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Wassily' Kandinsky and The Gesamtkunstwerk

Tradition: The Role of South German Baroque • Archi tecture in Kandinsky t s Move ta Abstraction.

by

Cather ine Mary Chadwick

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A thesis submi tted t«.J the Faculty of Graduate Studies

and Research in partial fulfillment cf the requirements for

the deqree of Master cf Arts

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Department of Art History

McGill University

August, 1986

@ Montreal, Quebec, Canada

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Wassil-y Kandinsky and çhe Gesamtkunstwerk Tradition

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ABSTRACT ""-

. It is the purpose of this thesis to investigate Wassily

Kandinsky' s relation to " the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk --o

both as a contemporary concern and as it was expressed

through the religious art and archi tecture of the Sou th ,

German Baroque:, Kandinsky acknowlèdged in his writings his

great interest in and affinity for the religious ideals .. demonstrated by this art form and, in turn, he wished to

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create a similar effect of spirituality and monurnentality in

his own wàrk. Through an examina tion of Kandinsky' S

paintings and the theoretical writings that describe his

artistic ambitions l have illustrated how a major source of

inspiration for his development of an abstract style stems

from his interest in a tradi tional religious Gesarntkunstwerk.

Furthermo~e, i t becomes clear that i t' was his intent to' ;

create a two-dimensional Gesamtkunstwerk that would contain

the same element 'of spirituality that existed in the chutches

,that had originally awakened his own religious convictions •

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RESUME

Mon Memoire por~e- sur l'analyse de la relation entre • l ,

Wassily. Kandinsky et:\ le concept du "Gesamtkunstwerk," a

travers sa manJ.festa'tion moderne et son expression da~s l'art

et "1 ' archi tecture religieux. du Baroque bavarois. Dans ses

,. . t ecr~ S,

affinit~

Kandinsky reconnaît son grand intér~t pour 1 et

avec les ideaux 1 religieux illù~tres par cette forme

aesthetique. A son tour 1 il cherche à recreer le mème effet ,

de ,spiritualite et monumentalite dans son oeuvre. Par un

examen des tableaux de Kandinsky et de ses ~crits theoriqUes 1

concernants ses aspirations artistiques, j'ai démontre qu'une

source ,importante pour son d~reloppement d'un style~' abstréfit

d'rive de •

pour le "Gesamtkunstwerk" religi~,~x son

tradi tiennel. En outre 1 il devient ~vident qu'il se propose

de ()

crÉ!er un "Gesamtkunstwerk" ~ deux dimensions qui

projeterait le m~me element de spiritualite qui existait dans

les eglises ont ~veille ses propres convictions

religieus~s •

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ABSTRACT •

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RESUME ••• . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ••• . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......... LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS •••••• . . . . . . . . . . . .

. INTRODUCTION •• , ....... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....

CHAPTER ONE il>

j THE GESAMTKUNSTWERK'CONCEPT. ......

1. Music •••....••...••....•..... 2. Li tera ture •••••.•••••• ' ••••••. 3. Painting .................... . 4.- ·Arch1tecture/5culpt~re .••••.•

CHAPr.r:ER TWO

CHURCH ARCHITECTURE AND THE RELIGIOUS

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19 26 30 34

GESAMTKUNSTWERK. : •••••••••• ~ • • • • • • • • • • "44

,-CHAPTER THREE

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THE POSSIBILITY OF A TWO-DIMENSIONAL GESAMTKUNSTWERK ••••••••••••••••••• 72

CONCLUSION ••• :- .- • . . . . . · ..... · .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 93 0'

98 BIBLIOGRAPHY ••• . . . . . . · ..... • •••• . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... ILLUSTRATIONS •• • • • • • • , · ..... • ••••• . . . . . . . . . . . .' .... 103

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

l wou14.-Yike to thank the Art History Department at

McGill Univer·sity for their support and interest in my ·work.

Specif ically, l woq1d like to thank my advisor Professor Mark

Cheetharn for the continuaI guidance and encouragement he gave

me throughout the Masters Program . •

In additioll, l am grateful to the Archive staff of The

Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; in.particular, to

Jelena Hahl-Koch

sketchbooks and

me.

who allowed me to \ \ study Ka~inSkY f s

who shared her knowledge and expertise with

For her efficiency and help in the ,final presentation

of my thesis l

Karin Bourgeois.

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appreciate very much the competent work of \ _. \ , \

Finally, l would like to thank my family and close

friends who w(\-ré always there.. for moral support.

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f LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Kandinsky. St. George l, 1911' (Hinterglasbild) Stadtische Galerie, Munich, GMS 105.

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2. Kandinsky. ·St. George II, 1911 (oil on canvas) Russian Museum, Leningrad.

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. Kandinsky. The' Last . Judgemen t , 1912 (Hinterglasbild) Musée National 4' art Moderne, Centre Georges pompidou, Paris.

, Kandinsky. AlI Saints II, 1911 (Hinterglasbild) Stadtische Galerie, Munich, GMS 122.

Kandinsky. AlI Saints l, 191L (Hinterglasbild) Stldtische Galerie, Munich, GMS 107.

Interior of Gabrielle Mûnterhaus, KottmÛllerallee 6, Murnau, view of staircase or banister painted by Kand.i.n~tcy.

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Interior of Gabrielle Munterhaus, Kottmullerallee 6, Murnau, view of upstairs .room with furniture painted by Kandinsky.

Kandinsky. Sketch for Compositi.on rI ;--'-ï909/10 (oil on canvas) the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

(fig. 29 in Rinbom) C.W. Leadbeater.: Etheric Double from Man Visible and Invisible pl. XXV.

Kandinsky. Improvisation 12, 1910 (oil on canvas) Bayerische Staatsgemâldesamfulungen, Munich. ( illus. also from Ringbom).

Exterior view of St. Basil The Bl~ssed, Moscow.

Inter ior view of Church of The Assumption, Moscow.

Facade and Nave of Theatinerkirche, Munich.

St. George Slaying the Dragon. Chapel in Theatinerkirche, Munich.

View 9f/ side

Exter ior view of Ramsachleinkirche, Murnau.

Interior (altar)· of Ramsachleinkirche, Murnau.

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Exter ior of Abbey Church of WeI tenourg , on the Danube, We 1 tenburg •

Altar of Abbey Chur ch of Weltenburg. Silver statue of St. George designed oy Egid Quirin Asam, 1735-36.

Kandinsky. St. Georqe (pencil and watercolour sketch) Archives of the Stadtische Galerie, Munich, GMS 327.

20. Kandinsky. St. George III, 1911 (oil on canvas) Stâdtische Galerie, Munich, GMS 81.

21.. Kandinsky. In the Black Square, 1923 (oil on canvas) The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

22. ,.. - Kandinsky. Aquarelle no. 23, 1922' (watercolour) ~sée National d'art Moderne, Centre Georges POl\lpidou, Paris.

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23. KandinSky~ AlI Saints Day, Woodcut from Klanqe collection of prose poems written and illustrated by Kandinsky.

24. Kandinsky. AlI Saints Day II, 1911 10il on canvas) Stadtische Galerie, Munich, GMS 62'.

25. Interior of WeI tenburg, view of nave through screen of columns.

26. Kandinsky. Improvisation 3, -'"1"909 (oil on canvas) MÜsée National d'art Moderne, Centre George Pompidou, Paris.

27. Kc:r.ndinsky. On the Theme of the Deluge, 1913/14 (oil on canvas) StC!dtische Galerie, Munich, GMS 72.

28. The Coronation of the Virqin (oval ceiling in nave of We '1 tenburg •

29. Kandinsky. Section for Composition Iv:cossacks,' 1910 (oil on canvas) The Tate Gallery, London.

30. Kandinsky. Improvisation 19a, 1911 (oil on canvas) Sta-d tische Galerie, Munich, GMS 84.

31. Kandinsky. Improvisation: Deluqe, '1913 (oil on canvas) Sta.4tische Galerie, Munich, GMS 76.

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lNTRODUC',J:'ION

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Recent research on Kandinsky has dealt, for the most

part, with his move to abst!"action in the early twentieth

century and with the possible sources of inspiratictn for this

move. When determining the rela ti ve importance of the

surrounding influences" art historians have stressed modez.-n

spiri tual impulses that might have inspired Kandinsky,' 'or the " ------ ""\

stylistic trends that can be seen ih his paintings. This

thesis will discuss another source of inspiration nct

sufficiently cresii ted;- the importance o

of Kandinsky' s owr.

spiritua~" convictions ta his artistic growtho These ,

convictions were strengthened by' Kandinsky' s appreciation fer

the Ge~amtkunstwerk tradition,

Baroque religious architecture.

particula,rly that foune! in ,

Among the numerous writings on Kandinsky, three major

works stand out which discuss, in depth, reasons behind hi s

move" to abstraction: peg Weiss, Rose Car~l W,ashton Long, and.

Sixten Ringbom suggest a ~er of sepQ.Fate sources for "

Kandinsky' s trans'it.i~ from representat:ional to apstract

, painting but tend to neglect the ~e of ali -the , "

, arts

combined'o -Kandinsky developed towards abstraction because he "

reaiized itO would enable him to express spirituality in a

niore universal manner; the result was a monumental modelon

G~samtkunstwerk • . ,

( Weiss' KandinskY. in Munich: The Forma ti ve Jugepds til

Ïears emphasizes stylistic elements in Kandinsky's work in

order to establish a li~ with the Jugendstil rncvement, , a

movament that played an important raIe in the Mun~ch artistic

environment at the turn of the century. \veiss aiso sugges ts

that the Symbcl~st moveme~t, enjoying a parallel existence at

this time, ·,..,as the ,p~dorni!lant_ source for Kand~nsky' s des ire

to mainta1.n an inner significance i:1 his work. She 0 writes, "

"Kand~nsky' s movec

toward abstraction was .• ,. the resuft of a

·convergence of serong Jugenstil tendencieso(J toward abstract

ornamen ta tf on wlth a symbolist striving for lnner

sign1 f icance and geistiqe revolt! tien ... :. Weiss presents

detailed information about the artistic milieu in Mu~~ch from

1896 to 1914, with very specifie referenceji te writers,

drama~ists and craftsmen who wére acquaintances of Kandinsky

and therefore possib~y influenti.l to his creative growth.

She a1so discusses the oconnection between Kandinsky's

interest in Symbo1ist dr~a and his resulting Stage

Compositions. 2 Kandinsky was certainly aware of his a'rtistic

environment, bath in Iiterature and art, but the assumption

that he derived an c\bstract style from the influence of

decorative forms and Symbolist mystery and ambiquity fails to

place adequate emphasis on Kandinsky' 5 own spiritual

convictions.

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Washton Long's Kandinsky: The Development of an

Abstract Style alsa discusses the impo~tance of Kandinsky's -gradual maye te abstraction.

~ She proposes that the means by

which Kandinsky could create a more abstract wcrk of art yet . . st~ll inval'Je t.he spectator was through the use cf "hlddcn

imagery": "Hiding imagery was a way in WhlCh Kandinsky cOl.üd

c~eate a mcod of confusion, and yet also use the image tJ

help - lead one out of the initial eonfusior., thercby

suggesting hope for t;he future," 3 Kandinsky' s use of hldde~

imagery as a link between representatlonal and abstract art

arase, according to Washtcn Lo~g, from sueh sources of

inspiration as Symbolist ''literary theories and R.udolph

Steiner's theosaphic beliefs. Rudolph Steiner, Seeretary

'General of the German sect~on of the Theosophie rnovement from -

1902 to 1907, advocated a Cr.ristian Theosophy and used The

Revelation of St. John the D:vine as a framework to express

his beliefs. 4 Washton Long as~erts that Kandinsky' s

inclusion of apoealyptic and ether .biblical image,ry i:1 hl~

paintings at this time indicates the influence of Ste~ncr's

religious beliefs. Kandinsky's work on the theatre, an

im~ertant art form for the development of his theories

because it is an example of a secular Gesamtkunstwerk, points

to an influence of the dramatic works of Steiner and Schur~.5

Washton Long examines the close similarities between motifs

used by Kand~nsky and these found in Schure's mystery

dramas. 6 She also discusses the importance of Maeterlinck in

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Concerning the Spiritual in Art.

the dematerialization of form

Kandinsky gives him in

Maeterlinck's emphasis on

in literature through

repetit~-OL- words strongly affected Kandinsky's creative

process.

Although Washton Long discusses Kandinsky's spiritual

inclinations, she attributes his move to abstraction and his

use of religious motifs to the influence of contemporary,

literary sources. On the other hand, Sixten Ringbom in The

SOundlng Co~, ascribes Kandinsky's desire for an abstract

art as deriving primarily frcm his inter~.!ti·n theosophy.

Ringbom thoroughly discusses Concerning the Spiritual in Art

because in this book Kandinsky represents spiritual life by a

"diagram of a large, acute triangle, ,,7 the "spiritual

tri~ngle" being an important theosophic motif.

also examined Kandinsky's copies "of such

Ringbom has

theosophic

; manusc~ipts as Annie Besant's,' Esoteric Christianity or the

Lesser Mxsteries, c.w. Leadbeater's Man Visible and Invisible

and the writings of Madame Blavatsky. Each of these works

contains detailed marginal notes that clearly indicate

Kandinsky' s ~nterest in the subject. Although Ringbom ~

acknowledges that Kandinsky was a devout Christian, he also

maintain~ that "the occult interests provide a major

inspiration and motivation, ,,8 ta Kandinsky's creative

process. Ringbom argues against a Christian basis for

Kandinsky' s spiritual inspiration when he says that, "However ,

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deep the religious conviction, it is not Iikely to lead to

anything but figurative representations as lon~ as the artist

is . working within a eonventionally Christian frame of

referenee. ,,9 However, since Kandinsky always preserved a

very strong faith in Christianity, it seems mueh more likely

that his sense of spirituality was barn ~ram the intensity of

his own orthodox religious convictions. Furthermore, i t lS c

difficult to understand why a Christian artist, any more than

an artist of any ather faith, is unlikely to eoneeive of a

religious subject in abstract terms.

