Concerning the Spiritual in Art (http://www.schoenberg.at/4_exhibits/asc/Kandinsky/Geistige_e.htm)

The work Concerning the Spiritual in Art, completed in 1910, is Kandinsky’s most important theoretical writing. He had made notes for it already ten years before, it was published at the end of 1911, so it was ready for the opening of the exhibition of the editors of the “Blauer Reiter”. Up until 1912, three reprints were necessary. In the Introduction, “inner necessity,” the expression which was important to Kandinsky was introduced. In the first chapter, Bewegung (Movement), Kandinsky draws a triangular picture of spiritual life: a triangle with a single figure standing at its point moves ever forwards. In the following chapter, Geistige Wendung (Spiritual change) Kandinsky specifies this idea and attempts to give it historical proof. Before he actually comes to speak of art itself, he mentions the Theosophical Society as a great spiritual movement. His appeal to literature leads him to Maurice Maeterlinck and Kubin as soothsayers of the decline; as far as music is concerned, he sees principally Claude Debussy and Arnold Schönberg, who renunciates the beautiful and leads into a new kingdom of spiritual experiences in music, as carrying the hopes of the “spiritual change.” In painting he specially emphasizes Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse as pathfinders. The chapter Pyramide (Pyramid) shows the relationship and the differences between the arts. Kandinsky strives towards a joining of the arts to form a “monumental art”. The main part, the chapter Malerei (Painting) is, in contrast to the preceding chapters, reserved for systematic argument. Kandinsky investigates the effect of colors (as “vibrations of the soul”) and develops a system for connecting form and color. In this, he places abstract elements in the foreground. According to Kandinsky colors are basically arranged warm-cold / light-dark. Each color is assigned a spiritual expressive quality, which he illustrates with musical examples. From the preceding chapter he takes the idea of “monumental art” and designs a new form, the “stage composition,” whereby dance joins color and music as a third element. The closing words concern reproductions of Kandinsky’s own works, here he makes sub-divisions into “Impression”, “Improvisation” and “Composition” and refers to motives and aims of his own works.Kandinsky: Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) with dedication to Arnold Schönberg [Title – Dedication]