Books
Concerning the Spiritual in Art
1910
In this remarkable book, anticipating “the spiritual turning point” Kandinsky reflects on his understanding of progress in this direction. This is not a process that happens automatically. It requires a great deal of work and implies a great responsibility of both artist and viewer. The task of the artist is to find “the principle of the innermost necessity” that he or she can employ through expressive means to achieve the goal: “vibration of the human soul.”
Using vivid analogies, Kandinsky discusses at length on the artistic means: the psychology of color, the compositional interrelation of forms, and other formal concerns. However, the main goal of an artist still remains to find that very innermost necessity”, that...
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Retrospect
1913
Kandinsky is remarkably frank in this autobiographical text as he weaves together memories of his childhood, his Munich impressions and thoughtful reflections on art. Whether it is a story of his favorite childhood toy, his first impressions of the impressionists’ canvases on exhibitions in Moscow, or a passage on his favorite topic - the objective and the abstract in art. The result is not merely a book, but a heart-to-heart conversation. Reading Retrospect, one seems to comprehend vividly the luminous facets of the artist's soul.
The narrative is non-linear; it unfolds like a stream: reminiscences of the expedition to the Vologda Governorate, where the young artist perceives the colorful everyday life of the Zyryans as a literal...
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Point and Line to Plane
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 arts, 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,...
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