n painter
and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract
works. Born in Moscow
, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa
. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law
and economics
. Successful in his profession—he was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law
) at the University of Dorpat
—he began painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30.
In 1896 Kandinsky settled in Munich
, studying first at Anton Ažbe
's private school and then at the Academy of Fine Arts
.
But, as well as the body, the spirit fortifies itself and develops itself by the exercise. As a neglected body which becomes weak and finally impotent, the spirit becomes weaker. The innate feeling of the artist is like the talent of the Gospel which must not be buried. The artist which lets its gifts unemployed is the lazy servant.
Painting is an art, and the art in its whole is not a vain objets creation which get lost in the void, but a power which has a goal and must serve to the evolution and to the refinement of the human soul, to the moving of the Triangle. It is the language which speaks to the soul, in its proper form, of things which are the daily bread of the soul and which it can receive only under this form.
The artist must train not only his eye, but his soul
the artist must have something to say, mastery over form is not his goal but adaption of form to its inner meaning.
In a composition in which corporeal elements are more or less superfluous, they can be more or less omitted and replaced by purely abstract forms, or by corporeal forms that have been completed abstracted. (on making abstraction, 1912)
Is beautiful what proceeds from an inner necessity of the soul. Is beautiful what is inwardly beautiful.
Colour is a power which directly influences the soul.Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammer, the soul is the strings.The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.
Every phenomenon can be experienced in two ways. These two ways are not arbitrary, but are bound up with the phenomenon – developing out of its nature and characteristics : Externally – or – inwardly.
The geometric point is an invisible thing. Therefore, it must be defined as an incorporeal thing. Considered in terms of substance, it equals zero. […] Thus we look upon the geometric point as the ultimate and most singular union of silence and speech. The geometric point has, therefore, been given its material form, in the first instance, in writing. It belongs to language and signifies silence.