Wassily Kandinsky
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)
The true work of art is born from the artist: a mysterious, enigmatic, and mystical creation.
Form is often the most important thing.
Music is the ultimate teacher.
To create form is to create life.
The inner necessity is the decisive factor.
Art is not vague production, but creation.
The soul must be freed from the objective world.
Point and line are the simplest forms.
I am a painter who writes.
The circle is the most indifferent form.
Color provokes a psychic vibration.
Abstract art is the true expression of our time.
I applied streaks and blobs of colors onto the canvas with a palette knife, and I made them sing.
The life of the spirit is the true life.
Form alone cannot express the inner content.
The blue of the sky is eternal.
Art must be felt, not explained.
The triangle is the strongest form.
Yellow is the color of madness.
The spiritual in art must be new in spirit.
Contemporaries of Wassily Kandinsky
Other Visual Artss born within 50 years of Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944).