This thesis wi:l establish the importance of a more

orthodox religious spirituality on Kandinsky's move to

abstraction. Kandinsky's theoretical writings present clear

evidence of his desire to imbue his work with a feeling of

spirituality that would be feit by eaeh spectator. He also

believed that the means by which 'spirituality eouid best be

expressed was through a "monumental" work of art; that is,

one work containing aIl the arts. This belief, which seems

to have come to him as something of a spiritual revelation, ci'

was due to the effect that religious and seeular architecture '

in Russia had upon him. He writes in Reminiscences about his

expe-rienees in peasant houses and of the similar sensation he

feit when in ehurch:

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l shall",never forget the great wooden. houses covered with earvings. In these magical houses l

'experienced something l have never eneountered a~ain sinee •••• When l finally· entered theoroom, l felt surrounded on all sides ,by painting, into which l had 'Chus penet,rated. The sarne feeling hâd

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previously lain dormant within me, quite unconsciously, when l had been in the Moscow churches, and especially in the main cathedral of the Kremlin. '

(p.368-369)

He continues by saying that the fe~ling was equally strong

when he visited churdhes in Germany:

Later, l often had the same experience in Bavarian and Tyrolean chapels. OfJ:Ourse, on each occasion the impression was quite differently coloured, being formed by quite different constituents: Church! Russian Church! Chapel! CatholIë Chapel!

(p.369) ' .. ~,

Kandinsky emphasizes the importance of these

feelings to' his work when he states: "It was probably through

these impressions,' rather than in any other way, that my

further wishes and aims as regards my own art formed

themselves within me." (p. 369) Despite the significance of

Kandinsky's early Russian experiences, more importance must .....

be attributed to the influence of Bavarian Baroque

architecture because South Germany is where he was living and ,

working when he ~ade the step toward abstract painting. ,. ~ l'

KaAàlasky's ideal of a spiritual~~nd physical Gesamtkunstwerk

exists clearly in the Gesamtkunstwerk of South German Baroque

churches.

However, Kandinsky realized that in order to have a

universal effect on modern sensibilities it would he

necessary to draw upon modern means of expression. He

therefore became familiar with contemP9rary art, music,

theatre ,and literature, and also investigated contemporary

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philosophical and aesthetic movements in order to build up a

framework within which he could crea te a profound and

~ universally spiritual art form. Working on a monumental, or

"synthetic" work of art was, ultimately, an expériJ1leht~l -

stage for Kandinsky. It was a stage that presented a

physical means of understanding more clearly how he might

present to the modern viewer-- an enveioping feeling of

spirituality on canvas alone. Through a knowledge of how

different art media act against one another to crea te a

"vibrating" effect, Kandinsky could produce a spiritual -vibration in the painted medium where the reaction takes

place between colour and form. In this way Kandinsky hoped_

to create an enveloping sensation similar to those he had

experienced in churches: "For Many years l have/sought the

posSibility of letting the viewer "stroll" within the

picture, forcing him to become absorbed in the picture,

forgetful of himself." (p.369) In this thesis, therefore, l

will establish that although contemporary i=!. c..L~ Lie !'!'l'''''7=-rnents

were important to Kandinsky, their role in his development

was to prornote his search for a modern Gesamtkunstwerk.

Furthermore, it will be argued that the overriding sourGe of

inspiration for his move to abs~ract painting is to be f~~nd

in his religious convictions and in his reaction to the

Bavarîan Gesamtkunstwerk •

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l will beqin by discussing, in the first chapter, the

importance of the Gesamtkunstwerk as a histor~cal tradition -

out of ~hich Kandinsky's artistic aspirations developed. ' l

will then de scribe how he drew upon other "art forms in order

to develop a modern synthesis of thè arts. From this

discussion.-will arise the realization that, for Kandinsky, '

spirituality is an essential element of a work of J art,

this will introduce the subject of the second chapter.

and

'Here

l will establish that the Bavarian Baroque reliqious

Gesamtkunstwerk was a profoundly inspirational source for

Kandinsky and that his move to abstraction was influenced

greatly by South German religious monuments. Ln the final " , .

chapter l will analyze K~ndinsky's methods for achieving his -goals, in painting and l will alse examine to what degree he

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was suçdessful, both in theory and in th. actual effect th~t ,w •

his abstract paintings had on the observer. '1-

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Notes

- 1peg Weiss, Kandinsky in Munich: Formative

Jugendstil Years (New Jersey, Princeton: Princeton Univer~ity

Press, 1979), p. -10.

2Kandinsky prefered the neutral term "Stage Composition" ...

to describe his theatrical works as these pieces combined

elements from Opera, Drama and Ballet in arder to p,resent a .. J

unified synthesis of the arts.

'" 3Rose Carol Washton Long, "Kandinsky and Abstraction:

The Role of the Hidden Image", Artforum (vol. 10,' June 1972),

p. 44,45.

4Ibid., p. 43.

SEdouard sChuré, a French Theosophist, had been

involved, in the 1890's, with'the theatrical experiments of

the Rosicrucian group of Sar Peladan. His books, such as Les

Grandes Initiés, were· studied by ~any painters and writers

associated with French Symbolisme Steiner produced a number

of his own and Schurés mystery dramas in Munich between 1907 "

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and 1913. Washton Long, p. 43, 47.

6Ibid., p. 47. ,

7wassily Kandinsky, Kandinsky: Complete Writings on Art =J~ .

eds. Kenneth C. Lindsay and Peter Vergo (Boston, Mass.: G.K.

Hall & Co., 1982), vol. 1 p. 133. All other quotations from

Kandinsky, unless otherwise noted, are taken from these

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volumes and will be cieed in the body of the paper •

8Sixten Ringbom, The Sounding Cosmos (Abo: Akademi,

1970) p. 25.

9Ibid., p. 23.

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CHAPTER ONE

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\ The Gesamtkunstwerk Concept

Wassily Kàndinsky is known for his avan~-garde theories,

and for his early move into tpe realm of abstract painting.

However, despite t~e revolutionary nature' of his work,

Kandinsky developed his abstract style of ~ainting from an

interest in a very old tradition. The Gesamtkunstwerk, or

total work of art, is a concept that has "existed for

centuries and finds its expression physically and temporally

in both religious and secular art forms. That Kandinsky's \

move to abstr~ction ~volved out of past traditions of

art-istic expression is understandable because he himself

continually' stated his conviction that, "Art' must march at

the head of spiritual evolution, adapting its forms to this 1

greater refinement, its prophetie role. Its inner content is

unchanginq, its outwafd form chanqeable" (p. 89) __ Therefore'

all art, both past an~ present, like spirituality,' may be 1 1

expressed in different forms but th~ inner substance remains 1

unchanged. Furthe~more, ~andinsky acknowledged that certain , '

QI· ,similiarities fogically existed between past examples of the

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Gesamtkunstwerk and his ~wn related expression, whiqh he • 1

chose' to define as the ''l'(l()numental work of ar't." . ,

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Kandinsky -described the physical presence 'of the

"monumental art" as deriving, "in the narrow sense of the

word, ••• from the united means of expression of the three

arts,: painting, sculpture and arc!::itecture" (p. 461-62). In

another context the Gesamtkunstwerk could describe the

synthesis of those art forms which are combined ~n opera:

dra.J;na', orchestral and vocal music, and all the plastic arts

which are united in a stage setting. However, the importance

6 lies in the fact that 'individually, each art form cannot

produce the sarne effect on the viewer as could a union of the

arts. Kandinsky stresses that:

It is impossible to substitute the product of- one art form for anothèr. Hence derives not merely the possibility, but also the necessity of developing monumental art.... This monumental art is the combination of every art in one single work.

(p. 88)

The temporal quali ty \: of , ~ the Gesamtkunstwerk exists

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within the physical and des~ribes the similarity of function

or purpbse of the Gesamtkunstwerk in all its different forms

and in ,all the different periods of history i~ which it'was

created. T~is purpose was to'produce an all-encompassing,

overwhelming experience that would dramatically'persuade ~he

viewer of the inner meaning of the work. Significantly, for

Kandinsky, the inner meaning 'was ultimat~ry the spirituality J

expr,ssed by the work and indeed he felt this quality was· a !

constant in all art. The importance of spirituality in art

also indicates a 1ink between the purpose 'of K~ndinsky's work

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and the purpose of a religious Gesamtkunstwerk •. TherefO,,~ the temporal quality can also be understood as describing a

synthesis of those elements that combine to form the

spirftuality that has existed at all tim~s and in all places.

The inner spirituality of works of art from different periods

would naturally give rise ta certain exterior similarities in

thé appearance of the different artistic creations. In ,On --'

The Spiritual in Art Kan~insky discusses this connection

between the exterior physical nature of the Gesamtkunstwerk

and its inner meaning:

There exists, however another outward similarity of artistic farms that is' rooted in a deeper necessity. The similarity of inner strivings' within the whole spiritual-moral atmasphere­striving after goals that have already been pursued,.... This similarity of the inner mood of an entire period can lead logically to the use of forms sucessfully employed to the same ends in' an earlier periode '

(p. 128l

From these remarks it is evident that Kandinsky was pre­

occupied', not only with the powerful possibilities of a

) h' f h b h h 1 f hl synt eS1S 0 t e arts, ut t at e was a so aware ote ong

tradition from which this concept materialized. However,

before discussing Kandinsky's own experimentation with a

synthesis of the arts and its place within his oeuvre, it is

important to define the term Gesamtkunstwerk within an

filstorical overview of i ts growth as an artistic c'oncept in

Germany. In this way Kandinsky's work can be understood as a

further development of a con~inuinq artistic ,tradition tha1;-

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has existed in a number of forms for centuries.

As mentioned earlier, a Gesamtkunstwerk can be created

in both religious and secular forms. ihe religious-

Gesamtkunstwerk is found in cathedrals, churches â'nd chapels

and is made up of the successful union of architecture,

painting, sculpture, music and the liturgy. Tying all these

elements together is the pervading sense of spirituality for

which this union of the arts has taken place. The purpose of

the resulting experience is to éonvince ~ spectator ta

participate in the history of man's salvation, thereby

introducing the temporal quality of the Gesamtkunstwerk. \

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The seculat Gesamtkunstwerk differs fram the religious

in purpose as weIl as in forme A secular synthesis of the

arts usually lacks the spirituality one normally assoqiates, J with -religion and often does not have the physically

enveloping elements of arçhitectur~i the spatial quality of

religious architecture i5 replaced most frequently by, the

architecture Qf the set, such as is used in opera. It should

_be not~d though, -------that it is with the theatre that Kandinsky

begins to develop the possibilities of the Gesamtkunstwerk . '

\

tradition.

The history of the Gesarntkunstwerk is discussed in

detail by Alfred Neumann, although his analysis is primarily

in ëerms of the Gesamtkunstwerk's operatic forme Neumann

argues tl1at "the mutual permeation of music and literature

can Dest be observed in-opera, the main applied carrier of

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the Gesamtkunstwerk conoept. Il 1 He does ac,kncwledge tha ~ a

"type of Gesamtkunstwerk" could exist in painting, but

because of the two-dimensiona'li ty of the art form i t would Î' l'lot appear as a Ges~mtkunstwerk to the spectatoru

• - ,

Up to the time of the Romantics in the la te éigh~eent~

century, the development of the secular Gesamtkunstwerk was

marked by av continual shifting of importance between the

dramatic and the musical elements. Neumann explains that:

the line of one aspect of this development might be represented graphically by a wave whose c~ests mark a preponderance of emphasis on the drama in opera while its opposite extremes lay~the emphasis' on music. • • . The.. crests of these wavés, form the l'ine of ,development which gradually crystalizes into a Gesamtkunstwerk ideal.... It seems that whenever the pendulum of emphasis in opera swung heavily toward music, the reform movement focused on the

" dramatic elements to be introduced, each time swinging a little closer to the cent~r of tqe wave, i.e., to a balanced Gesamtkunstwerk.

In his discussion of the growth of the Gesamtkunstwerk in

German Romanticism' Neumann focuses on the, writers and

composers who, either alone or with another'artist, created

experimental forms of opera in the search for a balanced

synthesis of the arts. Furthermore, he stresses that each

artist in the Romantic period approached' the 'Gesamtkunstwerk

. from his own area of artistic talent. "Diffe'rent art,:; and

genres were their stàrting~point, depending upon their

~alents and preferences .. Schiller approached the

Gesamtkunstwerk through rhetoric, Novalis throuqh the novel, . Runge throuqh painting, .and 'ijoffmann and Weber throuqh

.15

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( :nus.!.c. 4

Althouçh ,.

his style was very different, Runge's

[, experimental search for a Gesamtkunstwerk would ~have the

closust af!inity with that of Kandinsky because they were

bath approaching the possibilit'l of a synthesis f~cm their

i ' H h 'cl. 1 f fi ~' f cxper ence as pa!.nt~rs. owever, tel ea 0 a synt •. es~s 0

the arts, in which Kandinsky falt such an interest, was

upheld by palnters, writers and musicians alike in the

Romantlc e':."a. At that time, artists and writers expressed an

abstract and sublime vision of spirituality in nature, in an

attempt to come to terms with their unccrtainties about

tradi tional~ religious "J'alues. 5 The link !:>etween art and

spirituality, even a' very abstract spritituality, was a

neccssity wh.!.ch was feit as much by the early Romantic

--Jrtists as by Kandinsky in the ~wentieth century. Neumann

wr ites:

Art and reliqion, that most personal aspect of life, were ta De -fused .... ! In Christian---dogmf. tl1e . symbol of the trinity isJ' the supreme tenet <Jf ~i faith. In Romanticism, -the trinity of wuSiC, word, and action i's the supreme dream in a~t. '

"

~~ndlnsky was a150 to express very similar thouqhts' on the

connection between art and reliqion. In, addition to the

siml1arities of artistic ideals, the artists of the Roman~ic

perlod in Germany were often inspired by t~e same source of comblned spirituality and synthesis of the arts as was

o

Kandlnaky. Newnann recounts two separate instances where the

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spirituali ty of South German Baroque churches reinforced the

artistic desires of Romantic artists. \vackenroder and Tieck,

t'NO nerth German authors who wrotei:1 the late eighteenth

century, were profoundly moved by the southe:-n churches thcy

visited:

The pious adora tian of music and a!:"t came to Wackenroder through a unique experlence. In 1793 he and his friend Ludwig Tieclt took a walking trip ta Bamberg a.nd here,... they suddenly encountered the music of" the Cathalic South, coup1ed with Baroque s~lendour in archi tecture, painting, and sculpture.

