Vassily Kandinsky

The vibration of the soul

When we look at colours on the painter's palette, a double effect happens: apurely physical effect on the eye, charmed by the beauty of colours firstly,which provokes a joyful impression as when we eat a delicacy. But this effectcan be much deeper and causes an emotion and a vibration of the soul, or aninner resonance, which is a purely spiritual effect, by which the colourtouches the soul itself.

The inner necessity is for Kandinsky the principle of the art and thefoundation of forms and colours' harmony. He defines it as the principle of theefficient contact of the form with the human soul. Every form is thedelimitation of a surface by another one; it possesses an inner content which isthe effect it produces on the one who looks at it attentively. This innernecessity is the right of the artist to an unlimited freedom, but this freedombecomes a crime if it is not founded on such a necessity. The art work is bornfrom the inner necessity of the artist in a mysterious, enigmatic and mysticway, and then it acquires an autonomous life; it becomes an independentsubject animated by a spiritual breath.

Concerning the Spiritual in Art

The analysis made by Kandinsky on forms and on colours doesn't result fromsimple arbitrary ideas associations, but from the inner experience of thepainter, who has passed years creating abstract paintings of an incrediblesensorial richness, working on forms and with colours, observing for a longtime and tirelessly his own paintings and those of other artists, noting simplytheir subjective effect on the very high sensibility to colours of his artist andpoet soul.

So it is a purely subjective form of experience that everyone can do and repeattaking the time to look at his paintings and letting acting the forms and thecolours on his own living sensibility. These are not scientific and objectiveobservations, but inner observations radically subjective and purelyphenomenological which is a matter of what the French philosopher MichelHenry calls the absolute subjectivity or the absolute phenomenological life.

Couple à cheval (1906)

Tous les saints I (1911)

Image avec un arc noir (1912)

Image avec une bordure blanche (1913)

Petits plaisirs (1913)

« The point is, in practice, a small stain of colour put by the artist on thecanvas. So the point used by the painter is not a geometric point, it is not amathematical abstraction, it possesses a certain extension, a form and acolour. This form can be a square, a triangle, a circle, like a star or even morecomplex. The point is the most concise form, but according to its placementon the basic plane it will take a different tonality. It can be isolated or put inresonance with other points or lines.

The line is the product of a force. It is a point on which a living force hasbeen applied in a given direction, the force applied on the pencil or on thepaint brush by the hand of the artist. The produced linear forms can be ofseveral types: a straight line, which results from a unique force applied in asingle direction, an angular line, which results from the alternation of twoforces with different directions, or a curved or wave-like line produced by theeffect of two forces acting simultaneously. A plane can be obtained bycondensation, from a line rotated around one of its ends. »

Improvisation 31 (bataille navale) 1913

Composition VI (1913)

Improvisation de rêve (1913)

Traits noirs I (1913)

Composition VI (1913)

Improvisation (1914)

En gris (1919)

« Clarity is a tendency to the white and obscurity is a tendency to the black.The white and the black form the second big contrast, which is static. Thewhite acts like a deep and absolute silence full of possibilities. The black is anothingness without possibility, which is an eternal silence without hope, andcorresponds to death. That’s why any other colour resonates so strongly on itsneighbors. The mixing of white with black leads to gray, which possesses noactive force and whose affective tonality is near that of green. The graycorresponds to immobility without hope; it tends to despair when it becomesdark and regains little hope when it lightens.

The red is a warmth colour, very living, lively and agitated, it possesses animmense force, it is a movement in oneself. Mixed with black, it leads tobrown which is a hard colour. Mixed with yellow, it gains in warmth andgives the orange which possesses an irradiating movement on thesurroundings. When red is mixed with blue, it moves away from man to givethe purple, which is cooled red. The red and the green form the third bigcontrast, while the orange and the purple form the fourth one. »

Composition IV

Ovale rouge (1920)

Tâche rouge II (1926)

Plusieurs cercles (1926)

Jaune rouge bleu (1925)

...The vibration of the soul...

Composition LX (1936)

Complexe simple (1939)

Composition X (1939)

Autour du cercle (1940)

Tâche noire (1912)

Sur les points (1929)

Vers le haut (1929)

Vol fixe (1932)

Cercles dans cercles (1923)

Orange violet (1935)

Bonne journée ! Have a nice day !Marco

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« Beauty is everywhere »