Top 101 Quotes & Sayings by Wassily Kandinsky
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky.
Last updated on December 21, 2024.
To create a work of art is to create the world.
A painter, who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, however artistic, in his longing to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non-material of the arts today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply the methods of music to his own art.
The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul.
The sound of colors is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would express bright yellow with base notes, or dark lake with the treble.
The spirit, like the body, can be strengthened and developed by frequent exercise. Just as the body, if neglected, grows weaker and finally impotent, so the spirit perishes if untended.
Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting, and... stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to 'walk about' into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?
Everything starts from a dot.
Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.
With few exceptions, music has been for some centuries the art which has devoted itself not to the reproduction of natural phenomena, but rather to the expression of the artist's soul, in musical sound.
Color is a power which directly influences the soul.
An empty canvas is a living wonder... far lovelier than certain pictures.
How can German music not be represented by an article?
The nightmare of materialism, which has turned the life of the universe into an evil, useless game, is not yet past; it holds the awakening soul still in its grip.
There is no must in art because art is free.
Each color lives by its mysterious life.
Every work of art is the child of its age and, in many cases, the mother of our emotions. It follows that each period of culture produces an art of its own which can never be repeated.
Our epoch is a time of tragic collision between matter and spirit and of the downfall of the purely material world view.
The deeper the blue becomes, the more strongly it calls man towards the infinite, awakening in him a desire for the pure and, finally, for the supernatural... The brighter it becomes, the more it loses its sound, until it turns into silent stillness and becomes white.
Color cannot stand alone.
With cold eyes and indifferent mind the spectators regard the work. Connoissers admire the "skill" (as one admires a tightrope walker), enjoy the "quality of painting" (as one enjoys a pasty). But hungry souls go hungry away. The vulgar herd stroll through the rooms and pronounce the pictures "nice" or "splendid." Those who could speak have said nothing, those who could hear have heard nothing.
That is beautiful which is produced by the inner need, which springs from the soul.
In the hierarchy of colors, green represents the social middle class, self-satisfied, immovable, narrow.
The joy of life consists in the inevitable, continual triumph of new values.
Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for colors, and that you be a true poet. This last is essential.
The sound of colors is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would express bright yellow with bass notes or dark lake with treble.
The more abstract is form, the more clear and direct its appeal.
The work of art is born of the artist in a mysterious and secret way. From him it gains life and being. Nor is its existence casual and inconsequent, but it has a definite and purposeful strength, alike in its material and spiritual life.
Orange is red brought nearer to humanity by yellow.
I applied streaks and blobs of colors onto the canvas with a palette knife, and I made them sing with all the intensity I could.
Color is the keyboard. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano, with its many strings.
The word compositon moved me spiritually and I made it my aim in life to paint a composition. It affected me like a prayer and filled me with awe.
Abstract art places a new world, which on the surface has nothing to do with 'reality,' next to the 'real' world.
Art is not vague production, transitory and isolated, but a power which must be directed to the improvement and refinement of the human soul.
The deeper the blue becomes, the more strongly it calls man towards the infinite, awakening in him a desire for the pure and, finally, for the supernatural The brighter it becomes, the more it loses its sound, until it turns into silent stillness and becomes white.
Color transmits and translates emotion.
The circle is the synthesis of the greatest oppositions. It combines the concentric and the eccentric in a single form and in equilibrium. Of the three primary forms, it points most clearly to the fourth dimension.
The observer must learn to look at the picture as a graphic representation of a mood and not as a representation of objects.
Only just now awakening after years of materialism, our soul is still infected with the despair born of unbelief, of lack of purpose and aim.
Everything that is dead quivers. Not only the things of poetry, stars, moon, wood, flowers, but even a white trouser button glittering out of a puddle in the street... Everything has a secret soul, which is silent more often than it speaks.
Color is a means to exert a direct influence on the soul.
As a picture painted in yellow always radiates spiritual warmth, or as one in blue has apparently a cooling effect, so green is only boring.
The artist is the hand that, by touching this or that key, sets the soul vibrating automatically.
All methods are sacred if they are internally necessary. All methods are sins if they are not justified by internal necessity.
It is essential that the painter should develop not only his eyes, but also his soul, so that it too may be capable of weighing colors in balance.
The force that propels the human spirit on the clear way forward and upward is the abstract spirit.
I really believe that I am the first and only artist to throw not just the 'subject' out of my paintings, but every 'object' as well.
An empty canvas is a living wonder - far lovelier than certain pictures.
The composition is the organized sum of the interior functions of every part of the work.
The true work of art is born from the 'artist': a mysterious, enigmatic, and mystical creation. It detaches itself from him, it acquires an autonomous life, becomes a personality, an independent subject, animated with a spiritual breath, the living subject of a real existence of being.
Color provokes a psychic vibration. Color hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body.
… lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting, and … stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to “walk about” into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?
The eyes are hammers.
Objects damage pictures.
In every painting a whole is mysteriously enclosed, a whole life of tortures, doubts, of hours of enthusiasm and inspiration.
Almost without exception, blue refers to the domain of abstraction and immateriality.
In general, therefore, color is a means of exerting a direct influence upon the soul. Color is the keyboard. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano with its many strings. The artist is the hand that purposefully sets the soul vibrating by means of this or that key.
I value those artists who embody the expression of their life.
Colour is a power which directly influences the soul.
The artist must have something to say, for mastery over form is not his goal but rather the adapting of form to its inner meaning.
Empty canvas. In appearance - really empty, silent, indifferent. Stunned, almost. In effect - full of tensions, with thousand subdued voices, heavy with expectations. A little frightened because it may be violated
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