The Interartistic Concept in Kandinsky’s Paintings. The Image/Text problem.

Vassilena Kolarova

New Bulgarian University (Sofia)

1)  Text and image, both being of spiritual essence are closely related.  If we view them outside their classical forms, the traditional distinctions and categories are blurred. A close interartistic connection exists between the medium of text and the medium of image and it raises many questions in the fields of semiotics and theology. This interartistic connection makes the idea of the spiritual extremely problematic in the creative vision of Kandinsky. His paintings explore the relationship between verbal and non-verbal semiotics.

2) The ‘spiritual’ seems to be at the core of the interartistic relationship in the abstract art of Kandinsky. The emblematic presence of theoretical text and its artistic expression in the pictures of Kandinsky exacerbates the problem of the constant search for the overlap between text and image, architecture and picture, music and painting, literature and painting. Kandinsky is an artist whose spiritual meanderings were dedicated to elucidating the mystical questions surrounding art’s synthesis. This was the primary driving force behind his creative activity. The synthesis of art is inspired by the concept that the spiritual is the basic source of all arts. Therefore, all arts having the same “spiritual extraction”, the distinctions between arts are necessarily blurred. In “Concerning the spiritual in art” - December 1911, and “Point and line to plane” – 1933, this interartistic connection is explicitly explained. It illustrates the indissoluble link formed in his musing as a creator, which can be followed in the style of his paintings as well as in the artistic compositions he creates. It is in exactly this latter book that this aristocrat (if we refer to the numerous studies where Kandinsky is thus titled) presented his most prominent and most colossal sketch in order to draw attention to, and consequently create, his portrayal of his theory of abstract art. This is the reason to claim that it is Kandinsky who laid the foundations for and initiated us into the abstract art concept. At the same time, there were several stages which marked this beginning. These stages are related to his own life and the period in which he lived. The interartisticmanifestation of his concept of art’s synthesis is revealed in the foregoing studies as well as in his works in several branches of the arts.

The idea of the synthesis of art is at the core of “Der Blaue Reiter”¹ - a modern art movement founded in Munich in the period of 1911-1914 by Kandinsky together with the German painters Franz Marc, August Mac, Aleksei Jawlensky. From an esthetic point of view the new art movement is defined as standing between fauvism, abstraction, lyricism and primal spontaneity and expressionism. The first two exhibitions of 1911 and 1912 in the galleries Tannhauser and Goltz in Munich, in which Robert Delaunay and Paul Klee participated, remain legendary.

The Almanac was published in 1912 at the same time as “Concerning the spiritual in art” /December 1911/ and manifests the ideas of Kandinsky and Marc, making recommendations for all times and all kind of arts - elite as well as popular. On the other hand, the Almanac becomes a reference book for all those who are sensitive to the artistic activity of 20th century in general and have taken inspiration from the beauty of these art works. It is Kandinsky in person who makes the draft edition, draws the cover, writes and translates the greater part of the texts.  The main focus of the Almanac is to manifest the ideas of “Der Blaue Reiter”.

The core motif inculcated throughout the text is that of  the primacy of  “the Spiritual”  as “the root of all the arts”, “the interior life” as a guarantee of authenticity of all artistic activity: “… here and at the same time coming from several arts, each art, except for the fact that this general sounding will prove its own originality,  moreover by adding to the general interior sounding the richness and the power  which cannot  be achieved by one art on its own.”²  This concept is linked to the theological ideas of Kandinsky. The author renders the idea of the “deep relationship between the different arts…” and the “very deep root of all the arts …. And the entire spiritual sphere.” This idea is embodied in the revelation of Saint Paul:

12:4
Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit

12:5
And there are different ministries, but the same Lord;

12.6
And there are different results, but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.

12:7
To each person the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the benefit of all.

12:8
For one person is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, and another the message of knowledge according to the same Spirit;

12:9
to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit;

12:10
to another performance of miracles, to another prophecy, and to another discernment of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues.

