On Spirituality in Art

Wassily Kandinsky


Our soul rings cracked when we seek to play upon it, as does a costly vase, long buried in the earth, found to have a flaw when it is dug up once more.


He sees and points the way. The power to do this he would sometimes fain lay aside, for it is a bitter cross to bear. But he cannot do so. Scorned and hated, he drags after him over the stones the heavy chariot of a divided humanity, ever forwards and upwards.


At the apex of the top segment stands often one man, and only one. His joyful vision cloaks a vast sorrow. Even those who are nearest to him in sympathy do not understand him. Angrily they abuse him as a charlatan or madman. So in his lifetime stood Beethoven, solitary and insulted.


"Every combination of notes, every advance is possible, but I am beginning to feel that there are also definite rules and conditions which incline me to the use of this or that dissonance." (Schoenberg, _Harmonielehre_)


His music leads us into a realm where musical experience is a matter not of the ear but of the soul alone -- and from this point begins the music of the future.


The harmony of the new art demands a more subtle construction than this, something that appeals less to the eye and more to the soul. This 'concealed construction' may arise from an apparently fortuitous selection of forms on the canvas. Their external lack of cohesion is their internal harmony. Their fundamental relationship will finally be able to be expressed in mathematical form, but in terms irregular rather than regular.