Book Description
Wassily Kandinsky was one of the most influential painters of the twentieth century, and this text, in which he laid out the tenets of painting as he saw them and made the case for nonobjective artistic forms, is universally recognized as an essential document of Modernist art theory. A brilliant philosophical treatise and an emphatic avant-garde tract, it provides the theoretical underpinnings for Kandinsky's own work and that of his associates in the Blaue Reiter movement. While Michael Sadler's masterful translation has been available and authoritative since its original publication in 1914, what hasn't been published until now is the significant correspondence between the translator and the artist, who followed the progress of his book's transformation closely, and who offered numerous insights into and explanations of its meanings. These letters, from the archives of Tate Britain, have here been appended to Kandinsky's text to provide the first comprehensively annotated edition of this seminal work. This volume, which supersedes any previous edition, includes the letters, Kandinsky's prefaces and prose poems relating to the period in which the book was written and Sadler's selected writings on art. It is more than an expanded edition--it is a major event, the first full account of a remarkable literary collaboration.Download Description
But despite their patent and well-ordered security, despite their infallible principles, there lurks in these higher segments a hidden fear, a nervous trembling, a sense of insecurity. And this is due to their upbringing. They know that the sages, statesmen and artists whom today they revere, were yesterday spurned as swindlers and charlatans. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

"to break the bonds which bind". . . "to an impoverishment of possibility"
Kandinsky had risen to positions of influence in other disciplines (political science/economics and law) before directing his considerable intellect to painting. His insights extended into the historic 'meta' trends of the arts and sciences, including the physical sciences, and had his interests been directed more to the history and philosophy of science instead of the history and philosophy of art, he might have written Kuhn's observations regarding paradigm change a half century before Kuhn did: "Here and there are people with eyes which can see, minds which can correlate. They say to themselves: 'If the science of the day before yesterday is rejected by the people of yesterday, and that of yesterday by us of today, is it not possible that what we call science now will be rejected by the men of tomorrow?' And the bravest of them answer, 'It is possible.'"

Instead, Kandinsky extended the frontiers of painting and authored philosophic writings on the future of art that are among the most important of such works. M.T.H. Sadler, who translated this work into English, was a friend of Kandinsky's and was among his early admirers. The notes he has written in the front of the book (Translator's Introduction) are therefore more helpful than could be the opinions of many other critics, including myself:

"Anyone who has studied Gauguin will be aware of the intense spiritual value of his work. The man is a preacher and a psychologist, universal by his very unorthodoxy, fundamental because he goes deeper than civilization. In his disciples this great element is wanting.

"Kandinsky has supplied the need. He is not only on the track of an art more purely spiritual than was conceived even by Gauguin, but he has achieved the final abandonment of all representative intention. In this way he combines in himself the spiritual and technical tendencies of one great branch of Post-Impressionism.

"The question most generally asked about Kandinsky's art is: 'What is he trying to do?' It is to be hoped that this book will do something towards answering the question. But it will not do everything. This--partly because it is impossible to put into words the whole of Kandinsky's ideal, partly because in his anxiety to state his case, to court criticism, the author has been tempted to formulate more than is wise. His analysis of colours and their effects on the spectator is not the real basis of his art, because, if it were, one could, with the help of a scientific manual, describe one's emotions before his pictures with perfect accuracy. And this is impossible.

"Kandinsky is painting music. That is to say, he has broken down the barrier between music and painting, and has isolated the pure emotion which, for want of a better name, we call the artistic emotion. Anyone who has listened to good music with any enjoyment will admit to an unmistakable but quite indefinable thrill. He will not be able, with sincerity, to say that such a passage gave him such visual impressions, or such a harmony roused in him such emotions. The effect of music is too subtle for words. And the same with this painting of Kandinsky's. Speaking for myself, to stand in front of some of his drawings or pictures gives a keener and more spiritual pleasure than any other kind of painting. But I could not express in the least what gives the pleasure. Presumably the lines and colours have the same effect as harmony and rhythm in music have on the truly musical. That psychology comes in no one can deny."