Runge also found the South German Baroque churches

iyspira tional. "Runge, Berger, [a composer] 1 and an

architect narned Schafer frequented Catholic services to

subject "themselves te the full charge of plastic, pictorial,

and musical splendour. In turn this gave the three friends

opportunity to discuss the interrelation of their arts. "a

The culmination of' Runge' s interest in the Gesarntkunst'Werk u

was to have been the Tageszei ten (Times of Day), which is

des'cribed by Rosenblum as, lia four"part cycle of paintings ... "

that was to revitalize Christian art and was te he enshrined

in a chapel designed for this purpose where specially

composed music would also c~mtribute to the feundation of a

new kind of religion. ,,9 Unfortunately, Runge d~ed before the

environment he e~visi~::med for such a cycle could he created.

Kandinsky. was therefore continuing a tradi tien

established by the Romanticists before him, bath in his

17

des1re for a synthes1s of. the arts and in the importance of

spirituality as an inspirational ele~ent. The differences

that exist are due to the different styles and aes.-t-Retic , 0

interests that separa te Romanticism from Expressionism. ,The

bi!'rth of abstraction at the beginning of the twentieth

century is important because it provided Kandinsky and other

artists wi th a new tool to help in the creation of a balanced

and harmonious synthesis of the arts. Kandinsky wished to

crea te a work of art that not only contained the spiritual

ideals of past epochs but a1so expressed ~these ideals in

contemporary rterms in the hopes that they might gradually be

understood by a larger group of people. One of Kandinsky' s

great' concerns was ,the apparent inabili ty of man to recognize

the presence of the ":;piri t" in art "f Any form:

The spirit is often concealed wit-hin matter to such an extent that few people are generally capable of ~rceiving it. Indeed, tbere are many people who are incapable of seeinq the spirit even when incorporated in a spiritual forme Thus, especially today, many' people cannot see the spirit in religion, in art.

(p. 235) o .~

Kant!1nsky t S de termina tiQn to f ight this problem lea'd him

towards the creation of a monumental work. of art,.

Consequen"tly, he familiarized himself with all contemporary

media in his own artistic ènvironment in order to extract.,

elements fram each that wauld'" enhance his .... ?wn artistic

creations.

In arder te 0 identify the different elements that

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Kand.insky was to use in his own work, l will separate the

Gesamtkunstwerk into its component parts, and discuss each

inœ.ividually. As previously rnentioned, the importance of

spirituality to Kandinsky and his experiments with a m9dern

Gesamtkunstwerk indicate a parallel with the religious

Gesamtkunstwerk. Therefore, a discussion of the different

art ferms will elucida te the part each played in pa~t

religieus Gesamtkunstwerk, the importance of each in

Kandinsky' s synthesis of the arts, as well as their

importance to his painting alone.

1. Music:

Kandinsky' s knowledge of the effect of mustc within a,

syn~hesis of the arts was drawn from a number of sources. He

was affected by the liturgical music heard in churches~ he

was influenced by the music of Richard Wagner and he was also

weIl acquainted with the work of his contemporary and friend

Arnold Schoenberg. As one part of a Gesamtkunstwe,rk, music

is im~tant as an echo or reinforcement of images that are "~-

being presen~'ed to the spectater visually. The music heard ..... ,

in Catholic Baroque churches was meant to complement the

splendeur of the architecture, painting and sculpture. For

example, the Missa Canonica composed by Johann Josef Fux in

Vienna in 171610 would contribute an aural emphasis to the

service performed by adding another dimension of awe and ,

reverence, less tangible but more easily absorbed. ' o

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incre~SinglY important as ~tists, writers and composers recognized its

ability to affe~ the listener in a very physical way. There

was an "increased awareness of music 1 s significance as a

In the Romantic ,

be,came period, music

medium of expression .... ,The desire to wrest music away from ,

its traditional role as a diversion, and to transform it into

the carrier of personal emotion had arisen in composers. ,,11

Music was therefore very appealing to the Romantics because

it was most readily absorbed by the unconscious mind.

The man who brought the Romantic concept of the

Gesamtkunstwerk to its apex, and who was for this reason much

studied by Kandinsky, was Richard Wagner. The

Gesamtkunstwerk ideal did not actually originate with Wagner,

but his name is' often associated with the term because he

derived the name in his treatise Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft:

Das grosse Gesamtkunstwerk, das aIle Gattungen der Kunst zu umfassen hat, um jede einzelne dieser Gattungen aIs Mittel gewissermassen zu verbrauchen, zu vernichten ~n~ten der Erreichung des Gesamtzweckes aller, naeml~nbedingten, unmittelbaren Darstellung der vollendeten menschlichen Natur, - dieses grosse Gesamtkunstwerk erkennt [der Geist] nicht aIs die willkuerliche moegliche Tat des Einzelnen, sondern das notwendig ~~~~~~~12 gemeinsame :'}~erk der Menschen der

Wagner was important to Kandinsky not only because of his

efforts to create a Gesamtkunstwerk through opera but also

because of the powerful effect of his music alone. Kandinsky

expressed his interest in Wagner' s work in "On Stage ....

Composition," an article he" wrote for the Blaue Reiter .. 20

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. ~lrnanach. In this article Kandinsky's concerns focused on

the ability of the composer to balance the different elemertts

found in opera: "either the music illustra tes (or

strengthens) the dramatic action, or else the dramatiç action

is called upon to help explain the music", (p. 260) . Kal1dinsky

felt that one art form was continually placed in a secondary 1

1

position to the other. He credit~ Wagner however with trying

to right this imbalance: "Wagner noticed this weakness and

sought to alleviate it by various means. His '" principal

object was to join the individual parts with one . another in <";

an organic way, thereby creating a monumental work of art"

(p.260). Though he appreciated. Wagner's efforts towards a , . monumental work of

1

art, Kandinsky asserted that Wagner' s

opera, as a Gesamtkunstwerk, lacked tn~·visual element of

colour. That is, Wagner's operas consisted of music and

drarna but not the third element, the pictorial or decorative

dimension. 13 It is clear that, whether or· not Kandinsky

attended Wagner's operas in a dramatized or a concert form,

he found them more powerful aurally- than visually.

Therefore, Kandinsky hoped to create a Gesamtkunstwerk that

would proqress beyond Wagner's developments to consist of

colou~ and the pictorial as weIl as music and drama. '

o However, . although Kandinsky cri ticized the incomplete\

form of wagner's operas, his pralse of Wagner's music as an

independent art form was unconditional. He felt that Wagner

could express both pictorial images and dramatic action

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within the musical c!ement alone:

"

[Wagner f s] . .famous use of the lei tmoti v" is likewise ----' an attempt to characterize the hero not by

theatrical props, makeup, 'and ,lighting, but by a certain, precise motif- that is, _by purely musical means. This motif is a kind of musically expressed spiritual ethos proceeding from the hero, which thus emanates from him at a distance.

(p. 148)

In addition to the characterization of people in musical . \,

tones, Kandinsky stated thât Wagner's music created a

parai leI imagery in colour tones. Tpis points again to the

ascendancy of wagner' s auraI creations over the visual and

introduces an important link with the studies in synaesthesia

of which Kandinsky was also weil aware. The importance of L 1

colour /mus ic effects becomes evident in Kandinsky' s

description of his impressions

Lohengrin:

when hearing Wagner's

" Lohengrin,... seemed to me the complete realization ,of that [fairy-tale] Moscow. The violLns, the deep 'tones of the basses, and especially the wind instruments at that time embodied for me aIl the power of that pre-nocturnal hour. l saw aIl my colours in my mind: they stood before my eyes. '

(p. 364)

'l'herefore not only did music add an aurai sensation to the

synthesis of the arts but synaesthetic studies established

that certain musical sounds, either vocal or instrumental,

could create visual experiences such as colour images.

Likewise, colour imagery could produce the effects of music

to the sensitive viewer. Kandinsky was particularly •

interested in this aspect of' the interrelationship between

lj ..... . "

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music and art. (f.

He makes his knowledge of synaesthetic

effects c1ear in thé chapter "The Language of Forms and

Colours" in On The Spiritual in Art. <

When he descr ibes the

effect of colour on the senses Kandinsky attributes specifie

sounds and musical.binstruments to each colour tone.

,Cold red '[when darkened]... remind's one of the passion-laden Middle and lower registers of the cello. ~ .. Cold red, when briqht, •.. can easi1y be expressed in musical terms, by the high, clear, singinq tones of the violin.... [Warm red] is like

. a medium-toned chur ch bell rinqing the Angelus, or a powerful contralto voice~ or a viola playing a largo.

(p. 188)

Kandinsky. believed the sublime artistic concept that "musical

sound has direct access to the soul" (p. 161), which would

explain his desire to capture certain properties of music in

painting. If musical tones cou1d be created in painting then

the effect of the painting on the soul wou Id be more direct.

Kandinsky makes clear the connection between music, painting ~

and spirituality in his description of the "inner vibration" .~

which he hopes will be felt by those who see his paintings.

This "inner vibration" is an abstract and spiritual

expression of the.... soul of Kand~nsky' s work and i t is an

aspect of his art about which he uses painterly and musical . .

terms interchangeably. , "Colour is the keyboard. The eye is

the hammer~ :"The soul is the piano, with its many strings. 4

The artist is the hand that purposely sets the' soul vibrating

by means of this or that key" (p. 160). Kandinsky wished

therefore to use aspects of music in his art that would lead

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to a more abstract work as this wou1d g1 ve rise to spiri tuaI.

sensa tions on a more l' mmediate and subconscious level.. It is ,

for this reason tha Kandinsky' s friendship' with Arnold .. SChoenberg is of su h importance. As l stressed earlier,

1 \

Kandinsky drew upon the contemporary developments of artists

in aIl fie1ds in arder to create a modern abstract synthesis

~f the arts. Schoenberg was of particular interest to /

Kandinsky because he was bringing composition to new levels

of abstraction a t" the same time tha t Kandinsky was beginning

to paint abstract paintings. \

Kandinsky heard Schoenberg for

the first time at a concert in January of 1911. Schoenberg

had j~st introduced, lia compositional period which 'renounces

a tonal center'. ,,14 Franz Marc describes Schoenberg' s music

wi th reference to Kandinsky f s work in â. let ter to August

Macke in 1911: , "

Can you imagine a music in which tonality (that is, 'the adherence to any key) is completely suspended? l was constantly reminded of Kandinsky' s large Composition, which also permits no trace of tonality.... Schoenberg proceeds from the princip le that the concepts of consonance and dissonance do not, exist at aIl. A so-called

'dissonance 1s only a more remote consonance •..• 1 ~

Not only in their separate yet parallËü moves to .

abstraction are Kandinsky and Schoenberg related. They were"

both influenced by Wagner, both experirnented with the Stage

Composition, and they both thought that ideally, to create a

more comple~e work of art, aspects of the other 1 sart form ,

needed to be adopted into their own work. Jelena Hahl-Koch

'24

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explains: \ \

Students of Schoenberg's music know of his efforts to rnëlude in it the spatial elernent inherent in painting. This conforms to Kandinsky' s wish to a-llow the temporal element to operate in "his pictures, in that, even in his early pictures, he

'purposely rnakes the "content," the vestiges of a still obj~ctive "story," unclear, and thereby forces the onlooker. to deduce i t bi t by bit in a temporal Quccession, beginni.ng with the clearer portions. 16

.., In conclusion, music was important to Kandinsky for the

role it played as ~p essential component of a Gesamtkunstwerk

but also because the indivtdual abstract characteristics

found in music might potentially be expressed in painting as

welle He wished to ~ create certain aural images through f

colour, to inéorporate a temporal quality into his painting

and tO,embody the abstract nature of music in the abstract

presentation of colour and forme Finally, music helps to

express spiri tuali ty ins- a Gesamtkunstwerk through the

immediacy of its emotional effect. Kandinsky felt that the

bond between spirituality and music existed very closely in 1

the work of Schoenberg: he refers to this \ influencial

çomposer in "The Spiritual Turning Point" in On The Spir i tual

in Art:

Schoenberg's music leads us into a new realm, where musical experiences are no longer acoustic, but purely spiritual. Here begins the "music of the future. "

(p. 149)

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2.' Literature: ,

"Literature is another possible element in both a

reliqious and a secular 'Gesamtkunstwerk. Literature in the

reliqious Gesamtkunstwerk takes the form of the liturgy, and

the sermon delivered to the congregation would'give a, verbal

emphasis to the written word in the Bible and '1 other

liturqic~l books. The purpose of the liturgy within the

whole religious Gesamtkunstwerk of Baroque churches was to

provide literary support for the visual imagery, to convince

the congregation of the importance of salvation. -~ ;

As with music, Kandinsky was interested in literature

both as one component of a Gesamtkunstwerk and for the

~ndividual characteristics which could be used in painting.

In both cases Kandinsky felt that, as with the liturgy,

cont~mporary literatur~ should help bring about a new

awareness of spirituality in life and in art. To this end he

studied the literary efforts of the Syrnholists because they n

expressed the "inner meaning of life through a written

abstraction.

Lindsay:

As described' by Peter Vergo and Kenneth

Kandinsky's concern with the S~olist worldview is evident, above all, in his own' philosophical ,~nterpretation of art and existence. ' His concept of the inner meaning or resonançe beyond, ex;ternal

"appearances is very much in/ keeping wi th the Symbolists' wish' to penetrate t'o the essence of the o~jective world. Similarlyt Kandinsky's notion tnat expresssivenes~ is Qf gr~ater import than the documentary rendering of reatity repeats what Bely and other Svmbolist thinkers were assertlng in the early 1900s ~ 1;7 ,1 '1

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"

Maurice Maeter,linck, a Symbolist wri ter of the la te

nine~eenth c~n;ury, was clearly influential, to Kandinsky' s •

artistic development. Kandi'nsky- discusses Maeterlinck' s

style of writing at great length in On The Spiritual i,n Art"

and focuses on his manner of dissolving the meaning of the

word through constant repetition, thereby emphasizing simply

the sound of the word. Kandinsky anaJ.yzes this process as

follows: ) Skillful use of a word ( according to poe tic feeling) an internally necessary repetition of the same word twice, three times, many times' - can lead not onJ.y to the growth of the' inner sound,. but al~o bring to light still other, unrea1ized, spiri tua1 qua1i t,ies of the word. Eventually, manifold repetition of a word (a favourite childhood,garne, later forgotten) makes it 10se its external sense as a name. In this way, even the sense of the word as an abstract indication of the object is forgotten, and on1y the pure sound of the

, word remains. ( p . 147)

Kandinsky makes ......

of these ideas in his poetry, in -u,se

Compositions and l also -

Stage in his paintings. His

his

one

published Stage Composition, The Yel10w Sound (which will be

éUscussed in more detai1 later), has no dialogue, "

but

incorporates into the action disconnect~d words, phrases and

thoughts. For example, in Scene Two, many people in "long,

garish, shapeless garments" hudd1e together before an

abstracted hill, and chant:

The flowers cover aIl, cover all, cover aIl. Close your eyes 1 Close your eyes 1 We look. We look. Caver conceptio~ with innocence. o /

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G Open your eyes 1 Open your eyes 1 Gone. Gone.

