The Russian-born Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky came late to art. In 1896, at age 30, he gave up a legal career to take up painting inspired by Monet’s Haystacks. His first works such as Der Blaue Reiter shows Monet's influence on Kandinsky. Similar to the artists we considered earlier, Kandinsky's work increased in abstraction as he matured. Indeed, many credit Kandinsky with being the first abstract artist. In a change of pace, we will focus on Kandinsky's main contribution to modern art and spirituality: as a writer. His two most famous works are Concerning the Spiritual In Art (1910) (Kandinsky, 1977) and Point and Line to Plane (1926) (Kandinsky, 1979). Before turning to the works themselves, a word on Kandinsky’s main spiritual influences. …show more content…
The tract is a goldmine for spirituality, but here we will focus on two aspects: art's progress and atmosphere. When Kandinsky describes art's progression in Concerning the Spiritual in Art his fascination with Theosophical geometry is on full display (Abadi & Keshavarz, 2016). The spiritual growth of art is, for example, explained with a standard Theosophical geometrical metaphor, the triangle. Flushed with ideas from the high art of yesteryear, the triangle moves ever upward. Few artists ascend to pinnacle of the triangle. Rather, most take refuge in the cosy interior of the known, the safe. The happy tortured few who reach the triangle's dizzy precipice peer into the future. For them, the base is a distant memory. Nothing, however, guarantees an artistic visionary's ideas will disseminate throughout the triangle. As the triangle moves ever upward, lofty gems congregate on the triangle's floor. These pearls become becomes the base, the new …show more content…
He often spoke in Concerning the Spiritual in Art of art in musical terms and collaborated with Felix Klee and Modest Mussorgsky on Bilder einer Ausstellung [Pictures at an Exhibition]. Before one ridicules Kandinsky’s synesthetic ambitions, consider the well-known Bouba-Kiki test (Köhler, 1947). Participants viewed the following two shapes and asked to identify Bouba and Kiki. 500px-Booba-Kiki.svg.png The rough one is, of course, Kiki and the round one Bouba. A recent study suggests such synesthesia holds across cultures(Bremer, Caparos, Davidoff, de Fockert, Linnell & Spence, 2013). Although cultures differ in which shapes correspond which sounds. Turns out humans are synesthetic. We associate particular sounds with shapes. No wonder, then, art moves us. An art masterpiece sweeps us into its synesthetic current. Yet, how do Kandinsky's ideas of art's progress and atmospheres relate to spirituality today? Four things come to
Modris Eksteins presented a tour-de-force interpretation of the political, social and cultural climate of the early twentieth century. His sources were not merely the more traditional sources of the historian: political, military and economic accounts; rather, he drew from the rich, heady brew of art, music, dance, literature and philosophy as well. Eksteins examined ways in which life influenced, imitated, and even became art. Eksteins argues that life and art, as well as death, became so intermeshed as to be indistinguishable from one another.
The Kandinsky painting represents“ Chaos and control.” This quote is mentioned repetitively and strategically throughout the movie to illustrate the fluctuation of lifestyles and relationships the characters undergo throughout the film. In one scene they are relaxed, happy, and having a good time conversing with friends and in the next scene they are frantic, outraged and arguing. In other words, the Kittridges lives, like the Kandinsky painting, are out-of-balance and easily swing back-and-forth between a life of case and control.
Art has always been considered the effervescent universal tool of communication. Art does not require a concrete directive . One sculpture,drawing or written creative piece, can evoke a myriad of emotions and meaning . Artistic pieces can sometimes be considered the regurgitation of the artist's internal sanctum. In Richard Hooks graphic painting,Adoption of the Human Race, the effect of the imagery,symbols ,color and emotional content projects a profound unification of a spiritual edict.
Visually, both Wassily Kandinsky’s Composition VII and Jackson Pollock’s No. 2 constitute a chaotic arrangement of colors and images with no apparent relation to one another. The randomly scattered paint, large canvas, and over-clamped figures all build a similar visual chaos in both paintings. Despite the mayhem, the two paintings differ in the inner emotions each artist wanted to express and the nature of the “chaos.” While for Kandinsky the chaos represents the smooth and melodic sentiments raised by music, for Pollock the chaos depicts the more spontaneous and impulsive emotions. The authors’ differing goals lead Kandinsky to ponder and refine his painting to capture a more universal theme and Pollock to develop his “drip” painting method
Kandinsky’s paintings often reflected the things that were going on in his own life at the
Mark Rothko is recognized as one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century and during his lifetime was touted as a leading figure in postwar American painting. He is one of the outstanding figures of Abstract Expressionism and one of the creators of Color Field Painting. As a result of his contribution of great talent and the ability to deliver exceptional works on canvas one of his final projects, the Rothko Chapel offered to him by Houston philanthropists John and Dominique de Menil, would ultimately anchor his name in the art world and in history. Without any one of the three, the man, the work on canvas, or the dream, the Rothko Chapel would never have been able to exist for the conceptualization of the artist, the creations on canvas and the architectural dynamics are what make the Rothko Chapel a product of brilliance.
