Name: Concerning the spiritual in art
ISBN: 9781421903781

Concerning the spiritual in art

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 ideas that were influencing many other modern artists of the period. Along with his own ground-breaking paintings, this book had a tremendous impact on the development of modern art. The first part issues a call for a spiritual revolution in painting that will let artists express their own inner lives in abstract, non-material terms. Just as musicians do not depend upon the material world for their music, so artists should not have to depend upon the material world for their art. In the second part, Kandinsky discusses the psychology of colors, the language of form and color, and the responsibilities of the artist. An Introduction by the translator offers additional explanation of Kandinsky's art and theories.--From publisher description.

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whiddershinsMar 2014

A great book about this is Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5321

The argument being that art is intensely connected to the time in which it is created, and the function of art in the context of the progression of humanity requires that artists constantly make new art for the current generation.

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msutherlDec 2012

For those interested in typography, while I found blog posts helpful in teaching myself, if you really want to understand, I recommend reading one of the canonical texts depending on your particular interest. Typography is a deep field with a lot to know before you can really know what you're doing.

The Elements of Typographical Style is a beautiful book and an elegant, literary introduction and guide: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0881792063/ref=as_li_qf_sp_...

Thinking with Type is full of contemporary examples to give you new ideas: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1568989695/ref=as_li_qf_sp_...

Ruder's Typographie is the book that established modern typography and is the de fact guide to modernist typography: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3721200438/ref=as_li_qf_sp_...

As an introduction to typography, I also recommend watching Helvetica: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002RIOGI0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_... – it will give you a personal perspective on different philosophies of choice of type-face

For that matter, the same goes for color theory.

Here's a nice introduction to color in general from the Adobe website: http://www.adobe.com/products/adobemag/archive/pdfs/9611febf...

The Wikipedia entry is worth reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color

Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art is a beautiful manifesto on art, but contains a very interesting theory of color: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1619491532/ref=as_li_qf_sp_...

Itten's The Elements of Color is the classic text on color: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471289299/ref=as_li_qf_sp_...

Albers' Interaction of Color will teach you that colors are no absolute reference ponts – they interact with each other to create all sorts of effects (this text pairs well with the Kandinsky): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300018460/ref=as_li_qf_sp_...

To get really deep into color, check out the IESNA handbook: http://www.ies.org/handbook/

All this is not to obviate OP's impetus to write posts on these topics. Blog posts are crucial as introductions and I find tend to work better as references than books, which tend to be overwhelming and ignored in this digital age. But if you want to go deeper, these are my favorite references after moderately exhaustive research.

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PercevalOct 2009

If you're really interested in how artists approach color and theory, you might pick up a copy of Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art, which puts forth a modernist/Bauhaus color theory:

http://books.google.com/books?id=mG-VRWgfpuYC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky#Concerning_th...

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DaubJun 2025

> especially since there’s no real science or theory behind it (that I know of).

The literature on hue harmony is fuzzy, but there are a few gems.

Check out Matsuda [1] who tracked the colors of what his female students were wearing, and tried to identify any principles informing their color choice. My criticism of him is that he plotted hue distribution on the RGB color wheel. The RYB wheel would have been a far better choice. His paper is in Japanese, but is summarized in multiple places. Below [2] is a link to 2 pages from a lecture I gave which summarizes his findings.

I'm sure you also know of Kuehni's classic tome on color spaces [3]. A fun and informative read.

There has been no research on hue antagonism (which is the idea that underpins complementary pairs). This is crazy, as it would be a very easy subject to investigate. To me it is obvious that there is a special relationship between antagonistic pairs above the fact that they mix to neutral. Supporting this is the fact that Leondro DaVinci documented this relationship even before hue circle was invented [4]!

As for the mystical dimension of color harmony... this has been assumed since the dawn of color science. Newton himself believed that there was seven colors in his hue circle for no other reason than this was a spiritually significant value [5]. Itten [6], Goethe [7] and Kandinsky [8] all absolutely believed in the spiritual dimension of color. Personally, I believe that their work has had nothing but a destructive impact on how artists and designers use color. It is wildly inconsistent, vague and often plain wrong.