(p. 276)

--'-

Kandinsky also uses a similar style in his poetry. His

( volume of prose poems enti tled Sounds contains a number of

poems in which he creates the effect of mystery and

intangibili ty throuqh the use of repeated words. For

example:

Seeing

Blue, Blue got up, got up and fell. Sharp, Thin whist1ed and shoved, but didn' t get througl1. From every corner came a hwmning. " Fatbrown got stuck - it seemed for aIl eternity.

It seemed. It seemed. You must open your arms wider. 1

. - Wider. ~vider. 8

In his paintings Kandinsky translated the repetition of

wotds into the repeti tion of symbo1ic images. By building up

a store of representative images, he was gradually able to

abstract the form from one painting te the next. An example

can he seen in Kandinsky' s St. George paintings which he

created over a number of years. st. George I, of 1911, ~s a

recognizab1e picture of the saint slaying the dragon in which \

he establishes certain characteristics that will he carried

into future paintings, (fig.1) • An image such as St. George

li has hecome qui te abstract yet the ,diagonal spear still

remains clear (fig.2). Kandinsky'also uses this method in

hi~ apoca1yptic paintings wi th such images as topp1ing

towers, trumpet blowing angels and' the riders of tl.1L

28 . - - ..... /'

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Apocalypse19 being constantly repeated in various stages of

abstraction (fig. 3,4) •

Two oth~r literary figures who were influer.tial to

Kandinsky are Rudolph Steiner and ,Eduouard Schur€!- ~ Both men

wrote "mystery dramas" which Kandinsky had seep perfo::-med in

Munich. As in Kandinsky' s Stage Compositons, "both Steiner

and Schure used chorus, music, ,a rudimentary colour' g

symbolism, and a ritualized narrative in their theatrlcal

productions. 20 Therefoie, if not for the symbolism, these

plays would be useful to Kandinsky as exarnples, of dra~atic

-':-, ,"" ~(jrks being conceived at that time, and would pro~ide him -,1

~ t " ~ .,.

" with ideas about form ,and technique. However, Washton Long

'assèrts thatc the similarities go beyond merely the form ,or

idea. She suggests tnat:

.

the transformation .•• of a giant into 'an enormous cross at the conclusion of Kandin~ky' s Stage Composition is very sirnilar to the conclusion of a Schure play, performed in Munich in 1909, where a cross is placed in the center of a star, the basic Theosophical sign, thereby' suggesting the absorption of aIl wisdom and religions into his Christianized version of Theosophy. And in a Steiner- - drarna of 1911, a character described as a "representat:ive of the spirit" was placed nine feet abo-<7e ~he stage w.1th arms extended to suggest a crôSs.2~ .

This discussion indicates the importance of

conternporary literature for providing method in Kandinsky's 1" -

~ " .

However, ~ to abstraction. as l have altcady mentioned, ,

Kandin~ky was the }bility of. t.

of equal importance to

li terature to aid people in the se arch to understand the

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spi:i~ua! in art. Kandinsky himself wrote a co~siderable

amount of ~heoretical' literature which, in intent, can be .

SBen to pa:allel the liturgical writings and sermons ... '

presented in the rellqious Gesamtkunstwerk. Both exist ~o

pro\flde aèd.lnonal emphasis to what. ls often somewhat

concea!ed imagery. Kandinsky describes the ,purpose of On the

Si?i:-itual i:1 "rt and the Blaue Reiter Almanach ~n

Reminiscences:

My book On the Spiritual in Art and the Blaue , Reiter ALnanach, too, had as thelr principal aim to

aWAken thls capacity for experiencinq the spiritual in material and in abstract phenomena.... My desire to conjure up in people who still did not posses$ it this rewarding talent was the main pur~ose of ~oth publications.

Kandinsky's concerns, therefore, with regards to the purpose

of li terature 1'n the twentieth century, were' ··twofold. ,

On one

lavel he was interested in contemporary literature because it

presented additional methods of ~bst~action. ijowever, ,

Kandinsky a1$0 f~lt that literature, , and. his own in

particu1ar, should ~Sist the modern spectator in re-

estAblishing a sense of spirituality in the new-found and

often confusin; abstraction of art.

\ 3. Painting:

Paintinq was of course imPQrtAnt a~ one component of a i

Geaamtkunstwerk. ,In A reli9iou8 Gesamtkunstwerk the pictures ,

setved a visually didactic purpose whose message would then

30

f

~be emphas'ized by the other elements of the whole

Gesamtkunstwerk. In Baroque churches, for example, paintings

cf the life of Christ and of the Saints preser.t~d a pictorial

emphasis to bibl!cal ideals. Kandinsky also saw the

pictorial as a crucial component of the modern

Gesamtkunstwerk and, as we have seen, criticized Wagner'5

o~eras because the initial work was ~omprised of mUS1C and

libretto alone. Therefore Kandinsky's own experiments wlth a

Gesamtkunstwerk wpuld inevitably incorporate the picturc into

the whole. The discussion of Kandinsky's own palnting will

be quite brief in this section as Chapter Three wlii examine

in detail the effect of a physical GesamtkunstwerK on

~andinsky's move to abstraction in painting.

In his experimentation with a modern Gesamtkunstwcrk

and in his development of an abstrac~ style of painting, the " work of oth~r past and contemporary painters would naturally

interest Kandinsky; indeed, he mentions many artists in the

course. cf his writings. Kandinsky was particularly

fascinated by painting whiêh could inçorporate other'

dimensions into the two-dimensionali ty of the canvas.- Tirne,

~ .dimension normally equated with music, was an element that

Kandinsky felt could also be woven into a work of art. ne

therefore admired the work of Rembrandt, whorn he considered

to-nave captü'red the sensation of time in painting:

Rembrandt moved me deeply. The great divisons of light and dark, the blendinq of<~condary tones irito the larger areas,... revealed to me entirely new possibilities.... l sensed fairly

31 ,

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unconsciously that Rembrandt's gr\at divisions give fiis pictures,a quality l had never seen until then. l felt that his pictures "last a long time," explaininq this to myself by the fact that l had gradually to exhaust first one part, and then the next. Later, l realized this division cOijjures onto the canvas an initially foreign and apparently inacce~sible element"for painting - time.

(p. 366),

Another art form for which Kandinsky felt great

reverence was, the medieval Russian icon. These ieon's'

contained the combined forces of spirituality and abstraction

which were so important to Kandinsky . The spiritu~l~ty

. existed within the religious nature of the work while the ,

abstraction was created th=ough the schematized depiction of"

a sacred image. Similar to the Russian icon in spiritualized

abstraction are the "'Bayerischen Glasbilder", wi th which

Kandinsky was also familiar. Both of these art forros are

found in Kandinsky 1 s home and wére pUblished as il~ustrat i'ons

in the Blaue Reiter Almanach. One of the aims of the Blaue <

Reiter Almanach was'to combine, in a single work, pictures of , "

aIl styles: primitive art, folk art, children's art, ,medieval

and contemporary art. In this way the, Almanach woulcl "make t<

known the expression of inner strivings in EVERY form having

its own inner sound" (p.113). Kandinsky himself pai~ted a

number of "Hinterglasbilder" such as AlI Saint's Day I, of

1911, which shows a strong resemblance ta the Bayrischèn folk'

art (fig.S).

The Jugendstil -movement centered in Munich was also . influential to Kandinsky' s career."" peg Weiss has shown that

32

1 "

()

o

i ..

. Kandinsky èxperimented 0 with this style in his creation of a

cwide spectrum of designs from jewellry and furniture to

clothinq and tapestry. He also painted a number of works in

which an obvious emphasis has been placed on the decorative \

yet sensuous quality of line. Weiss asserts that Kandinsky's

move to abstraction was due to the combined expression of

symbolist

Jugendstil.

Symbolist

thought ,and the decorative emphasis ~ the

It is clear that within the. Jugendstil and

milieu there cexisted certain ideals which

paralleled those of Kandinsk~.' The des ire to unify all tpe ( , (

arts, which arose from an adm~ra~10n of Wagner's work, was

one ambition shared by Kandinsky. "The symbolic quality of

line as an evocative force, .. 22 together wi th the renewed

interest in religion and mysticism indicates .a further

similarity with Kandinsky's artistic concerns. However,

Jugendstil should be 'viewed as developing .the concept of the

GesamtkunstweEk in a parallel yet unique manner to that of

Kand~nsk~. It is unlikely that his move to abstraction was, ----

inspired . by the Jugendstil/symbolist movements because,

though they often express a quality of spiritual myst:cism,

they lac~ the specifically spiritual function within'the~art. Kandinsky's interest in spirituality arose so evidently ~om.

his Chr~~tlan beliefs that the source of insplra;ion must ~. sought in an artistic environment with a more concrete

religious basis.

33

.,

Q

o

4. Architecture/Sculpture:

The last area to be discüSsed, the physical or spatial

element of a synthesis of the arts, describes the ,~

architecture and sculpture of a' religious Gesamtkunstwerk.

Architecture i~ imp~rtant because it cre~tes the enveloping ,

sensation&necessary for an all-encompassing, monumental art.

The secular 'equivalent to architecture in a Gesamtkunstwerk

such as opera would be the stage and its sets.

Kandinsky's ,interest in the- spatial effects of a

Gesamtkunstwerk evolved fr9m three distinct sources. He was

first aware of the sensation of being su=rounded by art when

in the Russian pf!asant houses of theoprovince 'of Vologda: "1n '-

these magical ~ouses l experienced\something ~ have never .

~ncountered again since. They taught me to move wi thin the ,

picture, to li ve in the picture" ( p. 368 ) • secondly,

Kandinsky realized that this feeling was one he had

encountered in churches, both in Russia and in Southern

Germany. fi

However, here the feeling would naturally be

translated into the reliqious language of the chgrch:

The same feeling ha previously lain dormant within 1 ~ " me, qui te unconsci sly when l had been in the Moscow churches. Later, l often had the same experience in Bavarian and TyrOlean chapels. Of course, on ~ each occasion the impression was qui te differently coloured, " being, formed by quite different constituents: Church! Russian Church! Chapell Catholic Chapel!

(p. 369)

- L

, " 34 J

c

"

('

•

The third impression Kandinsky had of the spatial element of

a synthesis _of the arts was of course through the theatre.

He was weIl aware of the work of Wagner, as has already been

disèussed, and he was also interested in more contemporary

dramatic movements that were occuring around him in Munich.

Peg Weiss shows that Kandinsky was very much aware of George, , c

Il .. Fuch' s work in the Munchener Kunstlertheater, fO'.lnded by Fuch

-in 1908, and of the collaboration between Peter Behrens and

Fuchs for a "complete revis ion of traditional tl}~atet".,,23

Kandinsky' s own experiments with an environmental art"

were inspired by these sources. In 1909, Kandinsky and'

Gabrielle M~nter acquired a house at 'Kottm~llerallee 6' in

Murnau. That same year Kandinsky began to paint the interior

and the furniture with decorative folk imagery of horseback

riders ' in 'swirl*ng, . schematized landscapes. Kandinsky did ~

these delicate paint!ngs on the banister and on various

pleces ~f furniture around the house (figs.6,7). The

inspiration for such work is undoubtedly from the Russian

peasant houses he had seen in earlier years:

)

l still remember how l entered the living room for the first time and stood rooted to the spot 'before this unexpected sce.'le. The table,' the benches, the great stove, ... the cupboards, and every other object were covered with brightly coloured, elaborate ornaments. Folk pictures (hung] on the walls.... the "red" corner (was] thickly, completely coveréd with painted and printed pictures of the saints •...

(p.368-69)

.. 35

..

....

o

, ,

Kandinsky'transformed hIs home in Murnau with own

paintings and with Many images of the saints to create

surroundings that were similar in "feel to the peasant homes

in Russia. The house in Murnau, then, can be described as a

personal experimentation with the Gesam;kunstwerk concept.

A second example of Kandinsky's use of the spatial

element is found in his Stage Compositions. Kandinsky uses

his knowledge of Wagner, Steiner, .,.

Schure and other Symbolists

to experiment with what he felt would be the "monumental art

of the future." Not only are the spatial elements found

here, but aIl other elements already analyzed are also 1

incorporated into such a synthesis of the arts. Therefore l

will discuss Kandinsky's Stage Compositions as the end result

of an accumulation of artistic knowledge from various fields.

In a dramatization, the Gesamtkunstwerk would be

created, within the stage, environment by cOmbining, "1.

musical movement, 2. pictorial movement, and 3. physical

movement; these three combined would make up the spiritu~l

movement" (p. 206). Kandinsky also suggests that7 "The actu~l

expression of colour can be achieved simultaqeously by

several forms of art, each art playing its'separate part and

producing a whole which exceeds in richness and force any

expression attainable by one art alone ... 24

Kandinsky actually wrote four "colour-tone" dramas, Der , --Gelbe Klang, schwar; und Weiss, Gruner Klang and Violette

The one that l will discpss in detail ls Der Gelbe Klang or

36

o

...

o

The Yellow Sound because it was published in the Blaue Reiter

Almanach and is for this reason the most accessib~e of the

four. It is unfortunate for ~andinsky that the play was not

produced in his lifetime because he was therefore not able to

see its potential success as a "celebration of life in which

both audience and actors are creative participants. ,,25

However, the possibilities ~can be understood through a~

examination of the written forme

The Yellow Sound is divided into a Pr~lude and Six

Pictures, rather than a Prologue and Six Scenes, which

indicates how closely Kandinsky associated art and music.

