Wassily Kandinsky: Concerning the Spiritual in Art

A handy new edition of Kandinsky’s essay that influenced the development and codification of abstract painting

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) had a profound impact on European Modernism both with respect to art and to art theory. As founder of Der Blaue Reiter—a group including such Expressionist artists as Franz Marc and Gabriele Münter—Kandinsky was responsible for most of the writing in the group’s publication, The Blue Rider Almanac. Chief among these treatises was Concerning the Spiritual in Art, originally published in 1910. Kandinsky defended abstraction in visual art and made the case that all art forms could achieve a level of spirituality. Furthermore, he argued for the importance of color as both a compositional and psychological tool in painting. The ultimate goal for the artist, however, was to find “the principle of innermost necessity” that resulted in spiritual elevation, the “vibration of the human soul.” A seminal treatise on Modernism from one of its key proponents, Concerning the Spiritual in Art is a must-have for any student or admirer of 20th-century art history.