Some aspects of Kandinsky's color theory are dubious, at best they cannot be universalized, and Kandinsky sees this. But other of his ideas and arguments are widely accepted among artists, even as being self-evident. Stating that "there is no 'must' in art, because art is free," that is, free to address external representations OR "the inner need," to merely chase after material 'objects' OR to wrestle with the mysteriously spiritual, to somehow meld the two visions OR to stay purely to exploration of the spiritual high ground, Kandinsky absolutely rejects the materialistic expectation of an art "explanation" that has been articulated by EO Wilson in his unfortunate daydream 'Consilience' (Wilson knows ants better than he knows humans, and is given to understanding humans to be essentially ant equivalents).

Anyone interested in art history, painting of the past century, or the relationships/correlations/divergences of the various arts (visual, musical, literary), as well as anyone interested in the meaning and purpose of art, or in the philosophy of aesthetics, should read this important book, perhaps more than once.

Amazing
Kandinsky throws his ideas out in a slightly esoteric manner.It make take a few rereads to really grasp the quality of discourse he presents.But, in the end, his commentary shines brightly through his comparisons of music to painting.The spiritual triangle is comparable to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.It is important to remember that Kandinsky is not using the term "spiritual" in a religious sense.
This book is a very good read for anyone feeling slumped in their art making.And for anyone who wants to expose themselves to ways of thinking about art.By the third time I had read the material I had underlined and highlighted almost every line and filled all the margins with notes.The book is fantastic.It is especially good when paired with Hans Hofmann's essay "In Search for the Real." Although the ideas in the two books do not parallel.In fact the lines aren't even on the same page.Kandinksky's critiques of other familiar artists are very interesting too.Names like picasso and Cezanne pop up quite a bit.
I'll stop rambling now. Read the book, it is very good.

A fine attention to artistic reflection and analysis.
Wassilly Kadinsky was a 20th century painter and his CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL IN ART provides a blend of philosophical, spiritual and artistic reflection as it examines the premises and presence of spirituality in art. This new edition is a recommended pick not just for art students of modernism, but for readers of spiritual works: it includes letters between Kadinsky and Sadler, unpublished prose poems, and a fine attention to artistic reflection and analysis.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Good,but very deep
I enjoyed reading the book. At times it was over my head,but still it was worth the effort!!!!

Kandinsky, father of abstract art
Concerning the Spiritual in Art is the seminal work that destroys the Formalist myth of "art for art's sake" generally held by those who came of age before the 1980s. Kandinsky and his contemporary compatriot Malevich were ferventrevolutionaries. While Marxist Leninism saw all human endeavor in terms of dialectical materialism, the Russian avant garde painters undermined Western Civilization on the spiritual level by attacking the very nature of reality. Abstract art, as explained by Kandinsky, is not, as was generally taught, a simple arrangement of lines shapes and colors in a harmonious pattern on canvas, but an attempt to attain and depict a divine gnosis. Kandinsky sets forth in Concerning the Spiritual in art his Oriental Theosophy based on the writings of occultist Madame Helena Blavatsky rather than Judaism or Christianity, both of which religions he openly dispised. Though the writer of this review disagrees strongly with the author's ideology, Concerning the Spiritual in Art is highly recommended to all serious students of both art and religion. Hamilton Reed Armstrong, AGDEI ART ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (6)

Prepare to marvel
Be prepared to marvel. You will need a lot of concentration, and a lot of silence to process these teachings. It's not hard, but this is deep stuff. This book is prophetic. You almost have to prepare yourself spiritually in order to really grasp this material. Are you willing to invest the time? I suggest you ask yourself this question before you order this book. If you are, then let me tell you it is worth every word, or should I say "point" on the page.

PS: This is not a book for someone needing basic information. This is only for the serious art student or seriously interested lay-person. Also, those who enjoy logic and math might like this book.

About abstraction, or is it abstraction?
Kandinsky's goal seems admirable, to create a vocabulary in which abstract visual art can be discussed. That would allow a theory of abstraction to develop, with the promise that art would advance as its theory advanced. He argues his case well, he was trained as a lawyer after all, using analogy to that most abstract of arts: music.

