Concerning Spirituality in Art

A Masterpiece of Modernism from Kandinsky's Pen: Concerning the Spiritual in Art

Vasily Kandinsky's 1912 work, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, alongside his work Point and Line to Plane, stands as one of the pioneering texts that established a new paradigm for modernist art. The book, translated into an original language by Hüseyin Tüzün and edited by Aykut Köksal, features a preface written by Uşun Tükel. Tükel, in her text also found on the back cover of the book, states the following:

"Vasily Kandinsky's book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, completed in 1911 and published the following year, is one of the most important texts of the early modernist period due to its subtle observations and insights into the language of painting, its sometimes subjective interpretations, and most importantly, its close connection to music.

Kandinsky, starting his journey with the observation that objective representation is not mandatory in painting, transforms into one of the founding figures of modern art, and in this book, he grounds the state of 'non-necessity' on the principle of 'inner necessity.' In other words, he gives life to the facts of the spiritual world through a mental practice. In the text, we find his initial observations on art science (kunstwissenschaft), which he would develop in later years, alongside his interpretations of pictorial elements and, correspondingly, the codes of his own work. Since Kandinsky addresses this entire process in parallel with music, we witness codes that are replacing traditional expressions in different arenas.

For this reason, we can easily say that Concerning the Spiritual in Art continues to maintain its historical importance as one of the first theoretical texts of modern art even today."