12:11 It is one and the same Spirit, distributing as he decides to each person, who produces all these things.³

It is no mere coincidence that the theosophical attitude Kandinsky displays towards art allows the discernment of several theological references in “Concerning the spiritual in art” as well as in his  abstract canvases, “Cavaliers de l’Apocalypse” (1914), “Theme du Deluge et du Jugement dernier” (1913). Furthermore, his Compositions demonstrate the inseparable nature of the biblical thematic in Kandinsky’s works. The spiritual nuances created by the pure abstract style of the painting are achieved thanks to the non-representative capacities of the shapes and colors. From another point of view, if we regard the Word as text, the biblical parables exist as interior paintings (of the text), representing interartistic phenomena within the text of the Bible itself. The core idea is rendered by means of imagery as an allegory.  Thus several arts meet in the same place and at the same time albeit represented by text. The internal paintings are expressed as figurative elements⁴.  We would rather search for the abstract “content” which changes its face according to the particular point of view of the one looking at the painting. Sonesson⁵ refers to plastic language and tries to establish the autonomy of plastic language as being able to add something to iconic language.

Plastic language is apt to multiple transformations in both directions – form to content and content to form. In the field of painting one would not know which would be the real artistic reality at a given moment: literary or pictorial, or interpictorial (meeting of two different intertextual contents which refer to the same subject⁶). It depends on one’s interpretation of abstract painting. Wildgen refers to Composition VII (1913) which seems to recreate, in a schematic manner, Jesus and his disciples around the table, corresponding in this way to “The Last supper” of Leonardo de Vinci. We could continue to search for the origin of the plot which evolves from books and particularly the Bible, describing the real supper of disciples with Jesus. Therefore, crossing the strict artistic boundaries, one comes to the interartistic periphery of the phenomenon searching for the global form of the complex structure which links the different artistic elements.⁷

Hjelmslev⁸ rewords the formula of the ‘saussurian sign’ in order to explain the relationship between arts and media.  In his theory the “signifier” of the first system becomes “signifier” of the latter, something which entails “constant return forth and back”. If we imagine the “displacement” of the form and the content of the systems, depending on the art /medium/ we mean which is not distinct but enmeshed in other arts in a never-ending web.   

3) In their essence and origin the works of Kandinsky are interartistic⁹.  In Murnau where he lived from 1908 to 1909 the “objects lose their insistence” which served as pretext  for his use of increasing amounts of paint on his canvases. Thus the internal expression takes over the descriptive elements. This technique reinforces the plastic elements and the freedom from conventional patterns. In 1909 for the theatrical composition “The yellow sonority”¹⁰ Kandinsky applied the special effects of changing lighting. The work was published in the Almanac of “Der Blaue Reiter” in 1912 and was written and created in collaboration with the composer Alexander Skriabin.  This work is considered seminal and prophetic because certain scenic effects in it presage sensations from his first abstract canvases from the period of 1910-1913 and namely the works from 1909 “The green sonority“ and “Black and white”, unedited. The sense of color in Kandinsky is extremely profound, which is evident in his autobiography from his youth years. As if the colors in his painting sparkle at certain moments. The presence of one unique color, uncombined with others, is sufficient to plunge us into the infinity of its universe. Primary or complementary, the colors match or contrast with each other. Many of his paintings bear the names of colors: “Luminocity” 1927,  “Green Tissue” 1933,  “Painting with Three Spots” 1914  in red, green, blue where the figurative elements are still present, "Blue Arch (Ridge)" 1917, ”Development in Brown” 1933,  the latter he painted in Germany. The colours enter interartistic relationships with the musical tones in the paintings.¹¹ The paintings of Kandinsky comprise musical elements in different ways: “Maundering Sounds” 1930 refers to music in their titles while others are reminiscent of literary works like “Poemes sans paroles”, “Romances sans paroles” by Verlaine which are related to music. Some of these works belong to different arts and even have interartistic titles, comprising, in polyphonic manner, several arts: “sonority (music) yellow (painting), the poetic magazine “Klange”¹² (poetry-music).