The Prelude represents the "darkness of dawn" 'at which time iL

voices are heard mysteriously chanting prophetie, apocalyptic

phrases (p. 269) • Each Picture then presents a different

central image which is altered and moulded through complex

figuraI dance movements and continually changing coloured

lights. The music alternately parallels and contrasts with

the coloured lights as it rises and lowers in tone. l

The predominant visual 'images are, "a broad green hill" ,

(Picture 1, 2), "five intensely yellow giants" (Pictures

1,3,5,6) lia huge yellow flower" (Picture 2), "t;~o large, red­

brown. rocks" (Picture 3,5) and a "red, lopsided buildi"ng with

a li'ttle blue lopsided turret" (Picture 4), pp. '267-283). In

Picture 5 a climactic pitch of chaos and fear is reached

through the convulsive ,;êensions and excitement of the

physical, colo~ristic and auraI movement . Picture 6 ' .. (.

J'

37

•

.',

,

concludes the play with a centrally placed, imm~nse cross-<

like yellow giant with raise~arms, standing before a black

4backdrop and background~ Kandinsky has therefore presented a

SyrnbOli~maqe of Christ as one who rises out of the world's

confusion to provide eternal hope of salvation. As Susan

Stein explains, ,

"the towering yellow giant ... tha tends The \-

Yellow Sound [expresses] Kandinsky's fervent optimisme The

darkness and despair of the present age is consistently

balanced by the bright light of the coming spiritual

e·~ch. ,,26 Washton Long expresses a similar idea when she ./

states that, "by using hidden imagery Kandinsky cou Id create

a mood of confus~on, and yet also us~ the image to help lead ,

one out of the initial confusion, thereby suggesting hope for " the future.,,27 Washton Long is actually describing

Kandinsky's paintings here, but it is a statement which

applies equally weIl to his stag~ Compositions. It is not

coincidental that such a close resemblance exists between

Kandinsky's apocalyptic paintings and The Yellow,Sound. In ,"

fact, if it were ~ossible to capture the visual effect of

, each "Picture" on a slide and then to superimpose those (

slides one behind the other and project that image cnte a

screen, one would, in effect have one of Kandinsky's

apocalyptic paintings such as Composition II, 1909/10

(fig.S) • In a sense what he was creating was a three-.

dimensional image of his paintings.

It should be noted that

38

Kandinsky's interest '"

in

0--

o

•

abstract dramatic productions was to continue, and in 192~ he

staged Mussorgsky's Pie~ures at an Exhibition at the

Friedrich-Theater in Dessau. 28 This work, which consisted of

16 scenes, aIse called for the combination of music, physical -") .

movement and pictorial decoratlon. Though' still involved

with the stage environment, Kandinsky seems more interested

now in the architectural surroundinqs than in the creation of ."

a drama. His concern was te find the appropriate

"atmosphere" for a particular function of the enclosed space.

'In Pictures at an Exhibition 'his objective was to create a

visual environment for the music composed by'Mussorgsky: "The

music ••• "depicts" ••• Mussorgsky's own experiences, which

went far beyond the painted "content" and assumed purely

musical fcrm~ ,7

This was the reason l readily accepted the

invitation ••. ,to stage this piece of music" (p. 750). 'J

Kandins~'s work in Stage compositIon, particularly The

Y.:!llo\oJ Sound, represents an 'example ~ a monumental work of

art created through the assimilation of the different arts

discussed in this chapter. However, one must keep in mind

that Kandinsky was working on the Stage Compositions at the 6

same time that he was developing the idea of the hidden image

with its purpose of drawing the spectator into the painting.

'These dramas could therefore be viewed as three-dimensional

"studiesn in F'

Kandinsky'~ creative search for a deeper , \ .

involvement By creating an in the pictorial image.

apocalyptic painting that does actually surround in the

39

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•

"

G

o

.j

-1 ' ~ physical ~ense, the jeSulting sensations could be transposed

to a mental involvemeht where the spectator, "forgetful of . /

himself, becomes abJorbed in the picture" (p. 369). / 1

!

The procesi! by which Kandinsky reached ~he monument~l

work of art was through the separate study of all the arts. ! '

"4"

However, the synthesis of the arts as .manifest in his

dramatic efforts was not the final stage in Kandinsky"s

development. He was primarily a pain ter and he wished

therefore to use the effects he had created for the stage in

painting alone. Furthermore, . ~ he had for inspiration in n~s ',-

work sorne very impottant yet widely diversified examples 'of

~he Gesamtkunstwer~ ideal. In the next chapter l will go on

to discuss what l see as .the most importpnt and also'

ne~lec~ed ~ J .""

inspiration, of religious Baro~e

i source

Germany, and ta estatilish why this

Gesamtkunsew~~k WouJd have had the

architeèt~re in Southern

particular form -of the

greatest impact on K~dinsky.and his art.

...

"" \ )

1

~\ .... :\'--"~~--

40

",

\ '

....

0

.1

o

--- ----~ " l, .. ..

Notes .

1A1fred Neumann, The Evolution of the ConceEt

Gesamtkunstwerk in German Romanticism. (unpublished doctoral . ....

dissertation, University of Michigan, 1951), p. 115.

2Ibid., p. 189.

3Ibid., p •. 9.

4Ibid., p. 11.

..

5see R.Rosenblum, Modern Painting and the Northern

Romantic Tradition: Friedrich to Rothko. (New York: Harper &

Row Publishers, 1975).

6Neumann, p. 127.

7Ibid., p. 131.

8Ibid., p. 185. 9 ,. R9s.enblum, p. 43.

lODona1d Jay Grout, A History of Western Music (Third

ed.) York: London: W.W. Norton and compa~y, 1980) p. o

357. "South German Church music of, this period was the

product of a union of Ita1ian and German characteristics.

The mass and other li turgica1 texts w'~ set to music on a ~,

magnificent festive scale with choruses and solo ensemble

sections freely intermingled, supported by full orchestral

accompaniment as well ,

ritornel10s." p. 35'8.

11Neumann, p •. 106 •

12Richard Wagner,

preludes and

"Das Kunstwerk ' der Zukunft"

41

1

o

l,

0-

Gesammelte Schriften ed. Julius Kapp (Leipzig, 1914) X, p. a

67. Thè great Gesamtkunstwerk, which aIl types of art have

embraced to- a certain extent as ~ means to consume each of

these individual types, to completely destroy [these

individual types) in favour of the achievement of total

design, namely the unconditional, immediate representation of

perfect human nature, - [The intellect] perceives this great

Gesamtkunstwerk not as the arbitrary, potential act of ,

individuals, but rather as the necessary, conceivable common

act of the people of the future. (My translation)

13wassily Kandinsky, Kandinsky: Complete Writings on

Art. eds. Kenneth Lindsay and Peter Vergo (Boston, Mass: G.K.

Hall & Co., 1982, vol. 1), p. 262.

14Jelena Hahl-Koch, (ed.) Arnold Schoenberg-Wassily

Kandinsky: Letters. ~Pictures and Documents~ Trans. John C. F

Crawford (London: Faber & Fab~~, 1984), p. 136.

15Franz Mate: from Arnold Schoenberg-Wa~sily Kandinsky:

Letters, Pictures and Documents. p. 136,.

16Hahl-Koch, p. 148.

17Lindsay and Vergo, (eds.) Kandinsky: Complete

Writings on Art (vol. 1) p. 96.

18wassily Kandinsky, "Seeing" from Sounds. Trans.

Elizabeth Napier, -(New Haven and London: Yale University

Press, 1981), p. "21-

19ImageS from "The Revelation of St.' John the Divine"

The Holy Bible Rev. 6:2-8; Rev. 8:6-13; Rev. 11:13.

42

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o '

/

/ ;'

o

20Rose Carol Washton Long, "Kandinsky and Abst:-action:

The Role' of' the Hidden Image. " Artforurn, ( vo 1. 10, June,

1972), p. 47.

21Ibid., p. 47.

22peter Selz, (ed.) Art Nouveau: Art and Design at rnc ... ,

Turn of the Century. (London: Secker & Warburg, 1975), ., t-'.

23peg Weiss, "Kandinksy: Symbolist Poetics and Theatre

in Munich." Pantheon (G.F.R.) (vol. 35, pt. 3, Ju1y-Sept.,

1977), p. 211.

24Wassily Kandinsky, çoncerning The Spiritual in Art .

(New York: George Wittenborn, Iné., 1947}, p. 72. . ,

25Ibid., p. 93.

2€Susan Aly~on Stein, "Kandinsky 'and Abst=act Stage . "

Compositon: practice and Theory." Art Journal, (vol. 43, no.

1, Spring 1983) p. 64~

27Washton Long, p. 45.

28Lindsay and Vergo, (eds. )

Writings on Art (vol. 2), p. 749.

43

. ./ ... ,

.!

KandinskY: Complete

,

CHAPTER T"wO

,l. Chur:h Arch! tecture 4nd ~ne Religious Gesamtkunstwerk

!n the previous chapter l discussed how Kandinsky

pe:~eived the idea of a monumental art in terms of Stage --..

compes:" tion. He achieved such a 'Gesamtkunst~erk' througho

the s~udy of the individual art forms that would most

sûitab11 combine to form a synthesis-of the arts. What also

became clear was that one of the Key elements of a work of

art was, for Kandinsky, the presence of spirituality. The

r.ec~ssity of spirituality in his art suggests that Kandinsky

would look fer inspirat~on to examples of the religious

Gesamtkunstwerk. Church architecture would ~os~ explicitly

express the co~bination of spirituality and monumentality

which Kandinsky felt should be intrinsic te a synthesis of

the-arts for, in churches, the union of all the arts,

archi~eqture, p'~intil)g , ,< sculpture, and music existed to

express spirituality. It seems only natural therefore that ,

he should be decisively affected by churches in Russia and in'

Germany. In .arder to explain how important the Orthodox and ~ -'- __ -

Catholic churches were to Kandinsky + w11>1 first discuss th!! • 1 \ -

1 n!1ture of his reflections on spirituality and religion and 1

underline their relationsnip to his art.

.' -

44 , '

l,

., ----

o

~

----,

o

Kandinsky' s descriptions of spirituality can be brcadly

grouped into three categor ies. First there is Kandins'ky' s

qui t~ abstract application of spiri tuality to bcth art and

life i~owever, these re!l'arks should bé undersJ;~od

wi thin the context of his numerous ~specifically Christian

references. The third area of spiritual int.erest:. :or

Kandinsky is brought out through h.!.s continua': assertions

that feelings of spirituality pervade all ages and therefore

crea te ar. indivisible link between previous and oresent art ~ . ,

fé-rms.

Spiritualityas .an abstract concept is doscriJ:::ed by

Kandinsky as a pervading presence in all life:

The spiritual atmosphere is like the physical one and, like the physical, it. is saturated with certain elements; ta, inhale 'these elemetlts· spiritually creates a spiritual' flesh and blood, "attunes" the soul- all those souls that, ir. increasinq numbers, are aspiring towards the single aim 1:>y the s.!.ngle path. 'And this, our present path, is the path of ~he spirit.. . . '

(p. 101)

There are no overt references to Chl;istianity in this passage

and" despi_t~ the fact that Kandinsky w,as a devout Russian

, Orthodox Christian, one miqht question whether or not his own

private convictions did not lean towards a 'more un.i.versal ,

manifestation of spiri tuali ty. Indeed; his discussion of tbe " / "spiritual triangle (that] moves s lowly ... :orward and

upward," (p. 133) in 'On the Spiritual in Art has encouraqed ç

the hypothesis that Theosophy was the crucial spiritual

movement that influenced ~~l1dinskyt s development of an

4S

o

abstract Sixten Rlngbom, as mentioned in the

Introduction, Dased The Sounding Cosmos on the theory that

Theosophy was a "major inspiratio~_ and motivation" in

. Kandinsky' s move to aDstraction. Ringbom' s central argument

suc;gests tha t :

'A creed can become relevant for the emergence of an abstract pictorial idiom only if it fulfills both of the following two conditions: first, tt should postulate the existence of levels of, reality essentially different from our visible world, and, second, lt should actua+ly describe what these levels looJr'"'1ike.... TheosophY,clearly fulfilled both the above condi tions . 2

Ringbom also stresses the signif icance of the margj.nal r.etes

tha~ 'Kandinsky made in various Theosophical treatises. On

the other hanè., his reasonlng against the probable ':'nfluence

of Christianity i!i that "there . is little .:.n official ----Christian religion as such to inspire or justify a non­

Ringbom then illustrates his \ objective mode of expression. ,,3

theory by juxtaposing draw'ings of the \ theosophical wri ters

that show the auras around man wi th sim~lar painting:s by

K~ndinsky (figs. 9,10). The similarities are undeniable as

are Kandinsky' s interests in Theosophy, but 0 te present

Theosophy as the most influential source of Kandinsky' s

abstraction in art seems to deny the importance of his

Christian beliefs and te overlook his personal view of- the

Theosophical Society. As Jelena Uahl-Koch says, .

"Kandinsky. • . naturally looked upon' theosophy, which was

flourishinq just at that

._------------------~

without, however, allowinq [himself] to get entanqled in i ts o c:.. sectarianism. ,,4 The proflem with Rinqbom' s argument becomes

evident if we examine Kandinsky' s own statements about the

theosophical movement in cOhnection with his references to

Christiani"ty. First, .... :' 1-' :.~ 'J. ~

Kandinsky clearly discusses Mme.

Blavatsky and the .Theosophical Society from the point of view

of an interested observer:

[The work of Mrs. H.P. Blavatsky] was the starting point of one of the greatest spiritual movements, which today uni tes a large number of people and has even given material form to this spiritual union throuqb the Theosophical Society. This society consis~ts of brotherhoods of those who at tempt to approach more closely the problems of the spirit by the pa th o~ inner consciousness. Their methods, which are the complete opposite of those of the positivists,' take their starting point from tradition and are qi ven relatively precise form.

(p. 143)

By describing the brotherhoods of the Theosophical Society in

terms of 1 their' methods or beliefs, KandinSkY~~~h obvious ly respectful, . ·remains_~~_a.removiid~~~~ ~ion . He

ernphasizes this position wi th his concluding comments on ""-

Theosophy: "In any càse, even" if sorne observers are skeptical

of the Theosophist' s tendency to theorize and their someihat

premature deliqht in putting an answer in place of the qrèat, , \

eternal question mark, nonetheless -the great, yea spiritual,

movement rernains" (p. 145) • Kandinsky' s skepticism

concerning theosophy only serves to strengthen the importance

o~ his own Christian beliefs, which bec orne manifest through

his frequent referenc;es to the Bible, to Chr istiani ty and

·47 , ...