It appears to me that pictures have been over-valued; held up by a blind admiration as ideal things, and almost as standards by which nature is to be judged rather than the reverse; and this false estimate has been sanctioned by the extravagant epithets that have been applied to painters, and "the divine," "the inspired," and so forth. Yet in reality, what are the most sublime productions of the pencil but selections of some of the forms of nature, and copies of a few of her evanescent effects, and this is the result, not of inspiration, but of long and patient study, under the instruction of much good sense…
Sayre, H. M. (2010). A World of Art: Sixth Edition. In H. M. Sayre, A World of Art: Sixth Edition (pp. 511, 134, 29, 135, 152, 313-314, 132). Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.,.
Although Nauman is now one of the most talked about artists in today’s world, art was not always his main interest. As a child Nauman was shy and often alone, as a result he was very passionate about music. He studied piano, guitar, and upright bass and played in bands throughout high school and college. Having a childhood filled with music has influenced his works and contributes to the success of his use of sound and rhythm in his videos and installations. Nauman graduated from college into a career of painting but soon realized that he could not get the reactions from his viewers that he wanted through the medium of paint and began to explore sculpture. His sculptures are known for being non-functional and being made from “non-art” materials. Nauman then turns to incorporating video and sound into his sculptural installations, and then creating complete video works. In his later years he begins producing “sculptures” that are neon signs, often provocative and suggestive. Throughout Nauman’s life, he has continued to influence the art world through each of his ...
Unlike science, art is subjective. The artist leaves behind a part of himself in his work. Therefore, each piece has its own distinct perspective. Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits show her view on her life, on how she has faced so many struggles, yet managed to be a strong person. When we see or hear or read an artistic creation, it produces a mood such as calm or loud, fear or safety. For example, the Eiffel Tower gives Paris a majestic awe; everyone who passes by feels the strength of the 113-year-old grand structure. Art also has a texture. Photographs reveal much through their textures; grainy surfaces often make the picture more realistic while smooth ones seem softer. When we hear a piece of music or see a film, a rhythm carries us from one part to another. Not just true for these two genres, rhythm is present in any artistic work. These few properties are characteristic of everything we encounter in the world of art, the world of human expression. Most have other special features also. Most of the time, though, we do not think about these characteristics because we do not have enough time to pay attention to anything for more than a few seconds.
Introduction Upon my first encounter with Kandinsky's painting, my eyes and indeed my mind were overcome with a sense of puzzlement, as it seemed impossible to decipher what lay beneath his passionate use of colour and distorted forms. Kandinsky hoped by freeing colour from its representational restrictions, it, like music could conjure up a series of emotions in the soul of viewer, reinforced by corresponding forms. Throughout this essay, I will follow Kandinsky's quest for a pure, abstract art and attempt to determine whether his passionate belief in this spiritual art and his theories on its effects on the soul, can truly be felt and appreciated by the average viewer, who at first glance would most likely view Kandinsky's paintings as simply abstract. Kandinsky was indeed a visionary, an artist who through his theoretical ideas of creating a new pictorial language sought to revolutionize the art of the twentieth-century. Regarded as the founder of abstract painting, he broke free from arts traditional limitations and invented the first painting for paintings sake, whereby the dissolution of the object and subsequent promotion of colour and form became means of expression in their own right.
The soul is the creative essence, while all of creation, including art which is human unity with natural things, is said to as Nature. In Nat...
The Spiritual in Art : Abstract Painting 1895 – 1985 (New York: Los Angeles County Museum of Art/Abbeville Press, 1985)
On first thought, mathematics and art seem to be totally opposite fields of study with absolutely no connections. However, after careful consideration, the great degree of relation between these two subjects is amazing. Mathematics is the central ingredient in many artworks. Through the exploration of many artists and their works, common mathematical themes can be discovered. For instance, the art of tessellations, or tilings, relies on geometry. M.C. Escher used his knowledge of geometry, and mathematics in general, to create his tessellations, some of his most well admired works.
New was in, and new meant new ways of looking at and experiencing literature, poetry, and other forms of art. Modernists realized that there was more than just understanding a work, declaring that one could also enjoy art. Therefore, pleasure became extremely important. Pleasure filled the streets, with people unlawfully drinking alcohol, engaging in sexual relationships, and benefiting from the current prosperity; pleasure filled the arts. With pleasure came a preoccupation with perspective as well. A person’s perspective determines whether or not he or she enjoys art and really life itself. For the first time, therefore, pleasure and perspective were the main focus and interest of artists, thus formi...