A great number of book editions publish some of his graphic works: in Moscow he released an album with twenty wood carvings, entitled “Poemes sans paroles” (1904), /“Poems without words“/ and in 1906 again released “Xylographies” (wood carvings). In 1913 his poetic revue of poems in prose “Sonorities” (“Klange”) appeared, whose illustrations  represent fifty five wood carvings in black and white as well as in colour. In 1922 the painter published“Kleine Welten” in Berlin, twelve lithographies and wood carvings. In 1934 the poetic revue of Rene Char “Le marteau sans maitre”, as well as that of Tristan Tzara « La Main passe »  from 1935, are illustrated by Kandinsky.  He made a ‘decor’ for the mise-en-scene of Moussorgski’s play “Tableaux d’une exposition”¹³ in Dessau in 1928 (combination of painting-music-painting-architecture-theatre). Thus one achieves interartistic palimpsest (interpictural, intermusical…). The painter also created the decor for “Music hall”, produced in 1931 at the international exposition of architecture in Berlin, later re-established in Paris. But his most eminent success in his ambition to integrate painting and architecture remains his work on the project for preparation of the Jurifrei hall in Berlin.   When you are inside the constructions elaborated by Kandinsky in the hall you feel as though you are walking in the painting itself.. Thus the interartistic sonority sends reverberations through the paintings themselves as well as in the polyphonic chant of arts as a whole. The artistic idea of the hall was founded in 1919, when the architect Gropius gathered sculptors, painters, architects, decorators, directors in order to make them feel the idea of the synthesis of arts in a polyphonic manner.

On the common spiritual grounds of the arts arises the issue of transfiguration of word in image (the semiotic chaos¹⁴) and more generally transformations in the arts, the correspondence between the different types of signs at a semiotic level.  The meeting of arts at a certain moment and at a certain place is a self-evident proof of the bond which holds different arts together within a semiotic system. The similarities between the different verbal and non-verbal semiotic systems are expressed through their correspondences. According to Benveniste¹⁵, language as a means of communication may be used for all cultural events. Uspensky¹⁶ states that the picture could be viewed as a universal language, which makes communication possible, and which is interchangeable with words. In the church if the language of prayer is unclear, the icons replace the language of the priest.

The dichotomy of ‘The Creator’ – ‘a creator’ is very important and since God created man, they are interconnected by a common spiritual source. And like God, the man of art, who is a creator himself, tries to clear his artistic field of figurative /abstract/ elements  in order to come out with a work corresponding to his inner nature, which is again spiritual, hence the interconnection in the dichotomy¹⁷. Different forms of art influenced each other in different historic periods, until each of them “cleared” itself of the influence of the other up to the 19th century.  Before and after that, interartistic phenomena have existed (i.e. in existentialists’ works, due to the theory of correspondence between colors and sounds), and in both cases this is based on the Spirit, which combines them, “… since soul and Art are related to each other in interaction and mutual development.”¹⁸

Kandinsky is not only the founder of abstract art, but also its emblematic figure. He is one of the first artists who re-discovered the interdisciplinary horizon. Although painting was the most important part of his creative world, Kandinsky always paid great attention to music, theatre, even to the academically remote world of science.¹⁹ In “Point and Line to Plane”, he drew a parallel between arts considering the application of the two elements.²⁰ But unlike many other artists, he did not do any sculpture.  It is possible that he avoided sculpture in order to evade figurativity.