[1] Matsuda: Color Design. Asakura Shoten (in Japanese). (1995)

[2] https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/4ac93etjyg0z5y2ouq5ge/matsuda...

[3] Kuehni, R.: Color Space and its Divisions: Color Order from Antiquity to the Present. Wiley-Interscience, Hoboken (2003)

[4] Leonardo da Vinci, Trans. J. F. Rigaud, A Treatise on Painting (London: J.B. Nichols & Son, 1835).

[5] Matt Chamings “Why are there seven colours in a rainbow?” New Scientist, Last Word, 2021.

[6] Johannes Itten, The Art of Color: The Subjective Experience and Objective Rationale of Color (New York: Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1961).

[7] J. W. v. Goethe, Goethe's Colour Theory, Trans. C. L. Eastlake (London: John Murray, 1840).

[8] Wassily Kandinsky, Trans. Michael Sadler, Concerning the spiritual in art (Penguin UK, 2024), p. 59.

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DaubOct 2022

> Where can I learn about the mad-ass angry part?

Bruce MacEvay know more about colour theory and history than any man alive: https://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/wcolor.html

Also Color space and its divisions (Kuehni, R. G. 2001) will help you tell the difference between up and down in the color domain (not an easy task in the world of colour).

My own thoughts...

Goethe's full text of his `Colour Theory' is effectively a hate letter to Newton. However, that part of the book is rarely translated into English.

Generally, that whole bunch of romantics/spiritualists brought nothing but fuzziness to the subject of color theory in art. For example, in ‘Concerning the Spiritual in Art’ Kandinsky remarked that `orange is red brought nearer to humanity by yellow'. Goethe described the colour ‘yellow-red’ as being a favorite of `savage nations' and `impetuous, robust and uneducated men' and Itten himself describes the colours of a stained glass window as offering a `...direct invitation to higher spirituality'. Lovely words, but of little application to confused art students.

The problem with that hot-head Goethe is that he misunderstood a lot of what Newton was saying. Newton was addressing the physics of colour, whilst Goethe was addressing its application. These (generally) involve two different colour spaces defined by two different sets of antagonistic pairs (RGB/subtractive/light for Newton and RYB/additive/paint for Goethe). These two different ways of understanding the same thing are difficult to reconcile. For example, in RGB black is an absence of light, whilst for the painter's RYB space it is an active element.

Goethe is often credited with discovering the physiological dimensions of colour (that one colour can influence our perception of another). In fact it was Newton, though he did not pursue it very deeply.

Goethe had a massive influence on the way art and colour is addressed and I don't believe that art schools will ever recover from that. However, I still respect Goethe for his obsessive approach to the subject. Itten, on the other hand, is a whole bucket of shit. His set of contrasts developed out of his teaching, and he was the living embodiment of a bad art teacher. You have been to art school I guess... you know the type. Charismatic, cultish and mistaken. He required all his students to be vegetarians, and to practice calisthtics at the beginning of class. Unsurprisingly, was a proponent of Mazdaznanism, which was a fire cult.

There are many errors and inconsistencies in his work. For example, in his book `The Art of Colour' he describes yellow as being ‘lighter’ than blue. This is clearly erroneous, as lightness is independent from hue, and any hue has the potential to be lighter than any other hue. What he is responding to is that the maximum saturation of yellow is reached at a lower lightness value than (for example) blue or green. The annoying thing is that in the same book he recognizes HSL as being the three perceptual dimensions of color! I could fill a book with other mistakes he made.

You mention Albers. He is someone I have a lot of respect for. Goethe and Itten tried to construct general theories on the subject. Albers was more humble. His book `Interaction of Color' was a set of thoughtful observations, as indeed was his whole body of work 'Homage to the Square'.

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