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Wassily Kandinsky Quotes
1866–1944 Russia
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (December 4 or 16, 1866 - December 13, 1944) — was a Russian painter and art theorist and one of the leading figures in Blaue Reiter. One of the most important 20th-century artists, he is credited with painting the first modern abstract art works.
Russia Academics Educators Painters Also known as: Kandinsky, Kandinsky, Wassily
Random Wassily Kandinsky quote
27 quotes
..the long Russian word for creation: 'proisvedenie' - so different from its shorter counterparts in English, French and German - expresses for me the whole history and process of creation, lengthy, mysterious, infinitely complex and foreshadowed by divine predestination.
Content is nothing but the sum of organized tensions. From this point of view one can discover the basic identity of the rules of composition in all arts – always accepting that the arts can only represent their object materially by means of organised reactions.. ..already today one can safely assume that the roots of laws of composition are the same for art as they are for nature.
Well, we will indeed see how things develop and what will become of our art! In any case, artists should remain apolitical and only think of their work and dedicate all their energies to this work.
The destruction of the atom [the split of it, in modern physics] seemed to me to be the same as the destruction of the world.. ..science to me appeared to be dead: its most important basis was only a lunacy, a mistake perpetrated by learned men.. ..who blindly mistook one object for another.
The first colours which made a strong impression on me were light juice green, white, crimson red, black and yellow ocher. These memories go back to the third year of my life. I saw these colours on various objects [houses and roofs, in Russia] which are not as clear in my mind as the colours themselves.
At that time [c. 1904 – 1905] I tried, by means of lines and by distribution of mottled points of colours [in his tempera painting on paper: 'Russian Beauty in a Landscape', 1905] to express the musical spirit of Russia. Other pictures of that period reflected the contradictions and later the eccentricities of Russia.
In your composer Schönberg's works, you have realized what I, albeit in uncertain form, have so greatly longed for in music. The independent progress through their own destinies, the independent life of the individual voices in your compositions, is exactly what I am trying to find in my painting.