Kandisky said that whenever he started painting a blurry picture came to mind from his childhood in Moscow. He embodied that picture in a painting dedicated to the great Russian city. He admits that he couldn’t get rid of this picture and always painted the same vision. As an adolescent Kandisnky only painted, but also played the piano and cello. Probably, this “combined disunion” of art led to the insight that each color has its own melody. This concept was theorized in his chapter on language of shapes and colors²¹, and at the same time expressed in his abstract paintings, where visual and musical images were combined beyond the limits of time. Here he developed his idea of the inner necessity. The inner necessity principle sets the shape of his compositions. Each element, color and line in them is brought by the inner necessity and the spiritual concept thereof. Thus, the picture’s spirit touches the spectator and the aim is to establish a high spiritual connection between them. For example, an abstract geometric figure such as the triangle has its specific spiritual perfume. Put next to other figures, this perfume distinguishes itself from them and develops without changing its nature “…as the fragrance of the rose, which can never be mixed with the smell of a violet”. Thus, Kandinsky’s various compositions are combinations of shapes and colors, which give them an inner uniqueness depending on the mixture of elements. The most important thing is the effect of these pictures on the human soul. Kandinsky made classifications of the colors according to the inner sound of each color and the way it influences the soul of the spectator.    Certain shapes emphasize the value of a color, whereas others reduce it: “the “sharp” colors enhance their sound with a sharp-pointed shape (e.g. yellow in a triangle).

The effect of the colors with the tendency to go deeper is enhanced by oval shapes (e.g. blue in a circle) … non-conformity between the shape and the color cannot be considered “disharmony”, on the contrary, it is a new opportunity, hence it is a harmony”. Yellow is a typical earth color, it expresses “blind madness”. Blue has a tendency to deepen, which gets stronger in the dark tones: “The darker and the deeper blue gets, the more it calls man to infinity, making him long for the pure, and finally the ultimately sensitive”²². Blue is “the typical sky color…If we have to find its musical counterpart (Kandinsky points out the special closeness between painting and music, which has direct access to the human soul), the lighter shade is closer to the flute, and the darker one to the cello..., and going lower – to the marvelous sounds of the contrabass; in their deep and solemn form, the sounds of blue can be compared to the low tones²³ of the organ.”²⁴. In the amalgamation between yellow and blue, which interact intensely, if the yellow prevails, green is joyful and youthful, and when saturated with blue, it creates the impression of thoughtfulness. Green neutralizes their cold and warm power and becomes neutral in its balance. Musically, it sounds like a violin. Red is a very vivid, calm color, which, unlike yellow, does not get wasted and burns in itself. Saturn red expresses “energy, rush, determination, joy, triumph.” ²⁵(p. 87). It resembles the sound of fanfares. Cinnabar is a balanced burning passion, a self-confident power. Its sounds loud as a drum. Cold red is deep and creates the impression of a new flame. It is gliding like a cello. Orange is muffled by red yellow, radiating seriousness. And purple is painful and sad. It sounds dull as a bassoon. White and black are defined as non-colors, and musically, as silence. The colors in Kandinsky’s paintings gradate in unique tunes, they radiate sublime spiritual aureoles.

        Colors in Kandinsky’s canvasses turn into various interartistic melodies - resplendent and sublime. Like painting, which can contain many versions of the interartistic phenomenon, the text also abounds in configurations. They are expressed in conformity with the type of art entering in dialogue. Nevertheless there are some common rules characterizing interartistic phenomena:

• One kind of art can bring to life another art – music influences the creative process of Kandinsky’s paintings, the decision of Sartre’s character from “Nausea” to write a novel, or the composition of Andre Gide’s work.
• Certain term may have an interartistic extraction or character – e.g. allegory in the biblical parables has figurative elements in the text, or from Poussin’s “Inspiration of the Poet”²⁶, where Apollo allegorizes painting. Some of Kandinsky’s pictures on biblical themes “allegorize” the spiritual, which dominates his works.
• Certain kinds of art may concentrate different art in various ways – Kandinsky’s compositions could be considered as containing figurative elements (literature), when we have a close look at the image and the non-figurative elements (music, paining), where only colors are seen. A literary text could contain hidden external pictures (Claude Simon – Poussin’s “Blind Orion”, or Boticelli’s paintings recreated in Montaigne’s poems) of an artist, or inner ones, when the text itself paints and creates images (Hugo).
• There are various manifestations of the interartistic phenomenon – interpicturality, intermusicality …If in “Inspiration of the Poet”, Apollo is an allegory of art or painting, he is an interpictural element (painting in the painting); an example of intermusicality is the polyphony of the various types of discourse which interact in the parody (per its origin²⁷) sounding of Nausea.  The jazz melody repeats the text of Nausea both as a text and a song.

