Wassily Kandinsky Quotes about Art

Wassily Kandinsky was a famous Russian expressionist and abstract artist. He is best known for his use of color and for being one the first artists to produce purely abstract paintings. Famous Wassily Kandinsky artworks include “The Blue Rider”, “Houses in Munich”, “Murnau, Train and Castle”, “Landscape with Factory Chimney”, “Squares with Concentric Circles”, “Yellow-Red-Blue”, “Circles in a Circle”, “Composition X”, “Black Strokes”, “Bleu de ciel (Sky Blue)”, “Delicate Tension” and “Blue Mountain”.

Mini biography: Born Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky on the 16th of December, 1866 in Moscow, Russia. His mother was Lidia Ticheeva and his father Vasily Silvestrovich Kandinsky was a tea merchant. Kandinsky married Anja Chimiakin in 1892 and they divorced in 1911. He married Nina Nikolaevna Andreevskaya in 1917 and they had one child who died as an infant: Wsevolod. The artist died on the 13th of December, 1944 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France at the age of 77. Wassily Kandinsky is buried at the Neuilly-sur-Seine New Communal Cemetery in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Departement des Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France.

List of Famous Wassily Kandinsky Art Quotes

Mystery, speaking through mysteries. Isn’t that meaning? Isn’t that the conscious or unconscious purpose of the compulsive urge to create? Wassily Kandinsky

Generally speaking, color is a power which directly influences the soul. Color 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. Wassily Kandinsky

An empty canvas is a living wonder – far lovelier than certain pictures. Wassily Kandinsky

The artist must be blind to ‘recognized’ and ‘unrecognized’ form, deaf to the teachings and desires of his time. His open eyes must be directed to his inner life and his ears must be constantly attuned to the voice of inner necessity. Wassily Kandinsky

The more freely abstract the form becomes, the purer, and also the more primitive it sounds. Therefore, 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 completely abstracted. Wassily Kandinsky

The horse carries the rider with power and speed. But the rider controls the horse. Talent carries the artist to great heights with power and speed. But the artist directs his talent. That is the element of ‘consciousness’, of ‘calculation’ in the work – or whatever else one chooses to call it. Wassily Kandinsky

An artist who sees that the imitation of natural appearances, however artistic, is not for him – the kind of creative artist who wants to, and has to express his own inner world – sees with envy how naturally and easily such goals can be attained in music, the least material of the arts today. Understandably, he may turn toward it and try to find the same means in his own art. Hence the current search for rhythm in painting. Wassily Kandinsky

Construction on a purely spiritual basis is a slow business, and at first seemingly blind and unmethodical. The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul, so that it can weigh colors in its own scale and thus become a determinant in artistic creation. If we begin at once to break the bonds that bind us to nature and to devote ourselves purely to combination of pure color and independent form, we shall produce works that are mere geometric decoration, resembling something like a necktie or a carpet. Wassily Kandinsky

At the appointed time, necessities become ripe. That is the time when the Creative Spirit (which one can also designate as the Abstract Spirit) finds an avenue to the soul, later to other souls, and causes a yearning, an inner urge. Wassily Kandinsky

Painting is a thundering conflict of different worlds, which in and out of the battle with one another are intended to create the new world, which is called the world of art. Each work arises technically in a way similar to that in which the cosmos arose – through catastrophes, which from the chaotic roaring of the instruments finally create a symphony, the music of the spheres. The creation of the work is the creation of worlds. Wassily Kandinsky

We can only assert here, with especial satisfaction, that Gabriele Münters talent, robust, rooted in an inward strength and sensitivity, in fact genuinely German, should in no circumstances be assessed as masculine, or as ‘quasi-masculine’. This talent – and we emphasize it, once more, with great satisfaction – can only be described as exclusively and purely feminine. Gabriele Münter doesn’t paint feminine subjects, she does not work with feminine materials, and does not permit herself any feminine coquetry. Their are neither raptures, nor agreeable exterior elegance, nor appealing weaknesses to be found here. Wassily Kandinsky

Art Quotes About Wassily Kandinsky

I have just been thinking that the Blaue Reiter does not really represent my work. I have always been convinced that other things of mine are more important. Narcissism, fake heroism, and blindness have a lot to answer for, in the ‘Blaue Reiter’. All those high-sounding words about the birth of a great spiritual moment still resounding in my ears. Kandinsky can air his personal opinion about that or any other revolution he cares to mention. But I dislike the whole thing. Take my advice – work, and don’t spent so much time thinking about blue riders or blue horses. August Macke Quotes

Wassily Kandinsky Abstract Painting

More on Famous Russian Painter Wassily Kandinsky

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Related or similar popular artists and celebrities include: Paul Klee ||| August Macke ||| Franz Marc ||| Piet Mondrian, and other Famous Russian Artists.