1;'.'

,"

o

,J,

; .

through his use of bibl'ital iméfgery in paintinqs such as his ~'

. many depictions of, th~ Apocalypse . In Reminiscences

Kandinsky refers to' the Holy Trinit y as intrinsicallY

involved ,with the newly dawninq spirituality, "Here begins

" the great epoch of- - the spiritual, the Revelation of the

Spiri t. Fa'ther-Son-Holy Spirit" (p., 377). He then draws an

important parallel between the "organic growth" of the 0

. Christian religion and that of art:

-Art in' many respects resembles religion. Its develop~ent consists not of new discoveries that obliterate old truths and stamp them as false. Its development consists in moments of sudden illumination, resembling a flash of lightening .••• This illumination reveals with blind~ng clarity new ~perspectives, new truths that are in essence .nothing other than the organic development, the,

• continuing organic growth of earlier wisdom, which is not cancelled out by the latter-, 'but remains living and productive as truth and as wisdom. The

'new branch does not render the tree trunk. superfluous: the trunk determines the possibility of the branch. Would the new testament have been possible without the old?

(Pf 377,378)

Kandinsky 0 concludes that the demand for inner life in the

work 'of art was a Christian conception, "and that, at the

sarne time, it concealed within itself the ele~e~ts necessary

i~self to \

creative

in a COlogne

.. "" "third" revelation, 'the revelation of the

379) • His "Christian" view of art ~xtended

the responsibili ties of artise-s- and, their

a view which he expressed very specifically

914: - "The artist works not to, earn

praise or admiration, to avoid blame and hatred, but

48

o

"

rather obeys that categorically i'tnperative' voice, \oJhich is .;'

the voice of the tord, before whom he must humble himself and

whose servant he is" (p.400). . Kandinsky's discussion of spi~ituality as a continual

presence in a~t bf the past, present and future is élosely

associated with his theôries on the interrelationship between

religion and art. He emphasizes the fact that his art is not

a negation of past art forms, but an organic continuation of

old .\,deas and thernes: "[The historian] will see that it \vas

in no way the rejection of all previous kinds of barrnony and

·l1eauty, . but was their organic, immutable, and natural

continuation. So the new branch is the continuation of the

ola tree o . (p. 102). Kandinsky stresses that despite many

similari ties in "inner content" the outward appearance must

ccnform to the style -of the epoch in which the artist lives

in order to be appreciated:

Every spiritual epoch expresses its particular ,content in a ferm that corresponds exactly te that content. In this way, every epoch assumes its true "physiognomy", full of expressive power, and thus "yeste.t;day" is transformed into "today" in every spiritual realm. It is not form that censtitutes our natural with the past, but the kinship betweE!n aspects of today's spirit and the spirit of bygone periods.

liaison certain certain

, (p. 842, 76B)

It i~ this clething of similar spiritual intentions in

different outward ferros that crea tes the link between the

abstract werk of Kandinsky and the religious Gesamtkunstwerk

he experienced in churches. The spiritual intentions he

49

o

"discusses are ;n aIl probabi1ity Christian because he ~

describes a similar transition from mate rial to abftract

concepts as taking plac~ in the 1aws of Chr istiani ty: \. ~ ,Christ, in his own words, came not tO.overthrow thf:\ old Iaw. When he sai d, "It was said unto you ..• ' and l say unto you," he transformed the old material Iaw into his own spiritual law. The men of his time, in contrast to those of "Moses' time, had become capable of understanding and

_ .. experi~ncing the conunandments,... not only in direct, _ material form, but a1so in 'the more abstract form of sins of the mind.

(p. 378)

Kandinsky sees man as deve10ping the ability to understand

abstract concepts conceivep originally in material forme A ~ ~, ~' . .

, ,\ parallel process exists in the understanding of spiritual

art, in that man is able to absorb abstract images if they ,

develop slowIy out of a more materially concrete forro of

expression.

In his writings Kandinsky c1early and unequivocally

makes the association between his :experiences in 'churches and

the desired effect of his abstract paintings. In

Reminiscences he explains that when in peasant houses in

Russia, "I felt surrounded on aIl sides by painting, into

which l haq thus penetrated" (p. 369).

rea1ization that:

He continues with the

The sarne feeling had previously Iain dormant within me, qui te unconscious ly , when l had been in the Moscow churches, and especially in the main Cathedral of the Kremlin. Later, l often had the sarne experiences in Bavarian and Tyrole~n chapels.

(p. 369) r

These sensations were to remain important to Kandinsky

- ('1

o

o

throughout bis life. In 1935, Kandinsky wrote a response to ,

a questionnaire " in Cahiers d' Art in which he expressed the

hope that his paintings would inspire the feeling of being in

ochurch: 11 If a "simple" man (a worker or a peasant) says, "I

don 1 t understand a thing about this art, but l feel as if l

were in ,church," he proves by that that his head has not been - '\

thrown into co11lfusion.· He does not unde-rstand but he- feels" ,. (p. 766). Here exists the connection between Kandinsky t s

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earlier emotional experiences and the development of his

arti'stic goals. It is clear tha t Kandinsky has translated

his feelings of spirituality in churches into the des ire to

create an art that would be imbued with similar feelings.

The church therefore must be seen as a crucial source

of inspiration for Kandinsky because i t contains the .~

.~ quali t.tes ,of both physical and spiritual monumentali ty. .In

BarO,que Catholic church~s\ particularly, '"

rnuch emphasis is

" placed on the expression of faith through dramatic, didactic

images and the importance of enveloping the viewer in

spiritual feeling. Both of these quali ties parallel J

Kandinsky' s goals in p~inting 'and 'he repeatedly stressed the

idea that new art is only the natural development of past art

and that the modern means of expression is necessary as a <>

modern means of communication. By discussing the churches

with which Kandinsky was fami,lar, l will indicate the

similar'ities 'that exist both in spiritual content and ln

artistic expression.

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Kandinsky' s first feelings of a spiritually enveloping

art took place in Russia.

autobiography, Reminiscences,

He wrote two versions of his

one of which was to be 1

published in Russia. In the Russian version he specifically

names two churches in which he was spiritually inspire~ The

Church of St. Basil the Blessed and the Cathedral of the

AssumPtion. 5 The Russian churches are important for a number

We know that thèy represented powerfulo

examples of' rEtasons.

of an art form that surrounds the spectator and Kandinsky was

intere$ted, as seen in Chapter One, in creating his own

spiritual synthesis of the arts. In 1926, in the Amsterdam

periodical i10, he describes the Russian Chur ch as a

"particularly important example" of a synthesis of the arts:

It may be regarded as more or less proven that in the old Russian church all the arts served, with equal prominence and to the same extent, a single goal- architecture, painting, sculpture, music, poetry and dance (movement of the clergy). Here, the aim was purely internal- prayer. '\

(p. 712)

It is evident... that Kandinsky has made a direct association

between the possibili ties he saw wi th his own modern form ff

tqe Gesamtkunstwerk and the combination of elements that made

up the "old style" churches in Russia. r

The church of St. Basil the Blessed, built in 1553,

-illustrates this picturë of "the old Russian Church in which

all the arts served a single goal." It is described as being

made up of a "diversity of for.ms and decorative features 1

[that are] further heightened by the lavish use of coloured

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tile. Although these het~iogeneous elements are highly

indi vidual in character, they combine into a harmonious-

ensemble. ,,6 It is not diffioult to understand Kandinsky' s

appreoiation for a spiritual monument that presents such a

distinct example of a unified religious Gesamtkunstwrk. The " . "

importance of colour in art, for Kandinsky, indicates a

further reason for his attraction to St. Basil' s as, lia .

strikinq feature is its cOlouring: red, o~ange, yellow,

green, blue, violet, gold and silver ming~e successfully and

produce a stunning effect,,7 (fig. 11).

The main Ca~hedral of the Kremlin, the Church of the

Assumption, is also remarkable for its lavish decoration and

it i9 not surprising that here tao Kandinsky felt n'surrounded

on all sides by painting" (fig. 12) . The construction and

embellishments of the Church of the Assumption took place

over a n~er of centuries beginning in 1326 : the

reconstruction -was f inished in 1479, and the f irst and second .

sets of" wall paintings were applied in 1515 and 1642

respecti vely. In addi tien, from 1881 to' ~883, the

iconostasis was cover~d with repouss~ silver ornament. 8 A

description of the interior of the Rhurch is furnished by

Arthur Voyce:

The dimenslons are rather small - in the West 1t would be called a chapel rather than a cathedral -but it is so fraught with recollections, so crowded with furnishings, frescoes, and 1cons, from the floor to the cupola, that 1ts smallness ofgspace 1s forgotten in the fullness of its contents.

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From these churches Kandinsky undoubtedly received his first

impressions of a religious Gesamtkunstwerk and, in

retrospect, he was to understand the 1

important connection ,

they held with ~he direction his art was taking.

However, Kandinsky was in Munich when he actua~y synthesis of the arts and when formulated his own ideas for a

he realized the importance of painting abstract works of art.

There~or~ the churghes Kandinsky visited in Southern Germany

would have been more influential as they provided him with

the immediate visual experience of the Gesamtkunstwerk while •

"he was experimenting with his own personal, more abstract

means of expression. The style of church· which so richly \

7xpresses the Gesamtkunstwer~ ideals and of which there are

numerous examples in Bavaria, is the Baroque Catholic church.

The Catholic convictions that are expressed through Baroque,

splendour of forms would have impressed Kandinsky's

sensibili ties for a nwnber of reasons. The drama tic

presentation of biblical images in Baroque art, would have

appealed to Kandinsky because of his interest in the -'" theatriC\l, bot~! staged and in ~ainting. The Baroque churcli

also uses aIr possible' -means, archi tecture', painting,

sculpture ~nd ~usic to present the spiritual message which,

together with the seeming confusion and richness of forms,

shows a striking formal paral.lel _ with the development of

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. Kandinsky' s abstract art. The Baroque church would have

~ helped to articu1ate such initial1y ~a~e~t ideas of Kandinsky -,

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because - of the inherent similari ties of pUJ;pose.

Consequent1y, when he speaks of a "partly new, part1y reborn

synthetic 'm0z:1umental' art" (p. 509), Kandinsky could weIl

have been inspired by the Baroque form of a religious

Gàesamtkunstwerk. "' '.

Baroque Catho1ic painting, in

prominence after the Counter

~hich develop,d

Reformation and \ the

establishment of the Counci1 of Trent, was used primarily for

the portrayal of events in the lives of Christ and the

Saints. A saint who figures very prominent1y in the

iconography of Baroqùe churches in ~~yaria as weIl as being • and important religious symbol for Kandinsky an often used

was Saint George. In 1911 alone Kandinsky made numerous oil

paintings, wood-cuts, ~ watercolours and three

"Hinterglasbilder" on the theme of St. George slaying the,

Dragon, as weIl as depicting rnany unidentified horse ~nd

rider images throughout his painting career. Thus the figure

of St. George is significant because of the pictorial and

idea1istic link he creates betwe~n Kandinsky's work and the

Bavarian Baroque re1igious art.

Why St. 'George was so important to Kand~nsky is a

question that needs to he examined. A1though he names

certain riders specifically as ,St. George, including the

--figure that adorns the caver of the Blaue Reiter Almanach, it . "\

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cannot be deterrnined from this alone that the Blue Rider or J .

the many other riders are, in fact, also st. George. The

enigrnatic harse and rider could alsa be St. Martin, one of

the three riders of the Apocalypse, or perhaps Kandinsky was

illustrating St. John's Rev. 19:11. "And l saw he aven opened,

and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was caIIed

Faithful and True, and <fi

in righteousness he doth jUdge ana

make war. ,,10 However, certain staternents by Kandinsky

lndicate that the identity af the horse and rider is, in most

cases, St. George.

The somewhat c~sual comment that Kandinsky makes

canderning the naming of the Blaue Reiter Almanach is that he

was sitting over caffee with Franz Marc and as, "we' both

loved blue, Marc horses [and] l - riders, the name invented

itseIf" (p., 747). Kandinsky also speaks of the horse and

rider in Reminiscences when. -discussing the importance of

controlling the creat1 ve power and how he trained himself ta

guide the power wi thin him. He explains, "the horse bears

the rider with strength and speed. But the rider guides the

harse. Tàlent carries the artist to great heights wi th

,..... strength, and speed, but the artist guides his talent. ,,11

{<andinsky is 1ntimating that, by guiding the horse or,

artistically, the talent, the art·ist/rider is gUiding or

leading man in the spiritual se arch by means of. his art.

Just as St. George 1s associated with' the conversion of

heathens through good deeds, so too did Kandinsk~, as Washton

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Long states, "compare himse~f and his friends ta the early /'

Christians for trying tp raise' the weakest ta spi ri tual

ba t t le' . ,,12

It seems logical that Kandinsky's , interest in

~ortraying St. George in his own work could have derived from

having seen sO"m,any. examples of this image in South German

art. St. George 15 represented in Getman art 50 frequently

because of the renewed popularity of the Bavarian Order of

St. George in the eighteenth century.13 Shortly after 1729,

in acknowledgement of this revival of interest in the St.

George legend, a nwnber of churches were consecrated and

altar paintings were added in which are found images

glorifying the deeds of St. George. St. George was important o _

durinq a time of floufishing Baroque sp+,endour becau5e he

represented a personification of the ideal of spiritual

leadership for which the Catholic church stood. The Bavar ian

"fondness for a sense of the dramatic, ,,14 coupled wi~h the

Baroque theatrical presentation of religiaus îmagery rnakes it

easy to understand the attention gi ven ta the anima ting and

inspiring story of St. George. , A twoxold rea'son therefore exists for the importance af

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Bavarian Baroque churches to Kandinsky. Not only would he

have found the synthesis of the arts inspiring, but the

" religious depictions of saints with whom he had felt a great ,

affinity would al"so have drawn him. l will discuss three

churches, aIl known to 'which illustrate the

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pictorial and architectural Baroque' properties tha~ wculd

'" interest and affect Kandinsky's artistic career.

