Point and Line to Plane
Punkt und Linie zu Fläche
1926
In this book, published 16 years after Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky delves deeper into the study of interaction of nature, arts, and human, but now from a concrete position. Beginning with the fundamental element - the point - he examines its basic properties and capabilities: at first academically, then in fine art and other media, and finally in natural and practical contexts. A line is born from a moving point. Multiple lines interact on the “basic plane”* to generate a composition: “a composition is nothing other than an exact law-abiding organization of the vital forces which, in the form of tensions, are shut up within the elements.”
Kandinsky develops his theory in a distinctive language, where geometrical, physical, aesthetic, and spiritual concepts coexist naturally. This so-called synesthetic text is not merely academic theorizing, but observations and conclusions supported by experience of an accomplished artist. Kandinsky reflects on creating “the science of art” or “artistic science”. In practical terms, the paintings displayed today in museums are his genuine scientific experiments.
Conceiving art** as an independent world existing alongside nature, Kandinsky expresses his conviction that these two worlds will eventually converge on common rules of the “world composition”, articulating the great world order of the external and the internal.
* The basic plane is "the material plane which concept is called upon to receive the content of the work of art".
** obviously, the artist means abstract art, since, according to him, objective art is “impossible to incorporate completely the inner of one realm into the outer of another”.
READ "Point and Line to Plane"
BUY "Point and Line to Plane"
Kandinsky develops his theory in a distinctive language, where geometrical, physical, aesthetic, and spiritual concepts coexist naturally. This so-called synesthetic text is not merely academic theorizing, but observations and conclusions supported by experience of an accomplished artist. Kandinsky reflects on creating “the science of art” or “artistic science”. In practical terms, the paintings displayed today in museums are his genuine scientific experiments.
Conceiving art** as an independent world existing alongside nature, Kandinsky expresses his conviction that these two worlds will eventually converge on common rules of the “world composition”, articulating the great world order of the external and the internal.
* The basic plane is "the material plane which concept is called upon to receive the content of the work of art".
** obviously, the artist means abstract art, since, according to him, objective art is “impossible to incorporate completely the inner of one realm into the outer of another”.
READ "Point and Line to Plane"
BUY "Point and Line to Plane"
