Pioneering work by the great modernist painter, considered by many to be the father of abstract art and a leader in the movement to free art from traditional bonds. 12 illustrations.

This book examines the art and writings of Wassily Kandinsky, who is widely regarded as one of the first artists to produce non-representational paintings. Crucial to an understanding of Kandinsky's intentions is On the Spiritual in Art, the celebrated essay he published in 1911. Where most scholars have taken its repeated references to "spirit" as signaling quasi-religious or mystical concerns, Florman argues instead that Kandinsky's primary frame of reference was G.W.F. Hegel's Aesthetics, in which art had similarly been presented as a vehicle for the developing self-consciousness of spirit (or Geist, in German). In addition to close readings of Kandinsky's writings, the book also includes a discussion of a 1936 essay on the artist's paintings written by his own nephew, philosopher Alexandre Kojève, the foremost Hegel scholar in France at that time. It also provides detailed analyses of individual paintings by Kandinsky, demonstrating how the development of his oeuvre challenges Hegel's views on modern art, yet operates in much the same manner as does Hegel's philosophical system. Through the work of a single, crucial artist, Florman presents a radical new account of why painting turned to abstraction in the early years of the twentieth century.

This famous work by a pioneer in the movement to free art from the bonds of tradition explores the role of the line, point, and other key elements of non-objective painting. 127 illustrations.

Now in an updated English edition with full color illustrations, Kandinsky's fascinating and witty artist's book represents a crucial moment in the painter's move toward abstraction.

The founder of abstract art The Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), who later lived in Germany and France, is one of the pioneers of twentieth-century art. Nowadays he is regarded as the founder of abstract art and is, moreover, the chief theoretician of this type of painting. Together with Franz Marc and others he founded the group of artists known as the "Blauer Reiter" in Munich. His art then freed itself more and more from the object, eventually culminating in the "First Abstract Watercolour" of 1910. In his theoretical writings Kandinsky repeatedly sought the proximity of music; and just as in music, where the individual notes constitute the medium whose effect stems from harmony and euphony, Kandinsky was aiming for a pure concord of colour through the interplay of various shades. Gauguin had demanded that everything "must be sacrificed to pure colours". Kandinsky was the first to realise this and thus to influence a whole range of artists. About the Series: Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

In 1911 Vasily Kandinsky published the first edition of ‘On the Spiritual in Art’, a landmark modernist treatise in which he sought to reframe the meaning of art and the true role of the artist. For many artists of late Imperial Russia – a culture deeply influenced by the regime’s adoption of Byzantine Orthodoxy centuries before – questions of religion and spirituality were of paramount importance. As artists and the wider art community experimented with new ideas and interpretations at the dawn of the twentieth century, their relationship with ‘the spiritual’ – broadly defined – was inextricably linked to their roles as pioneers of modernism. This diverse collection of essays introduces new and stimulating approaches to the ongoing debate as to how Russian artistic modernism engaged with questions of spirituality in the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. Ten chapters from emerging and established voices offer new perspectives on Kandinsky and other familiar names, such as Kazimir Malevich, Mikhail Larionov, and Natalia Goncharova, and introduce less well-known figures, such as the Georgian artists Ucha Japaridze and Lado Gudiashvili, and the craftswoman and art promoter Aleksandra Pogosskaia. Prefaced by a lively and informative introduction by Louise Hardiman and Nicola Kozicharow that sets these perspectives in their historical and critical context, Modernism and the Spiritual in Russian Art: New Perspectives enriches our understanding of the modernist period and breaks new ground in its re-examination of the role of religion and spirituality in the visual arts in late Imperial Russia. Of interest to historians and enthusiasts of Russian art, culture, and religion, and those of international modernism and the avant-garde, it offers innovative readings of a history only partially explored, revealing uncharted corners and challenging long-held assumptions.

A MASTERFUL BOOK ABOUT BREATHING LIFE INTO ART AND ART INTO LIFE "Stephen Nachmanovitch's The Art of Is is a philosophical meditation on living, living fully, living in the present. To the author, an improvisation is a co-creation that arises out of listening and mutual attentiveness, out of a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity. It is a product of the nervous system, bigger than the brain and bigger than the body; it is a once-in-a-lifetime encounter, unprecedented and unrepeatable. Drawing from the wisdom of the ages, The Art of Is not only gives the reader an inside view of the states of mind that give rise to improvisation, it is also a celebration of the power of the human spirit, which — when exercised with love, immense patience, and discipline — is an antidote to hate." — Yo-Yo Ma, cellist

"The importance of Kandinsky's art and thought in the history of modern art combined with the completeness, careful scholarship, and crisp design of this volume make it especially useful."--Choice Of all the giants of twentieth-century art, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was the most prolific writer. Here, available for the first time in paperback, are all of Kandinsky's writings on art, newly translated into English. Editors Kenneth C. Lindsay and Peter Vergo have taken their translations directly from Kandinsky's original texts, and have included select interviews, lecture notes, and newly discovered items along with his more formal writings. The pieces range from one-page essays to the book-length treatises On the Spiritual in Art (1911) and Point and Line to Plane (1926), and are arranged in chronological order from 1901 to 1943. The poetry, good enough to stand on its literary merits, is presented with all the original accompanying illustrations. And the book's design follows Kandinsky's intentions, preserving the spirit of the original typography and layout. Kandinsky was nearly thirty before he bravely gave up an academic career in law for his true passion, painting. Though his art was marked by extraordinarily varied styles, Kandinsky sought a pure art throughout, one which would express the soul, or "inner necessity," of the artist. His uncompromising search for an art which would elicit a response to itself rather than to the object depicted resulted in the birth of nonobjective art-and in these writings, Kandinsky offered the first cogent explanation of his aims. His language was characterized by its desire for vivification, of the infusion of life into mundane things. Considered as a whole, Kandinsky's writings exceed all expectations of what an artist should accomplish with words. Not only do his ideas and observations make us rethink the nature of art and the way it reflects the aspirations of his era, but they touch on matters vital to the situation of the human soul.