He presents his thoughts in three sections following logical progression: point, line, and plane. As one would expect in discussing visual impression, Kandinsky acknowledges the mathematical point but generalizes it to isolated, self-contained marks of many kinds. Already, in the zero-dimensional world, Kandinsky begins his conceptual whirl: a point is not just a point, but a tension, a temporal presence, and even a sound - though I'm not convinced that this "sound" relates to audible impressons. The point even manifests as a period in punctuation. Its presence and position changes or erases a sentence's meaning; presumably, one is to infer that it has similar meaning in visual compostion.

Moving on to Line, Kandinsky crams a huge number of concepts onto the page: temperature, hue plus white and black, movement and force, angle, sound and triple sound, and even the duality of male/active vs. female/passive. Certainly there is much to discuss in all of these things, but the color, sound, and sex of a specific diagonal angle elude me. They are clear enough to Kandinsky, though, who announces these relations with absolute certainty and inevitability. His writing makes me think of mysteries revealed with papal infallibility, and with internal reason beyond human reasoning. Discussion of Plane drives even deeper into thickets of interlaced concept. I admit that I was never able to hack a clear path for myself through his conceptual undergrowth.

In the end, Kandinsky's vision remains a statement of his own inner experience - not of thinking that could be shared and pushed forward by other minds. Instead of showing the world how to think, he shows the world how he thinks. Although I'm no great fan of his art, that glimpse fascinates me, and is reason enough for reading and experiencing this remarkable text.

-- wiredweird

this book shows how you can assign meaning to many aspects of art
I think this book is useful for understanding Kandinsky's art but I think it is most useful for artists trying to form their own ideas about art. The reason for this is that in ascribing characteristics to many aspects of art for example lines curves and planes, the author makes us as artists think about how we use these aspects of art in our work. So, in other words, he gets you thinking about the meaning of all those marks on paper we make. I think most artists will find their own explanations of the various types of line, curve, color and plane, what this book does is give you the idea for doing so in the first place.

EXCELLENT SERVICE.
This item was received in a very timely , and in excellent condition.

indispensable
Este libro se ha convertido en el indispensable para los estudiantes de artes plásticas, nos define el punto, la linea y el plano desde muchos puntos de vista además de explicar la generación y desarrollo de los tres elementos básicos del arte visual. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Well-written text, high quality images
make this book a new treasure to me.It's very readable, and it speaks to exactly what interested me -- the personal aspects of Kandinsky's evolution to abstraction.There are LOTS of color plates, and their rendition is excellent.

Kandinsky's Life and Art
This is a marvelous book in two respects. First, the discussion of Kandinsky's life and art is clear, authoritative withoutintrusive detail, and lively. Second, the color reproductions of Kandinsky's work are well-chosen and expertly reproduced; they are placed in the text in places proximate to the discussion of Kandinsky's changing approaches to art.I found it stunning that the publisher could pack so many color prints into such a compact book at a reasonable price.
Readers interested in Kandinsky's ground-breaking treatise, On the Spiritual in Art, will be grateful for the author's compelling, lucid presentation of its ideas.

Lostworld
They have destroied everything , have redused to black square and havegone out... You can like Kandinsky or not.His mysteries reflect Russia ,epoch of silver century .You can feel the puls of time. Deep penetratingin one's heart of hearts,skill to see in fine its livng connect withepoch,with people,that all fascinate a notprejudice reader of this book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Kandinsky, Complete Writings on Art
A densely translated book.A must have reference for any artist's library.

An essential rendering of the artistic machinery.
This book deserves a commanding coign of vantage on the shelf of any reader desiring a deeper understanding of the creative process. In extending its reach beyond the requisite inclusion of Kandinsky's On the Spiritual in Art and Point and Line to Plane, the work embraces nearly 900 pages of life-giving insight by the master and driving force of nonobjective art.

