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. Kandinsky's provocative thoughts on color theory and the nature of art. Analysis of Picasso, Matisse, and earlier masters. 12 illustrations.
Paying homage to Wassily Kandinsky's influential book, On the Spiritual in Art, Robert Lipsey asserts that twentieth-century art embodies ''a stronger and wiser spirituality than we have fully acknowledged.'' ''We have unfinished work,'' writes Lipsey. The artists he chooses to study in this book were unable to complete a voyage toward a new art entirely contemporary and spiritually alive. Lipsey aims to distill the religious and philosophical concerns that preoccupied some of the twentieth-century's most gifted artists -- including Cézanne, Picasso, Mondrian, Klee, Kandinsky, Matisse, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Georgia O'Keeffe. Not only does Lipsey attempt a focused attention on the spiritual and psychological content of these artists, he also seeks to relate the visual language and ideas of one artist to another. He defines ''spiritual'' as a ''looking beyond or looking more deeply within'' and admits modern culture offers few cues to that end. Yet introspection or mere star-gazing is not enough. Every human being understands suffering and must contend with it. In responding to suffering there invariably comes a moment when we hear a message essentially the same: ''We live in ignorance and pain, but great and healing knowledge exists; we sleep and could awaken; we experience ourselves as isolated but could discover that we are participants in a large and grandly meaningful whole.'' The spiritual in art, says Lipsey, makes its contribution to ''the pilgrim's halting progress.'' It becomes a resource for those ''who look beyond, understand that there is work to do, and undertake it.''
Paying homage to Wassily Kandinsky's influential book, On the Spiritual in Art, Robert Lipsey asserts that twentieth-century art embodies ''a stronger and wiser spirituality than we have fully acknowledged.'' ''We have unfinished work,'' writes Lipsey. The artists he chooses to study in this book were unable to complete a voyage toward a new art entirely contemporary and spiritually alive. Lipsey aims to distill the religious and philosophical concerns that preoccupied some of the twentieth-century's most gifted artists -- including Cézanne, Picasso, Mondrian, Klee, Kandinsky, Matisse, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Georgia O'Keeffe. Not only does Lipsey attempt a focused attention on the spiritual and psychological content of these artists, he also seeks to relate the visual language and ideas of one artist to another. He defines ''spiritual'' as a ''looking beyond or looking more deeply within'' and admits modern culture offers few cues to that end. Yet introspection or mere star-gazing is not enough. Every human being understands suffering and must contend with it. In responding to suffering there invariably comes a moment when we hear a message essentially the same: ''We live in ignorance and pain, but great and healing knowledge exists; we sleep and could awaken; we experience ourselves as isolated but could discover that we are participants in a large and grandly meaningful whole.'' The spiritual in art, says Lipsey, makes its contribution to ''the pilgrim's halting progress.'' It becomes a resource for those ''who look beyond, understand that there is work to do, and undertake it.''
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