The seventh composition of Kandinsky contains the theme of the polyphony, as well as intensity of colors. Compared to the other compositions, it is both interpictural and intermusical.

We have different configurations of media in the field of painting. It is about the sensation provoked by the collision of two or more arts – an idea expressed by Plato in Cratyle (text-image), and by Immanuel Kant in Critique of (Practical) Reason²⁸. The interartistic phenomenon is explained in the analysis of Cassirer who examines the relationship between arts, science and language: “…Historically, religion and art are so close and interfere to such a large extent that even today they are inseparable.” ²⁹ If we generalize the various links between the studied elements we shall come to the opinion of Wildgen: “A common ground exists, because of which even in the absence of direct influence, Purse and Cassirer pursue the same objective and start from the same ground. For Cassirer the work of Kant represents the basis of their epistemology” ³⁰

The interartistic phenomenon differs from intertextuality because it concerns only the arts. The latter is incorporated in each fibre of the literary text, where arts interfere directly or indirectly in search of the interartistic structure.



The colors and the imagery in Kandinsky’s works are studied in Miroslav Dachev’s book “Semiotics of Color in Poetic Text”³¹, as well as his further studies “Word and image”³². Dachev focuses on the problem of the picture in the text and discusses the interdisciplinary issue. Despite the fact that interartistic interference exists Dachev says that we have to establish a boundary between the artistic field of the semiotics of painting and the field of the semiotics of literary text: “One thing is certain: neither semiology of sounds, nor that of colors or images could be expressed through sounds, colors and images” (Benvenist). Miroslav Dachev discusses the synthesis between verbal and nonverbal semiotics and seeks another language in the analysis of poetic texts. All Kandinsky’s works were dedicated to the search for a dialogue between the arts. But while Kandinsky derived common rules from the synthesis of arts, Dachev goes further into the differences between various arts. Thus, there are two views on color in literature and in painting. The spectrum of the semiotic vision of art is completed. The color is not present in the literary text as signifier, whereas in the picture it is. Unlike the colors in painting, the colors in the literary text are deprived of their psycho-physiological effect.

      Semiotics of color in the poetic text is considered to generate meaning as a suggestive power. Thus, colorema and the connotative idea are created in order to explain certain meaning. The symbolism of the color is different, its visual presence is not as important as its suggestion, although it also exists. This brings up the issue: could color be translated into words? What are the rules of literature as art, and what are the rules of painting as art? Are their artistic fields overlapping? How art does translate the idea of color using its expressive skills? Insisting on the idea of color in terms of painting, without playing down the importance of either of the arts, M. Dachev gives the essence of this discord: “… words meaning color. Building bridges to the world of colors and their iconic symbols, but at the same time undermining these bridges in their isolation as words.”³³. Dachev gives an example with “white” in Sirak Skitnik’s work “Blagovest” and Kandinsky’s painting “White Stroke”. The symbolism of white appears with its momentary inner necessity in the respective picture as iconic presence. It is polyvalent with its meaning in other pictures. On the contrary the symbolism in the literary text, which is absent with its symbolic meaning, expresses vagueness. It is modeled both as color and as word. Dachev mentions some interesting differences between painting and literature. He gives examples with Tintoretto’s picture analyzed by Sartre in “Situations”, stating that in painting the color can have both iconic and symbolic value, but in literature the painting is different, even though the color may have the same values. Therefore languages of art may be translated but there is a strict difference between them. They combine and diverge in the same time. They combine interartistically (interpicturally, intermusically) both in the picture and in the literary text because the picture could be a text, and the text could be a painting, where they overlap. As per this example, in painting a picture may be interartistic (if considered both as text and picture), but it could be interpictorial, if considered both ways. When a spectator looks into Kandinsky’s compositions they appear to have two faces – once as abstractions and a second time as drawn images. The same applies in literature.

