Composition Viii

Anyone know the meanings, influences and any other concepts behind Kandinsky’s ‘Composition VIII’?

Google is useless, i can’t find any conceptual meaning behind the piece… i’m specifically looking for any spiritual or religious inspiration..

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/kandinsky/kandinsky.comp-8.jpg

This is a good article on the meaning and development of Kandinsky’s work;

http://cf.hum.uva.nl/narratology/a07_kolarova.htm

Here is the full text of Kandinsky’s CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL IN ART;

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5321

From http://www.glyphs.com/art/kandinsky
“The viewer receives quite a shock in moving from the apocalyptic emotion of Composition VII to the geometrical rhythm of Composition VIII. Painted ten years later in 1923, Composition VIII reflects the influence of Suprematism and Constructivism absorbed by Kandinsky while in Russia prior to his return to Germany to teach at the Bauhaus. Here, Kandinsky has moved from color to form as the dominating compositional element. Contrasting forms now provide the dynamic balance of the work; the large circle in the upper left plays against the network of precise lines in the right portion of the canvas. Note also how Kandinsky uses different colors within the forms to energize their geometry: a yellow circle with blue halo versus blue circle with yellow halo; a right angle filled with blue and an acute angle colored pink. The background also works to enhance the dynamism of the composition. The design does not appear as a geometrical exercise on a flat plane, but seems to be taking place in an undefined space. The layered background colors – light blue at bottom, light yellow at top and white in the middle – define this depth. The forms tend to recede and advance within this depth, creating a dynamic, push-pull effect.”

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky

“Concerning the Spiritual in Art.

Originally published in 1911, Kandinsky compares the spiritual life of humanity to a large triangle similar to a pyramid; the artist has the task and the mission of leading others to the top by the exercise of his talent. The point of the triangle is constituted only by some individuals who bring the sublime bread to other people. It is a spiritual triangle which moves forward and rises slowly, even if it sometimes remains immobile. During decadent periods, souls fall to the bottom of the Triangle and men only search for the external success and ignore purely spiritual forces.

When we look at colours on the painter’s palette, a double effect happens: a purely physical effect on the eye, charmed by the beauty of colors firstly, which provokes a joyful impression as when we eat a delicacy. But this effect can be much deeper and causes an emotion and a vibration of the soul, or an inner resonance, which is a purely spiritual effect, by which the color touches the soul itself.

The inner necessity is for Kandinsky the principle of the art and the foundation of forms and colors’ harmony. He defines it as the principle of the efficient contact of the form with the human soul. Every form is the delimitation of a surface by another one; it possesses an inner content which is the effect it produces on the one who looks at it attentively. This inner necessity is the right of the artist to an unlimited freedom, but this freedom becomes a crime if it is not founded on such a necessity. The art work is born from the inner necessity of the artist in a mysterious, enigmatic and mystic way, and then it acquires an autonomous life; it becomes an independent subject animated by a spiritual breath.

The first obvious properties we can see when we look at isolated color and let it act alone; it is on one side the warmth or the coldness of the colored tone, and on the other side the clarity or the obscurity of the tone.

The warmth is a tendency to yellow, and the coldness is a tendency to blue. The yellow and the blue form the first big contrast, which is dynamic. The yellow possesses an eccentric movement and the blue a concentric movement; a yellow surface seems to get closer to us, while a blue surface seems to move away. The yellow is the typically terrestrial color whose violence can be painful and aggressive. The blue is the typically celestial color which evokes a deep calm. The mixing of blue with yellow gives the total immobility and the calm, the green.

Clarity is a tendency to the white and obscurity is a tendency to the black. The white and the black form the second big contrast, which is static. The white acts like a deep and absolute silence full of possibilities. The black is a nothingness without possibility, which is an eternal silence without hope, and corresponds to death. That’s why any other color resonates so strongly on its neighbors. The mixing of white with black leads to gray, which possesses no active force and whose affective tonality is near that of green. The gray corresponds to immobility without hope; it tends to despair when it becomes dark and regains little hope when it lightens.

The red is a warmth color, very living, lively and agitated, it possesses an immense force, it is a movement in oneself. Mixed with black, it leads to brown which is a hard color. Mixed with yellow, it gains in warmth and g

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