The visiter to any Baroque church in Bavaria wou!d be

immediately affected by the richness and energy ù ~ha t

surround5 him. As John Bourke says, the specta tor "may

becerne aware that [the ~aroque church] breathes a message; <

that from tower ~o tabernacle, frdm swinging arch te painted

dome, from the most charminq ~utto to the most magnificent

altar :t breathes a message which, in itself timeless, i5 in

sorne way the message of an epoch .. " 15 The Thea.tinerkirche in

Munich, built from 1663 to 1690, and: which Kandinsky

certainly knew, i5 a powerful exan~ple of a· Baroque

Gesa.rtttkuns twe rk that combines architecture, sculp~ure and Q

painting in order to create an inspiring aI}è. uplifting

envi.ronment that would persuade the s'pectator '. ,

ta participa te

in the history of... s,1lyation. The majestic and striking

facade of the Theatinerkirche supports two imposinq tower­, helms which flank the entrance portice (fig. 13). The

interior shows 4 three-bay'bas,ilican design" wi th transepts,

full dome wi th drum and lantern over the cibssing and an

apsidal choir. 16 Theu immense interior is dlffusèd with a

subdued, gentle light' that produces an Airy quality ip an t

env,ironment mar~ed by \ massiv~ columns and very plastic stucco

embellishments. Despitè the size, there remains a stately

9race of l''movement in the architecture that draws the

spectâtor towards the altar. As witnessed in this church,

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and explain~d by Bourke:

The devices employed by Baroque architects and the artists who co-operated with them .were aimed ultimately at producing e:fects of religious or metaphysical' siqnificance, in particu'lar at the appa~ent overcoming of spatial limitations Sb that the eye of the beholder is led on from the part to the. ~hole~ from the fin~te to the apparently lnfl.nlte. 11

These same· qualities are aiso very important ~o

Kandinsky in his painting. In other words, he wishcd te

paint images that 'were spi~i tually power,ful enough to envelep

the spectator and draw him in. ~he devices he would use te

achieve this goal appear in the form of a modern simulation

of architectural , environment resplendent with the ,Baroque o '

drarr.atic colour and mysteriou~ lighting. In addition to the , 0

physical properties of the Theatinerk!rche, Kar.dinsky would

,have been drawn to the altar of' a Small side' chapel 'near the

entrance. The altar painting in this chapel is of St. George '" .. slaying the Dragon (fig: 14) • The style of the sairrt's

billowing cloak, plumed helmet and piercing lance str9nqly

resembles images which Kandinsky pai~_t~çl __ ot St. George. If

we 'look at his St. George l of 1911, it id possible te see

certain schematic similarities in the pres en ta tion of ~

the

heroic saint. Thi~ saint is a figure who carrie's ,a mes:;age

of spiritual courage and Christian leadership. The Baroque

chur ch th~ same message intrinsically as a

spiritual ~deal, an4 visually through piètorial, sculptural,

architectural and auraI, imagery. Kandinsky aiso uses the

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symbolic imag~ of St. George as weIl as elements found in the

4[), Baroque synthesis of the arts in order to power~ully present

o~·

his own spiritual message. The similarities then, of these

innèr convictions have lead ,Kandinsky to absorb certain

stylistic elements of Ba~oque vitality and spirit into his

own painting.

The Ramsachleinkirche is a tiny chapel, ten minutes on

foot from the house in which Kandinsky and Gabrielle Muhter

lived on Kottmullerallee in Murnau (fig. 15). This church !

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was weIl known to Kandinsky as it stood in the countrysid~ in

which he frequently walked and sketched. Indeed, a number of

landscape paintings exist, tha~ he painted from locations

within sight of the church. As in the side chapel of the

Theatinerkirche, the altar painting in the Ramsachlein is an o ,

image of St. George slaying the Dragon (fig. 16). ,Despite

the small size qf the chapel, the ornamentation reflects a

typical+y Baroque profusion of detail, such as the gold "-

arabesques and grape vines winding up the spiral columns that

flank the altar painting. Kandinsky's appreciation for thi~

litt le church would ,exist once again in the use of a ., favourite Christian image, and in the dramatic colour and

liqht that presents to theüviewer a joyous and optimistlc

image of salvation. The "lightness and joyousness of the

Bavarian Baroque,,18'expresses the Christian faith with a hope

and enthusiasm-that . .J.s shared by Kandinsky. He beiieved that t, - •

a v.topian world would he achieved, ih the twentleth cEmtury

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after an apocalyptic crisis, "as if a great city, built

sOlldly according to all architectural and mathematical

~ules, is sUddenly shaken by a mighty force" (p. 141).

Kandinsky reassures the reader though, by declaring, "and

yet, in\sPite of being thus continually dazzled, in spite of 1

this chaos, ... in reality the spiritual triangle moves

forward and ~pwar.d, slowly'but surely and with irresistible ,

force" (p: 137). Kandinsky's visions are expressed in a"much

more modern and intangible manner, yet these views can be

se en to parallel Bavarian Baroque sensipilities because the

inner convictions of· bath are portrayed beneath a similar

exterior profusion of colour, richness and bewilderment of

forros.

The church which can perhaps best exemplify this

parallel of artistic goalst bath of internal spiritual

conviction and external physical form, is the Bavarian Abbey

church of Weltenbu~g. There a+e a number of reasons for

assUming that Kandinsky was familiar with Weltenburg. The

AbbeY~hurc~ was written up in K. Baedekerls Handbook for

Travellers: Southern Germany ~nd Austria, 'as early as 188319

indicating that it was an acknowledged historie s,ite weIl

recommended to the interested traveller. Jelena Hahl-Koch

has also expres,sed the belief that Kandinsky would have been

,y acquainted with the church at Weltenburg. 20 cert~in fo~mal relationships can be seen to exist between Kandinsky's work

and imagery found at Weltenbur~, but these will be discussed

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later in the chapter.

Weltenburg, designed in 1717 by the Asam brothers, Egid d!l

Quirin and Cosmas Damian, is situated on a "sqingly spit of

land in the tight embrace of the [Danube] as it sweeps round

in a sharp curve to break through a deep gorge. 1I21 (fig. 17)

The parallel to Kandinsky's work exists both in iconographie

content and in the monumental approach., By examining the

South German Baroque Gesamtkunstwerk through this chur ch it

is possible to arrive at a further understanding of

Kandinsky's pwn artistic ideals. [

The church was created as a unified entity that would

interact harmoniously with its exterior su=roundings while

Cqntai~nq O~ the interior many visual experiences created

through the elemehts of painting, sculpture, light, space and

colour. These elements dramatically emphasize three major

areas of the church that represent stages in the spiritual

journey towards salvation. A description of the area of the

church an~ tpe manner in which biblical images are presented

will elucidate Kandinsky's interest in such a Christia~ ar~

forme The church also gives tangible form to Kandinsky's

statement: our pic~ure of the present, which has its origins

in yesterday,and strives towards tomorrow~ appears outwardly

confused, whi le being inwardly united" i-p;-S"O,g) • In other

words, despite a certain dissimilarity of external forms

Which might lead one to overlook the artistic influence of

Bavarian BaroBUe churches on Kandinsky's modern abstract art,

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there remains a steadfast union of inward spirituality.

The entrance to Weltenburg is low and dark and

with images that express the importance of Repentance. Above

the confessionals, found on either 'side of the entrance, are

paintings depict;ng The Repentance of St. Peter and The

Repentance of St. Mary Magdalene. Above and straight ahead

on the o

entrance ceiling that curves down in a "voute", low

thereby partially concealing one's viewof the interior, are

images in stu':,co of Death, The Last Judgement, Heaven and -

Hell. Here also are references to the four seasons, the

cycle of the year. The sombre gloom of the entrance stands

as a metaphor for man's p~esent Existence in a temporal world

w,ith an emphasis on sin and error and the inevitable end as

man perceived it, Salvation occurs through following the

biblical exarnples of the Repentance of St. Peter and Mary

Magdalene.

Upon entering the main body of the J

church through ~

screen of columns one is immediately impressed with the added

height and width, colour and light. The many biblical,images

shown here center around the idea of spteading the word of "

God to the multitudes. As it is a Benedict~ne Abbey 1t is \

fitting, to see, on the left, a painting of St. Benedict

Preaching and on the right, The Benedictines Arriving in

America. Up above in an illusionistic dome 1s a depict10n of

tqe Coronation of the virgin. Circling the dome in orelief

sculpture are the Archangels Gabriel, Michael, Raphael and

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Uriel and the four Evangelists. Therefore, in this section,

one is given hints of possible salvation in the future by the

representations of Heave'nly and Biblical authori ties and the

coronatton and ~ Reception of the Virgin into Heaven. The

sermon and the liturgy which would be delivered in this area . \ ,

the pictorial lessons. 22 would add a verbal emphasis to The

result of these architect~ral and pictorial effects is, a$

Bourke says, "a distinction between a mysterious, earthbound ". 't- '-

gloom below and an unearthly radiance above and to the east.

We feel in sorne strange border-land between the earthl~ and 1

the heavenly. ,,23

While the spectator is moving through the church and .

receiving the..-many biblical messages that are portraYced, he

never loses sight of the high altar where the dramatic image

of St. George and the Dragon is displayed silhouetted against

'an intense light (fig. 18) • ,J St. George" the archetypal -

Christian soldier who.fights evil for Christ, is here, in "

shining silver, a powerful symbol of .hdpe, strengt~ and

honour. His triumphant and majestic position within ~he

church, together with th~ ideas for which he stands, make him

a fitting climax for the visual imagery.

Throughout the church light and colour- play vital roles t-

in directing one's steps towards the altar and emphasizing -.

the stages of Repentance, hope of salvation'and finally ~he

glory or reception into heaven. One is therefore enveloped

in an environment resplendent with suggestive imagery but

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which,is lit bY,a continually hidden light source.

clear that the interests of the Asam brothers:

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lay in creating atmosphere and vision, in deliberat~ly undermining the limitations of matter apd bursting the bonds of space by aIl the devices of perspectival illusion and fanciful lighting. Indeed, •.. , the y deliberately aimed... at "dissolving" the surfaces and masses of walls 4nd pilasters and vaults sa that the effect of the visionary and mysterious atmosphere should be unimpaired. 24

Just as the Asam brothers wished to "dissolve the surfaces

and masses of walls," and "burst the bond of space," so ,tao \

did Kandinsky wish ta discover a means by which he could

crea te a painting with limitless boundaries thereby giving

the impression of an enveloping art forme He wou Id therefore

draw upon the same elements th;lt "exist in this Baroque church

to produce similar effects.

The dramatic lighting, which gradually increases from 1

the subdued entrance to the bri~ht altar is one element that

would have moved ,

Kand~nsky deeply. In Reminiscences he

discusses the importhnce of lighting when speaking of the

wo~k of Rembrandt:

The great divisions of light and dark, the blending of secondary tones into the larger areas, the way in which these tones melt together in these areas ••• revealed to me entirely new possibilities, the superhurnan power of colour in its own right, and in particular, the intensification of that power achieved by combinations, i.e. contrasts.

(p. 366)

s The dramatic lighting and the diffusion of s'pace in the "t

ahurch and ~n Kandinsky's work directs us to a third element

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which is also importa~ to both, that of t~me. !t takes time

4Ct. to move through Weltenburg and to absorb, from the entrance

·to th~ altar, the pictorial imagery, the effec~~ of light and •

dark and the ~luidity of the architectural forms which

.express the "message." Kandinsky describes similar qualities

in his own work:

.•• in every part [exist] an "endless" series of initially concealed colour-tones. They had to lie in such a way that they were completely hidden at first (especially in the da~ker parts), revealing themselves only in the course of time to the engrossed, attentive viewer, indistinct and at the same time tentative, quizzical at first, and then sounding forth more and mère, with increasing, "uncanny" power.

(p •. 366-367)

Therefore in Weltenburg and in Kandinsky's work at the time

wnen he was making the transition towards abstract painting, ,

the imp6rtant ~isual images are initially hidden from the

view of the spectator. The result is that we must penetrate

further (physically into the church while a more concentrattd 'P~

• involvement is necessary with regards Kandinsky's paintings)

in order to acquire a clearer vision of the subject and the

meaning. In Washton Long" s discussion of the "Role of the

Hidden Image" she emphasizes Kandinsky's belief that, "hidden

and arnbiguous suggestions would be the most powerful," ,as the

'" spectator who "had to decipher the message ..• would reach a

new' understanding in the process. ,,25 ' C!f;j

Kandinsky's St. George I, of 1911, exemplifies his

interest in· presenting a somewhat concealed though still -\.

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representational image, one on which we must concentrate that

much more in order to determine what is being depicted (see

fig. 1) • l would o even suggest , , that the plumes on &t.

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George's helmet, the spirals of smoke and the curve of the

dragons tail indicate' a formaI relationship between the St. ~

George at Weltenburg and the St. George by Kandinsky. A

similar subject is portrayed in an unpublished pencil and

watercolour sketch found in Kandinsky's travel sketchbook of.

1905/07, in the Lenbachhaus Stadtgalerie archives (tig. 19).

The sketch depicts the faminar story of St. George and the

Dragon, however this time the tiny graceful saint, astride

his horse, is 'leaping over a deep rocky gorge. BeIow, ~t the

foot of the 'çIiffs, beside a bend in the river, • lies the

~1nuous form of the Dragon. This little sketch captures '

beautifu·lly the feeling evoked 1 j.

by ~ oornbination of the

e~terior and indbrior elements of Weltenburg. The rugged

cliffs and the winding river are very similar to the Danube

,and the awe-inspiring walls of rock on either side. \ \

Moreover, the altar-like arch that 'frames the sketch is

identical in shape and proportion to the arch which fram~s

the statue of St. George in the church. FinaIIy, the joyous

leap that St. George takes over the gorge, with sword and

shield uplifted, ferventIy expresses the optimism and sense

of victory which are visuaIIy symbolized in the painted and

sculptural images of Weltenburg, and which Ka~dinsky felt

existed spiritually in art • t

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Through this discussion . ~ of Kandinsky's spiritual

convictions, the spiritual and artistic aspirations of the

Bavarian Baroque church and af the image ~ st. George as ~

pictorial and idealistic figure in past and present art

forms, it becomes ~ident that the churches of the Bavarian

Baroque are crucial to Kandinsky's development. What now

needs to be determined 'iS~ ma~ner in which Kandinsky

adapted the elements of a three-dimensional artistic and

\- religious structure to a two-dimensional painted surface.

