Concerning the Spiritual in Art

Kandinsky acknowledges that it is difficult today to formulate a complete theory for the creation of art. This is because art is in the midst of great changes, particularly in the direction of abstraction. Kandinsky cautions against making a complete break between art and nature and pursuing only color and abstract form, as neither artists nor audiences are yet sufficiently evolved to be able to understand the spiritual power of such images. The result, Kandinsky warns, would be a merely decorative art, akin to patterns on neckties or carpets.

Colors can be used to convey specific emotion and “spiritual values” when applied to particular forms and objects, and to create or enhance the emotional meaning of a picture. Colors can even be used to create emotional effects independently of the actual colors of the objects in nature—for example, a red horse can create the sense of a fantastical imaginative world. The inner meaning is more important than the “outer qualities of nature” (49).

Elaborating on this theory of color, Kandinsky compares a painting to a conversation. When we converse with an “interesting person,” we try to understand their “fundamental ideas and feelings” (49) rather than to analyze the technical aspects of their speech, grammar, etc. Likewise, when viewing art, we should be concerned to probe the “meaning and idea” (49) before considering purely external aspects like perspective, tonality, and “closeness to nature.” The right way to look at art is to let it speak to you, “allowing the inner value of the picture to work” (49). Kandinsky claims that “the elements of the new art are to be found […] in the inner and not the outer qualities of nature” (49).

Kandinsky stresses that for the “harmony” of a work of art to be “pure,” it must not be dictated by an “external motive” or “material end.” Art must also preserve a sense of mystery and the unexpected. This essential freedom of art is now being expressed in new forms of dance, which try to get at the “real inner meaning of motion” (50) just as painters—taking inspiration from “primitive” artists—try and express the inner meaning of color and form. Both forms of art are “on the threshold of the art of the future” (51), rejecting “conventional beauty” in favor of expressing “the inner spirit.”

Kandinsky goes on to speak of modern theater and music as embodying a new “art of spiritual harmony” (51) in which all the arts will partake. This spirit as applied to theater consists of musical movement, pictorial movement, and physical movement; these together make the “spiritual movement” or “inner harmony,” expressed in theater as “the true stage-composition” (51).

To conclude, Kandinsky reiterates that artists of the future must steer a course between extremes and obey the inner need. Artists must neither ignore nature nor strictly follow it. Cubism has shown a way to an abstract and spiritual art, but it is flawed in that it tends to appeal more to the eye than to the soul. Kandinsky suggests that the solution for his ideal type of modern art may lie in an “apparently fortuitous selection of forms on the canvas” (52).