CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL IN ART

BY WASSILY KANDINSKY [TRANSLATED BY MICHAEL T. H. SADLER]

LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS [NOT IN E-TEXT] TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION

PART I. ABOUT GENERAL AESTHETIC

I. INTRODUCTION II. THE MOVEMENT OF THE TRIANGLE III. SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION IV. THE PYRAMID

PART II. ABOUT PAINTING

V. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKING OF COLOUR VI. THE LANGUAGE OF FORM AND COLOUR VII. THEORY VIII. ART AND ARTISTS IX. CONCLUSION

LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS [NOT IN E-TEXT]

Mosaic in S. Vitale, Ravenna

Victor and Heinrich Dunwegge: "The Crucifixion" (in the Alte
Pinakothek, Munich)

Albrecht Durer: "The Descent from the Cross" (in the Alte
Pinakothek, Munich)

Raphael: "The Canigiani Holy Family" (in the Alte Pinakothek,
Munich)

Paul Cezanne: "Bathing Women" (by permission of Messrs.
Bernheim-Jeune, Paris)

Kandinsky: Impression No. 4, "Moscow" (1911)

          "Improvisation No. 29 (1912)
          "Composition No. 2 (1910)
          "Kleine Freuden" (1913)

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION

It is no common thing to find an artist who, even if he bewilling to try, is capable of expressing his aims and ideals withany clearness and moderation. Some people will say that any suchcapacity is a flaw in the perfect artist, who should find hisexpression in line and colour, and leave the multitude to gropeits way unaided towards comprehension. This attitude is a relicof the days when "l'art pour l'art" was the latest battle cry;when eccentricity of manner and irregularity of life were moreimportant than any talent to the would-be artist; when every oneexcept oneself was bourgeois.

The last few years have in some measure removed this absurdity,by destroying the old convention that it was middle-class to besane, and that between the artist and the outer-world yawned agulf which few could cross. Modern artists are beginning torealize their social duties. They are the spiritual teachers ofthe world, and for their teaching to have weight, it must becomprehensible. Any attempt, therefore, to bring artist andpublic into sympathy, to enable the latter to understand theideals of the former, should be thoroughly welcome; and such anattempt is this book of Kandinsky's.

The author is one of the leaders of the new art movement inMunich. The group of which he is a member includes painters,poets, musicians, dramatists, critics, all working to the sameend—the expression of the SOUL of nature and humanity, or, asKandinsky terms it, the INNERER KLANG.

Perhaps the fault of this book of theory—or rather thecharacteristic most likely to give cause for attack—is thetendency to verbosity. Philosophy, especially in the hands of awriter of German, presents inexhaustible opportunities for vagueand grandiloquent language. Partly for this reason, partly fromincompetence, I have not primarily attempted to deal with thephilosophical basis of Kandinsky's art. Some, probably, will findin this aspect of the book its chief

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