In his “Essais” Montaigne makes a comparison between a text being written and a painter’s work. Montaigne quotes a text from a book which represents a pictorial image. The relations between the two texts are at once intertextual and at the same time interartistic, if one is perceived as literature, and the second as painting and vice versa. At the same time, the relationships between them could be intertextual, as well as interpictorial, if the outer picture, quoted in the text, and the pictorial inner text are matched as pictures.

4) The grounds on which Kandinsky discovered abstract art are of interartistic and theological nature.

a) In 1895, Kandinsky visited the “Exhibitions of French Impressionists” in Moscow. He was mostly impressed by one painting by Monet from the set: “Haystacks”. He felt that the lack of plot in the composition could not get out of his mind. As he mentioned in his autobiography “A Look into the Past” (which has two versions, the first of which was dated 1913)  the powers of the pictures which he saw in the realistic art, was not in the presence of the subject, but in the exalting feeling created by the colors and their radiance.

b) The other major event which influenced Kandinsky was the performance of the opera Loengrin, written by another great champion of the synthesis of arts, Wagner. The German composer saw the work of art as a combination of all artistic activities. When Kandinsky watched pictures, he heard music, and now when he heard the music of Wagner he was infatuated with splendid patterns of colors and lines, pictures, whose spiritual outlines gradated from music into color. Kandinsky is able to capture the inner timbre of Debussy and Musorgsky, who would play a determining role in his professional development. Later, the atonal studies of Arnold Schonberg in music will correspond to the idea of ‘abstraction’ in painting. Schonberg’s innovations contributed greatly to the future of musical researches. The composer made transformations by denying the thematic recurrence in the musical composition, and put the emphasis on developing variation with permanent evolution of the musical elements.

These new composition structures led him to free chromatics which underlines the non-harmonic tones and dissonance emancipation. This is a major characteristic feature of tonal music. These permanent thematic transformations, which substitute the repetition of melody stereotypes, give his works original psychological depth. They can be compared with the fundamental transformation in Kandinsky’s painting from figurative approach to the free expressive abstract work. These interartistic influences on Kandinsky are important for the understanding of his first seven compositions before the First World War. Kandinsky sought a free chromatic field, presented best in Composition VII, where the abundant patterns of polyphonic themes create spatial and compositional ambiguities, visual beauty and emotional effect. Compositions VI and VII may be compared to the dissonances used by Schonberg. In “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”, the painter used a musical metaphor to describe the “vague” construction of shape and color evoking vital feelings in the works of art.

• The third event which had a significant influence on the development of Kandinsky was a scientific discovery in physics – the structure of the atom. The splitting of the atom totally changed Kandinsky’s concept of the world. Nothing seemed certain any more. The material foundations were shattered by a spiritual attitude to the understanding of the outer world. These facts started the fusion of the object in painting. The material aspect was not so important. Moreover, the artist himself tended to create a world in his works.

REVELATION

If the ‘world’ is a book, it could also be a picture. The microcosm of Genesis and the creative power of art combined together in the image which gave Kandinsky the insight of abstract painting in 1908, in Munich: “It was getting dark outside. I got home with my paint box after a sketch, still dreaming and thinking of the work I had just done, when I suddenly saw a picture of unspeakable beauty, full of great inner energy. At first I stayed motionless, then I headed straight to this strange picture, of which I saw only shapes and colors and whose plot was unclear. Suddenly I solved the mystery: it was one of my pictures, which was hanging on the wall upside down. On the next day I tried to feel the same excitement from the picture as I had the previous night. But it was only partial: even upside down I could make out the objects; the subtle light of the sunset was missing. Now I knew for certain that the object spoiled my pictures³⁴.