To cast a light on any one Kandinsky commentary is to risk a plunge of the whole into shadow. We nevertheless salute in general the author's reflections on his fellow artists, for as Kandinsky finds characteristics to praise he provides a refreshing view of art's operating mechanisms. To select but a single example, in a charming commentary on the paintings of musician Arnold Schoenberg the author skewers the popular idea that an artist achieves full realization through a discovery of a "corresponding form" recognizable to all comers. In fact, it is the very discovery of what Kandinsky calls a "dying form" which is to the artist "fatal." As for the converse, the artist who produces an ever-changing series of works representing in their form the development of a more sensitive and robust inner soul discovers, ironically, his works condemned for a lack of stylistic conformance. And so, says Kandinsky, "the dead passes for the living, and vice versa." Schoenberg, the author assures us, is one of the living for in each of his disparate works "the inner desire of the artist speaks forth in a form appropriate to it."

If Kandinsky's control of the linguistic levers fails to rise to a degree of calibration one imagines appropriate to the vital topic, and if the author very often satisfies himself with the bold proposition which arrests the reader and inspires a healthy suspicion as to a deliberate reduction of the author's encircling vision, his conclusions are fired by a robust soul attuned to the finest strands of the real, and it only remains to add that in terms of abstraction this work must to the archway of understanding provide a requisite keystone.

Modern Art: A Wealth of Primary Sources
This book is as thorough of a collection of writings by an individual as you will ever find.Including every major treatise, essay, and book by Kandisky, it goes a few steps further with every Kandisky poem (English and German translations) and play.Moreover, the book includes innumerable pamphlets and the like from the earlier late-Expressionist exhibits; also incorporated are several corrspondances between Kandinsky and contemporaries, particularly atonal composer Arnold Schoenburg--illuminating how each other's theories were mutually related and held a reciprocal influence.A little known fact, Schoenburg himself was a non-objective painter--photos of his works are among these pages, as well!Before each section is a contextual introduction to that particular writing.And much much more.

Indispensable
An obligatory text for any visual, aural, or literary artist, and a necessity for any true understanding of the nature of artistic creation. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian-born painter, became one of the founders of 20th-century abstract art, ultimately moving toward the geometric forms for which he is best known. Some of the more beautiful works included in this title are Several Circles (1926), Hard But Soft (1927), and Graceful Ascent (1934). Readers looking for a good introduction to the works of Kandinsky will be delighted with this volume.Book Description
One of the first and most famous abstract painters, Wassily Kandinsky created a form in which color and shape have a life of their own. Find out how this complex Russian artist established a truly abstract art. The DK ArtBook series presents both the life and works of each artist within the cultural, social, and political context of their time. To make the books easy to consult, they are divided into three areas -- the life and works of the artist, historical and cultural background, and analysis of major works -- which are identifiable by side bands. Each spread focuses on a specific theme, with an introductory text and several annotated illustrations. Few art history texts contain such abundance of full-color illustrations. The index section is also illustrated and gives background information on key figures and the location of the artist's works. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The Book is Worth It!
This book has excellent images on Kandinsky's work beginning with his representational early works to his abstract later works.The color quality of the prints are good and the information is readable - to the point and not overwhelming like many art books can be.I only wish this book was bigger with more examples of his work....A good resource for art educators.

The Master On Display
The word "visionary" is so often overused, but Wassily Kandinsky truly was one. Pick up this book and find out why!

Must buy for any modern art lover
This book in few pages can describe Kandinsky so well. The style of Kandisky which reflected the developments and strides physics took in first 2 decades of century is shown in his love of planes and geometry. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Buy It!
Loved the art work. Doing a painting from the cards they are so good!!!!!

Good view of this genious' work...
This packet of cards contains the essential, and most beautiful works.The vivid colors of Kandinsky will surely lighten the day of who ever you send one to.BRAVO WASSILY! ... Read more

Book Description
One of the art world's most poignant love stories comes to life in this fascinating book.

