Kandinsky, Moses and the Golden Calf

Concerning the Spiritual in Art
by Wassily Kandinsky
Dover Publications, 1977
Translated by M.T.H. Sadler

Image: Painting With White Border, Wassily Kandinsky, 1913

Part 1: The Movement of the Triangle

I’ll complete this section of the book today so we may move along to his next section about the “spiritual revolution” of his time. In the last two posts, we discussed Kandinsky’s hierarchical segmented triangle in an attempt to classify artists, their works and viewers. Vertical mobility up and down the triangle occurs over time as artists feed upon their own psyches for inspiration or starve. Of course, WK places himself and his work in the apex segment of this triangle, a place reserved for innovative geniuses who are misunderstood and ridiculed. This is a lonely place, indeed.

Wrapping up this section, WK complains of the dark periods in art when spirituality is lost in favor of materialism. He writes: “At such times art ministers to lower needs, and is used for material ends. She seeks her substance in hard realities because she knows of nothing nobler. Objects, the reproduction of which is considered her sole aim, remain monotonously the same….. Art has lost its soul.” He continues, by adding “In the search for method the artist goes still further. Art becomes so specialized as to be comprehensible only to artists, and they complain bitterly of public indifference to their work. For since the artist in such times has no need to say much, but only to be notorious for some small originality and consequently lauded by a small group of patrons and connoisseurs (which incidentally is also a very profitable business for him), there arise a crowd of gifted and skilful painters, so easy does the conquest of art appear. In each artistic circle are thousands of such artists, of whom the majority seek only for some new technical manner, and who produce millions of works of art without enthusiasm, with cold hearts and souls asleep.”

This, of course, leads to unhealthy competition between artists as they fight to be at the top of the heap and leave in their wake a confused public. Despite these negative forces at work in the art world, WK optimistically believes that the spiritual triangle continues to move upward over time. There is no holding back true spiritual advancement in the arts. He attributes the cause for this upward advance to those artists who occupy the apex segment and, from time to time, descend from their lofty perch like Moses descending from the mountain, to impart wisdom to the worshippers of the golden calf. At first, the voice of the visionary who resides in the apex isn’t comprehensible to these lower artists who only replicate what they see and focus on technique. But, eventually some begin to understand and follow the call to aim for expression of their “finer feelings.” A spiritual awakening occurs when artists express internal truth.

And so, this section of WK’s book concludes. His dogmatic form of expression is a little off-putting but I agree with the central message which is core to my own teaching. I am a child of Kandinsky’s ideas. I do believe that the concept, or idea, behind the work is far more important than reproduction, materials, and technique. Unique and meaningful art comes only from authentic individual expression of the artist’s ideas – not how well he/she can use materials or make a rose look just like a particular rose. So, I’m grateful to WK for his ideas and for stridently defending them.

What do you think?

P.S. Please excuse my infrequent attention to this blog. We’re in the final three weeks of moving to our new home in Maine during a terrible winter and my husband is recovering from a difficult operation at the same time. It’ll take me awhile to sort out everything, but I’ll try to keep up.