Wassily Kandinsky

Visual Arts Russian 1866 – 1944 342 quotes

Pioneer of abstract art

Most quoted

"The artist must be blind to 'recognized' or 'unrecognized' form, deaf to the teachings of his time or the desires of his public. His open eyes must be directed to his inner life and his ears to the voice of inner necessity. Then he will seize all the means of expression from the outer world."

— from Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1911

"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."

— from Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1911

"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 spiritual subject, an animate being that lives, breathes, and has a real existence."

— from Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1911

All quotes by Wassily Kandinsky (342)

I remember that drawing and a little bit later painting lifted me out of the reality.

Reminiscences 1913

Each period of a civilization creates an art that is specific in it and which we will never see reborn.

Attributed