Book cover of Concerning the Spiritual in Art

Book description

A pioneering work in the movement to free art from its traditional bonds to material reality, this book is one of the most important documents in the history of modern art. Written by the famous nonobjective painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), it explains Kandinsky's own theory of painting and crystallizes the…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Concerning the Spiritual in Art as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This book washed over me like a fresh Spring breeze after a long Winter. Any time an artist can speak eloquently about their motivations, sensitivities, and beliefs, it provides validation to all other artists even if, as in Kandinsky's case, it seems some of his certainties verged on dogma. But I'll take artistic dogma over inartistic ambiguity any day.

Art is the closest thing to nature that human beings can create, yet its relevance can be completely overlooked by the general public. Documents such as this are like messages in a bottle, hieroglyphs on the cave wall of contemporary society…

This book is an absolute must-read for all painters. Kandinsky is known as the father of modern art who brought abstract painting into the realms of art history. As an important aside, there is now controversy over his title, as new information has come up about a woman painter Hilma af Klint, that preceded Kandinsky for abstract painting ideas. Even so, Kandinsky was the first to write about spirituality and art for painters. His ideas still feel fresh on how color plays an integral role to express emotion in painting. He originally wrote this book in German, and so the…

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