The tumultuous love affair between Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter is a story of happiness and pain, trust and betrayal, harmony and conflict, set against the backdrop of the revolutionary upheavals that attended the birth of Modernism. The fascinating story of their life in the Bavarian countryside, where they were a part of the Blue Rider group, and the underlying tensions that eventually drove them apart, is told in letters, diary entries and memoirs, and in superb reproductions of the artists' finest paintings and sketches. This book traces the development of the couple's personal and artistic relationship from 1902 through 1914 when Kandinsky fled Germany and returned to his native Russia, before finally abandoning Münter in 1917. It shows how their relationship, though ill-fated, marked a hugely prolific period in the careers of both painters and the development of the German Expressionist movement. ... Read more

Book Description
Against Kandinsky examines the schism between Expressionism and Geometric Abstraction--the two canons which have competed for stylistic and theoretical supremacy in Modernist history. Within this historical context, Wassily Kandinsky occupies a unique position as both the originator of Expressionistic painting and a tireless defender of the intuitive mode of abstraction. Against Kandinsky consists of four sections, each presenting a case for a certain resistance against the styles and ideas that Kandinsky represented. It looks at the history of twentieth-century abstraction from a broadened perspective of cultural and social history that emphasizes the parallels between European and American art, with work by Carl Andre, Eric Bulatov, Willem de Kooning, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Hannes Meyer, Lucia Moholy, Walter Peterhans, Liubov Popova, Aleksandr Rodchenko and Frank Stella. ... Read more

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Big art for little hands, these enchanting activity books allow young artists to explore the world's masterpieces on their own terms and with plenty of space to color outside the lines. ... Read more

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Book Description
The Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider)--art movement was founded in 1911 by the young painters Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, and was active in Europe until 1914. Originally published in Munich in 1912 and edited by Kandinsky and Marc-- the movements's almanac presented their synthesis of international culture to the European avant-garde at large. In both the selection of essays and its innovative interplay of word and image, The Blaue Reiter Almanac remains one of our most critically important works of literature on the art theory and culture of the 20th century. This edition, long unavailable in English and indispensable to any student of modernism, simulates the original German format, and includes documents, and musical notations, as well as seminal essays by Kandinsky, Schoenberg, Marc, and others. Nearly 150 illustrations, from ancient and contemporary sources, capture the wide-ranging interests and passions that inspired Kandinsky's and Marc's programmatic attempt to make modernism accessible across national and chronological boundaries. Also included is Klaus Lankheit's extensive critical introduction, which places the Blaue Reiter in context for contemporary readers."The almanac remains unique among European writings on art; no other country produced a comparable work capturing the excitement and tension of the years before World War I." (Will Grohmann) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Seminal 20th Century Art Document
The editors, Kandinsky and Marc, put together this manifesto before World War I.It's an essential document for understanding the artistic ferment in Germany, France and Russia in the early part of the 20th Century.

Marc died at Verdun in 1916; Kandinsky pursued a successful career, and died in Paris during World War II.Both men believed that artists were the spiritual leaders of the future--a belief that still reverberates today.

A valuable scrutiny of the Blaue Reiterart movement
Originally published in Munich in 1912, and now available in English, The Blaue Reiter Almanac is a valuable scrutiny of the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) art movement, which was founded in 1911 by painters Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc and remained active in Europe until 1914. The Blaue Reiter Almanac combines an assembly of short essays with black-and-white reproductions of artwork to offer the reader a glimpse into the methodology, purpose, and essence of this short-lived yet passionate movement. An invaluable addition to modern art history shelves.
... Read more

Book Description
This provocative book presents an entirely new interpretation of the art of Vasilii Kandinsky, who is considered by many to be the father of abstract painting. Peg Weiss examines for the first time how Kandinsky`s commitment to his ethnic Russian heritage and training as an ethnographer influenced his work throughout his career. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Transform your understanding of Kandinsky
This book is remarkable, truly one of my favourite art books of all time. It simply puts Kandinsky's art in an entirely new perspective, and enables one to decipher his abstractions in terms of his evolving interests as a scholar, ethnographer and artist.