The idea of the abstraction developed gradually in Kandinsky’s spiritual world. His painting went through many stages meandering between abstraction and figurativeness, before and after the creation of his first abstract work in 1910.  The date of its painting is still a subject of discussion. Kandinsky said that he painted his first abstract picture in 1911. Is it so because this is watercolor painting /aquarelle/ - minor genre and not an oil painting or because this initial phase has not completed the abstraction a final touch? If we consider Kandinsky’s further works, we shall see that we have to wait until 1912, where themes close to the ones in the watercolor appear, and then until 1913, if we want to find a real match, especially the pictures preparing the cycle for “Composition VII”. Watercolors “With Red Spot” of 1911 is close to the one of 1910. Some extracts from “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” discuss pure abstraction. Apparently, at the time of creating of the picture /1910/, Kandinsky had not taken “the other side” yet.  Being so meticulous Kandinsky thought that there was still a long way to go until pure abstraction could be reached.

Kandinsky started his career as a painter with impressions depicting nature (until 1910). These works reveal more or less expressionistic, fauvistic, impressionistic and cubic influences, which appeared in his works, even after he had actually discovered the full abstraction. /”Sluice”, 1901, “Meeting”, 1903, “Evening”, 1904 – 1905, “Murnau – Obermarkt”, “Blue Mountain”, 1908 – 1909, “Archer”, 1908/. In 1911 he created six impressions in total, where the influence of outer nature is still direct. The improvisations, which he would make until 1921, are marked by the unconscious and spontaneity. Thirty-five of them were dated 1909. They are Kandinsky’s first step in the direction of free form and abstraction.

INTERMUSICAL AND INTERPICTORIAL INTERFERENCES OF THE COMPOSITIONS

       The compositions express the certain inner states. They were elaborated very slowly and meticulously between 1910 and 1936. They marked the culmination point in his creation of pure abstract art. The painter tried to establish spiritual communication between the spectator and the artist through pure spiritual forms, which, according to him, were the most important thing for each work of art. Form was regarded as a gift of the spiritual. The term “composition”³⁵ has an interartistic link with the musical term. Kandinsky was infatuated with the emotional power of music. Music is expressed in time by a sound, which allows the listener to free his imagination.  Only the abstract picture could have such an effect. The presentation of the visual world cannot give a similar feeling. Music responds directly to the appeal of the “inner sounding” which pounds from within. The desire to bring painting close to the purity of music possibly led to the search for “time” perception of the picture. We will consider some of Kandinsky’s ten³⁶ emblematic compositions. The first three were lost during the Second World War.

        In Composition IV (1911), the emotional influence of the shapes and colors is very important. The seeming abstraction is an illusion. If we take a closer look, we shall see three Cossacks in red hats (the two lines dividing the picture are their spears) against the background of a blue mountain. The image is brought down to descriptive signs, in order to be expressed from a cosmic point of view. Deciphering these signs is the way to understand the theme of the work. The picture shows the apocalyptic battle, which will end in eternal peace. In this sense, the white figure could be interpreted as a dove with spread wings, symbolizing spiritual rising and serenity after order has been established.

Composition VI (1913) has a few centers, which are gradually distinguished. They interpret the theme of the Flood through collision of misbalanced shapes and colors enhancing the tension in the chaos. The numerous lines on the right represent torrential rain underlying  the feeling of a storm. The whirlwind of incompatible shapes expressing crashing waves in a heavy storm could be interpreted metaphorically – something which introduces us into the interartisitc movement between picture /text/ and colors and shapes /painting/. Here Kandinsky went far ahead reaching the boundary of the abstraction.

