions could attune receptive minds to exalted inner truths.
Bauhaus Geometric Works
Later while teaching at the Bauhaus art academy in Weimar Germany during the 1920s, Kandinsky incorporated more rigidly geometric vocabulary into his visual lexicon – as evidenced by a work like “Several Circles” (1926) featuring strictly delineated forms arrays in formally elegant patterns.
Yet this constructivist approach harmonized with his mystical beliefs that such abstract arrangements, governed by inner necessity, could unlock spiritual revelations perhaps even more profound given their impersonally universal nature.
As the years passed, Kandinsky’s paintings evolved increasingly into pure painterly ciphers – cosmically suggestive veils and aural chords seemingly congealed directly onto the canvas through some alchemical transmutation of matter.
The material realm dissolves before our eyes as ethereal rhythms and chromatic harmonies of the eternal spheres are crystallized through the artistic will into these visionary works resonating in the soul.
Kandinsky gave this new artistic domain not only philosophical validation but also formed a creative path toward probing metaphysical dimensions scarcely conceived let alone manifested. His pioneering theories and works opened up horizons for art to access higher states of being.
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