Not only does it explain his work very well, but also enables the reader to examine much of his early work, which has never been delved into in such detail, with a number reproduced in superb colour. It shows sketches from his student notebooks, and from ethnographic field trips into Siberia; it shows comparisons with art from those regions and other "primitive" ikons that informed his own formal language; and his often overlooked paintings on glass.

Weiss's approach fills in the gaps in Will Grohmann's conventional biography and the strictly formalist interpretation in Paul Overy's "The language of the eye". ... Read more

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Essay by Magdalena Dabrowski. Foreword by Richard E. Oldenburg. ... Read more

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Book Description
"Wassily Kandinskyons as a theorist were arguably more influential on modern art than any of his paintings. In Concerning the Spiritual in Art, first published in 1914, Kandinsky both promotes and defends a form of art in which painters express themselves in abstract terms independent of the material world around them, much as musicians do. Divided into two parts, ¿About General Aesthetic¿ (including an examination of geometrical forms) and ¿About Painting¿ (a discussion of the psychology of color and the language and form of color), Concerning the Spiritual in Art offers an insight into the mind of one of the most renowned of all abstract painters and a preview of the art that he was to produce in the years to come.Russian painter WASSILY KANDINSKY (1866¿1944), one of the most famous artists of the 20th century, pioneered abstract art. His other books include Point and Line to Plane and Kandinsky, Complete Writings on Art." ... Read more

Amazon.com
After Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc resigned from the New Association of Munich Artists, they concentrated their efforts on the publication of The Blue Rider, an art journal "with contributions written exclusively by artists" and inspired by "a shared faith in a spiritual renewal of our civilization." With contributors both distinguished and obscure, the journal joined advanced contemporary work and antique folk art. Despite financial problems and politicking between associates, the publication was an enormous success. Unfortunately, the coming of World War I squelched the planning of the next edition, and the first The Blue Rider remained the last. Even so, The Blue Rider and the artists who created it made a lasting impression on art and art journals that followed it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A wonderful examination of one of the most influential (single printing) art publications of the 20th century
Between December 1911 and May 1912, the Russian Wassily Kandinsky and the German Franz Marc and several of their likeminded friends put together what was to be an ongoing artistic almanac they called "Der Blaue Reiter".However, circumstances only allowed one issue to be published and only two public exhibitions of the artwork.The single publication became wonderfully influential for the rest of the 20th century.World War I not only interrupted the plans for the second edition of the almanac, but with the death of Franz Marc in the war the possibility of continuing "Der Blaue Reiter" perished as well.

Still, the ideas that were expressed during those pre-war years and the artwork produced continue to be discussed and admired.Their power to influence remains even if the most direct consequences that flowed from them have already run their course.This very beautiful book is primarily a place to see the art produced for the almanac and in the group of artists of that time.It is NOT a reproduction of the almanac itself, although many of the pieces published are included here.

The text is quite informative and helpful.However, the art reproductions are the main thing.However, without the historical context provided by the text, some of the power of the collection is lost.

It is a shame that this book is not more readily available.

Kind of Blue
"'Der Blaue Reiter' was neither a school or a movement: it was no more than a brief episode in the history of 20th century art." -- From the Introduction

Led by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, Der Blaue Reiter lasted just a few months between 1911 and 1912 but attracted such brilliant artists as Arp, Braques, Delauney, Feininger, Klee, Larionov, Malevich, Picasso, and others. This work helped establish or influence Abstraction and the Avant-Garde, and drew upon Rousseau's realism, "primitives," folklore, and other currents.In sum, this "episode" was the foundation for much of modern art in the 20th century.

The book has 180 illustrations (160 in color), and they are sumptuous:Vibrant, textured, full of movement and bold color.Printed on thick luminous paper, this is an opulent book.However, unlike some so-called "coffee-table" books, the scope is manageable, and the text reads intelligently and without hyperbole. Kandinsky is especially well represented here (showing a variety of his styles), and there is an interesting section on his interests in theater and music. Unfortunately, there is no index, and the text could have been longer, but this is an absolutely beautiful collection of paintings.The book has 223 pages, with photo credits that identify the location of the paintings. Very highly recommended. ... Read more