Composition VII (1913) might seem to be his greatest creative achievement before the First World War. He made thirty preparatory paintings in watercolors and oil. Each of them was included in the exhibition documentation, in order to show Kandinsky’s creation process. He made the picture itself in less than four days. Judging by the previous pictures, the central motif is an oval shape crossed by an irregular tetragon. This oval is a hurricane surrounded by tempestuous masses of colors and shapes. It is important to note that in the last variant of this composition Kandinsky removed all artistic images. The preparatory pictures preceding it combined the themes of the resurrection, doomsday, end of the world, garden of love.

Composition VIII (1923) reveals the influence of suprematism and konstructivism that were still active during his stay in Russia. Here Kandinsky moved from color to shape to make it a dominating composition element. The dynamic of the work is created by the contrasting shapes. Kandinsky used various colors within the shapes to represent the hidden energy of their geometry: yellow circle with a blue aureole against a blue circle with yellow aureole. The colors were laid one on the other to enhance the sense of depth: shining light, sky blue and white. Here the concept of synthesis of arts is expressed strongly through the match of color, sound, line, even temperature sensations. Since different colors correspond to the different angle formed by lines, yellow corresponds to the acute angle, and the obtuse one is blue.

In Composition IX (1933), we can discover a certain influence of surrealism, although Kandinsky denied that he was ever really attracted by its aesthetics. He produced only one preparatory picture because at this later stage he could already imagine his works without making any sketches. Here the sense of shapes is decorative. Wide diagonal bands of color are the backdrop to the geometric figures creating a drowsy effect.

Kandinsky, Compositions (1911-1933)



Composition IV, 1911

Oil on canvas,

159.5 x 250.5 сm (62 7/8 x 98 5/8 )

Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfallen,

Dusseldorf

Composition VI, Apocalypse,1913

Oil on canvas,

194,9 х 300 см

Hermitage Museum, Sankt Petersburg

Composition VII, 1913

Oil on canvas,

200 x 300 cm (6' 6 3/4" x 9' 11 1/8");

Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Composition VIII, 1923

Oil on canvas,

140 х 200,1 см

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,

New York

Composition IX, 1936

Oil on canvas,

113.5 x 195 cm (44 5/8 x 76 3/4 )

National Museum of  Modern Art

Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

The complex dialectic relation of the ‘inside – outside’ issue appears in all Kandinsky’s works, despite the drawn line, which elucidates the abstraction more and more. For example, “Picture with Three Spots” (1914) contains elements that resemble figurativeness. In Kandinsky’s semiotics, the constant changing and blurring of the line between the signified and the signifier makes the vision indistinguishable and turns it into a temporary whim. It is difficult to tell if the spot is a horseman in a helmet, or whether it is the other way around. Kandinsky noted that in this ambiguity it was rather the horseman resembling a picture. The horseman was painted abstractly, i.e. unintentionally. And it is easy for us to interpret him as an ear, larva or a loaf of bread. The abstract and specific concepts coincide in the symbol dictated by intuition. When perceiving it the symbol transmutes from passive to active and turns into an aesthetic whole, reflecting the act of creation. It gives a new structure to the artistic fact.

According to Kandinsky, the ‘inner necessity’ is the main principle which should lead creation, otherwise images just mimetically copy nature³⁷ /”Concerning the Spiritual in Art”, The language of shapes and colors, page 69/. The artists of the new movement thought that this imitation lacked originality in spiritual expression, since the painting of an object, although being a spiritual phenomenon, still could not bear full resemblance to the original.

It is interesting that Kandinsky searched for a spiritual relation between nature and art, and considered them to have the same parallel origins: “The process of creation is the same in art and nature. They both create their works identically”³⁸ /“Point and Line to Plane”, page 98/. The concepts of the inner and the outer are two principles of nature and art like parallelism and contract in abstract art. Each color and shape combines a unity of inner and outer, material and spiritual. These ideas are a part of the theory of correspondences, which gave interartistic³⁹  touch to his concept of abstract painting.

The interartistic interferences appear in Kandinsky’s paintings at macro and micro levels. We discover them in the entire scope of his interdisciplinary works, in his pictures and theory. They constitute the most original and impressive idea in his concept of art.

References