The first chapter established that Stage Composition was an "

artistic experiment for Kandinsky and that he wished;

ultimately, to crea te the same level of enveloping spiritual

feeling on canvas alone. In the final chapter l will discuss

theory behind Kandinsky's move ,to abstraction and

staDlish how he hoped the paintings would be éxperienced by o

the spectator. The importance of spirituality and the desire

to create.an emotionally environmental art points to certain

similarities between the elements of a Bavarian Baroque

church and those which are combined in Kandinsky's abstract

paintings. In order to emphasize these similarities l will

analyze tqe effect of such elements as colour, form, tone,

light = é!-hq space on both modern and ~aroque religious

Gesamtkunstwerk.

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Notes

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1Theosophy: A modern movement seeking universal

brotherhood that uses such symbols as the triangle te have

certain spiritual connotations.

2Sixten Ringbom The Sounding Cosmos (abo Akadami, 1970),

p. 23/24.

3Ibid., p. 23

4Jelena Hahl-Koch~ ~ (ed.) Arnold Schoenberg~Wassily

KandinskY: tetters, fictures and Documents Trans. John C.

Crawford (London: Faber & Faber, 1984), p. 1'44.

SKenneth Lindsay and Peter Vergos ( eds .) Kandinsky': . ,

Complete Writings on Art (Boston, Mass.: G.K. Hall & Co.,

• 1982) volo 2 see editors note 152, p. 892.

6Arthur Voyce The Moscow Kremlin: .Its History,

Archi tecture and Treasure,s. (Westpoint Conneticut: Greenwood

Press Publ~shers, 1971) , p. lOI. 7 . Ibid. , p. 101.

8Ibid. , . - p . 33/35.

9Ibid. , p. 33.

10"Revelations of St. John the Divine" Holy Bible

(authorized King James Versi~)

The horse and rider figure iJ Kandinsky's work:

Hidepo Nishida in, "Genesis of the Blaue Reiter," Homage ta

Wassily ,Kandinsky (New York: Leon Amiel Publishers, 1976), p.

22/28 suggests that the white harse and rider, sllch as in

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Sketch for Der Blaue Reiter, is that which appears at the 5

" Gates of Heaven to John and that he represents the leap into

a new epoch of spirituality. Washton Long sugqests that the '" horse and rider could either be St. George or St. Martin.

llWassily Kandinsky "Reminiscences," Modern Artists on

Art (trans.) Robert L. Herbert. (New Jersey: Prentice-Ha11,

Inc., 1964) p. 39.

l2Washton Long "Kandinsky and Abstraction: The Role of

the Hidden Image" Artforum (vol: 10, June 1972), p. 43. , ~

13J. Lewis Andre. "St. George the Martyr, in Legend,

Ceremonial, Art, etc." The Archeological Journal. (vol'- 57),

pp. 204-223, "Many Orders of St. George have been established

abroad, one or two of which appear to date as far back as the ':~

12th century. The Bavarian Order of St. George, one of very

ancient foundation, after fa11ing into abeyance til1 1729,

was then revived and still f1ourishes ..• " p. 210.

Bourke Barague Churches of Central EuroDe,

(London: Faber & Faber, 1978), p. 35.

15Ibid., p. 41.

16Ibid., For complete description of the 'Theatinerkirche

see" pp. 134/135. 1

17Ibid., p. 24.

18Ibid., p. 38.

19K. Baedeker SouthernGermany an~ Austria: Handbook for

Travellers 5th ed. revised and augmented (Leipsic: Karl

Baedeker, London: Dulau & Co., 1883), see"p. 102.

70

0,

,.

20When visiting • l'

the Lenbachhaus Stadtqalerie in Munich

in June 1985, l discusseQ. 'my ideas about ~f-ndinskY and the . Gesamtkunstwerk with Jelena Hahl-Kocc..·:' She confir!l'ed my

" .. le""' !

impression tha t'Kandinsky woulp. have .. k,~ow~ of the Abbey

Church of Weltenburg.

21sourke, p. 23.

22The Blaue Reiter Almanac~, .~.t,f

disèussed in t~e previous

chapter as a manifesta of t:he belie!. that together the arts '-0

Wbuld play a' vital role in the renewal of spiritual truth in ,

the future, has a similar purpose to the verb~l images ,--, f---

pr.esented in the liturgy, and sermons such as would be ,

delivered in Weltenburg. As Kandinsky said in Reminiscences,

the purpose 'of the Blaue Re! ter Almanach i5 "ta awaken this

capacity for eXp'eriencing the spiri~ual in material and in

abstract phenomena" (p. 381).

Q'

~3 ' Bourke, p. 96.

24Ibid., p. 93.

25Was~tçr:t Long, - p. 45.

71

~~~----~_. -,

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f

CHAPTER THREE

. The Possibility of a T'Wo-dimensional Gesamtkunstwerk

J

oespite the varlet y of directions ,in J/hich his artistic

" investigations took .him, the final analysis of~Kandinsky's

worx must '~scuss the importance of the GesëÙntkunstwer~ ,in -'

terms of its possible inspiration for his move to abstraction

in painting. A. number of other sources of inspiration have

been S<llu9'gested: Sixten, Ringbom stresses the importance of 1 , .

Theqsophy and the occult, peg Weiss focuses on Kandinsky's

interest in the combined effects of the Jugendstil movement

and Symbolism and R.C. Washton Long discusses the 0

siqnificance of hidden image:r.y in Kar.dinsky' 5 art and 0

indicates a connection with Rudolph Steiner' s Christian

Theosophy" In addition ·to these possibi·li ties l have r , .

f'stablished in the previous chapters the undoubted importanc,e " t ,

of South Gcrman\Baroque.churches. Th~ Bavarian Church, in

wt\ich . $piri'tuality is ~anifested throuqh dramatic, "

-,

,re.,resentational iinaqes, 'tnay seem t~ have a remote cormection "t ,'~ : q

with Kandinsky~s expression 'of spirituality in abstraction,

yet the technical and spiritual incentive for his abstract

paintin~s can· indeed bel foun : in :ali aspects 9f these German

churches'. "

,Kandinsky ç1earlY descrlbes the :heoretical, goals for ~

hi. work in hi s" writinqs,. and he Acknowledqes that his

, , 72

\

. \, "

expe~iences in the churchès of Southern Germany awak,ened his o ambi tion for a monumental work of art.

/

It was" probably through these impressions, rather, than in any other way, that my further wishes and aims as regards my own art formed themselves wi thin me. For many years l have sought the possibility of letting the viewer "stroll" within the picture, forcing him to become absorbed in the p~cture,1 forgetful of himself.

( p. 3,69)

l'his "possibility of le'tting the viewer 'stroll.'_ wi tchin the

picture, " i5 perhaps the prime reason for Kandinsky t S

. . , exper imentat:ion wi th abstract palnt~ng. l t was obviously not _____ _

possible to recreate the same physical environment of é! c

Baroque chur ch ~:m a two-dimensional s,ur.face. HOwever 1 the

two-dimensionality would be empnasized if the pictu=~ was

representational because a pictorial image imp.lies a confined

. picture, framed byo the edges of the canvas. A painted scene,

though perhaps clff~cti.ng the illusion of three-dimensionali ty

within itself, i5 something to be viewed from an eX4erior "

position, as one would vie'w a scene through a window: The,

. . more' abstracted the image becomes, the more it requires

mental. concentration on the part of the viewer . If the .

viewer absorbs himself in the paintit:lg in a conc'entrated

effort to discern the meaninq, he is, in effect, enveloped by

the image before him. When the paÙltinq becomes completely ""

abstract it negates 'the idea of a border or a completed, edge .

. Kandinsky carefully examines the relationship lSetween two­

dimensionality and three-dimensionality with regards to the

, 73

" '

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painted surface. in "The Lang\l.age of Forros and Co1ours." He

O. suqgests that, "as far as drawing and painting are concerned,

the turn away from the rep~esel1tationa1 - and one ofe the 1>

first steps into the realm of the abstract . was the

exclusion of the third dimension, i.e., the attempt to keep \

the "picture" as painting upon a fIat surface" (p. 194).

Becau~e the emphasis was placeà on the materia1 surface of

the canvas, Kandinsky considered the possibilities of this

ear1y form of abstraction to be 1iml ted. 1 In order to be o

"free ... from this limitation, ... an attempt was made to

consti tute the picture upon an içleal: plane, which thus had to

be in front of the materi,al suzface of the canvas" (p. 195).

Kandinsky then goes OIl ta explain how both form and colour

can be used to emphasize both the fIat surface and a three­

dirnensional space: t.

The very thinness or thickness of a line, the positioning of the form upon the surface, and the superimposition of one form upon another provide sufficient examples ,of the linear extension of space. Similar possibillties are offered by the correct use of colour, which can recede or advance, strive forward or backward, and turn the picture into a being hovering in mid-air, which signifies ~he same as the pictorial extension of space.

(p. 195)

Abstraction, tAerefore, would create the effect of colour and

form continuing beyond the confines of the canvas itself and

the image would be transformed frem a viewed scene to an

environment in the mind of the spectator, who wou Id then be

able to maye within it. Three-dimensionality is an illusion

o , t

74

l :;

in a representational painting which creates an environment c • o for t,:he enclosed scene, ,whereas the three-dimensionali ty of

an abstract painting exists to provide an environment that

..

• o

includes the observer as weIl.

There is a second reason for Kandinsky 1 s move tp <>

abstraction. He wished to provoke a universal feeling of " spirituali ty, a feeling that would touch aIl viewers

regardless of their religious beliefs. As Kandinsky's view

of art was essentially Christian, any representational image

or symbol of a religious nature would be . , spi ri tually

inspiring only, to those of the Christian faith. , Every

culture or religion will naturally recognize( certain symbol~.

as arousing specifie emotions or reactions in the individual; ., .

even· ln Theosophy symbclic images exist that represent .

different level:s of spirituality to the the'osophist.

Kandinsky realized that this problem with the •

representa tional image ~isted. As he explained: "first and

foremost, differenees of inner content in the case of

different "nationali ties" ate decisive, particularly ,in the

realm of art. Our use of black for mourning, \.:her~=is the

Chinese use white~, is an adequate example" (p. 594). .:-Ie was ........ - .......

therefore lead to ereate more abstract wotks b{ .:!r~ which

thouglî based on a Christian iconography,

have a broader appeal. The interaction of

and form would have a unique emotional

WOU)d ul~i~tely abs(tract colour

ef~ect on each

indivldual and would, therefore, arouse the inner

75

o

*

spirituality that Kandinsky believed to exist in the soul of

a,ll humankind 0

It is clear that Kandinsky linked the desired effect of

his abstract paintinq, an em,elopipg sensation of

spirituality, with his earlier impressions in churches when

he suggests that, "if a "simple" man (a worker or a peasant)

says, '1 don' t understand a thing about this art, but I feel , ,

as, if l were in church,' he proves by that that his head has

not yet been thrown into confusion" (p. 766). He also

continually emphasizes the ties be~ween past and present art

forms: o j

1. '.0 have always been put out by assertions that I intended to over-throw the old [tradition ofl painting. l could never see any 'such intention in my works: in them l could feel only the inwardly logical, outwardly organic, ~ inevi table further growth of, art. ,\

(p. 379)

Kandinsky has thus established, - throughout his theoret!cal

writings, the ,importance of creating "a partly new, partly

reborn synthetic "monumental" ( p. 509) • This

"monumental art" took a number of during Kandlnsky's

artistic careeri forms such as his Stage Compositions, the

cerarnic wall design for the Music Room by Mies van der Rohe,

and the wall design for the entrance to the Jurief=eie

ex~~bition in Berlin, 1922. 2 ~Each of the se are examples of a

three-dimensional, physically ,enveloping work of art.

However, when Kandinsky declares, "Hence derives n,ot merely

the possibility, but also the necessity of developing

"76

/

.-, 0

mon~ental art ..•. This monumental art is the combination of o every art in one single work ..• " (p. 88), he cou Id also be

/

/

o

understood as referring to spiritually inspiring, ,

monumental

painting in which he has incorporated elements from aIl the

arts into one painted work, thereby utilizing the combined

effects of light, movement, t~me and spatial ~xtehsion to

draw in the spectator. In order to determine whether or nct

Kandinsky achiev,ed his artistic goal 9f a two-dimensional

Gesamtkunstwerk, l will examine a selection of his paintings o.

in varying stages of abstraction and discuss how the elements

that .make up an abstract work parallel' the artistic

properties of Bavarian Baroque churches. 1

Repetition of symbolic forms is one aspect of

Kandinsky' s paintings which l have mentioned (page' 27) a~ . . 'being derived partially from, his interest i~ Maeterlipck's

• t,

,work. Kandinsky used .. ~ertain symbolic images repeatedly'{ in

the procèss of abstraction, beginning ~ith a representational

image and reducing it in later works to schematic lines and

colours. As we have seen, the St. George paintings are an ...

important visual link between the symbolic ideals of

,Kandinsky and those of th~ Bavarian Church, however, they ~ 1 "

also exist as an excellent example of a pictorial theme that

is frequently depicted, each at a different s~.age of 'j\ ,

" abstraction. Kandinsky painted St. George l, II, and III,

all in 1911, the first being the most representational while

the third is almost completely abstract (see figs. 1,2,20).

77

.o~

o

The lance.is aIl that is clearly depicte~ in th~ last of this

series and from this starting point one must olt

attempt to

determine the rest of ,

the ~mage. Two paintings from the

1920s, in which one can still perceive St. George astride his

horse, illustrate Kandinsky's continuin~ interest in the

tradition of this saint and in the importance of the veiled

image-. In the Black Sguare, 1923, aneostensiblyabstract

painting, has been convincingly unveiled by Edward Kimball

and peg Weiss as being an image of oSt. George3 (fig. 21).

Once one has grown accustomed to identifying the symbolic

attributes of St. George, such as the diagonall~ placed

spear, the round shield, and the spirited horse whose Mane

can be seen in the rainbow arc to the left., the whole image

starts to emerge. Therefore it seems natural to find St. !

George holding a red spear, hunched over an abstracted

, lèaping horse on the right side of Aguarelle no. ' 23, 1922

(fig. ~2). The figure of St. George appears to be charging

into an-abstract world of chaos and turbulence. Kandinsky ... ~ ~.

explained this process of abstraction in the Cologne lecture

of 1914:

Objects began gradually to dissolve more and more in my pictures. l dissolved objects to a greater or lesser extent within the same picture, so that _ they might not aIl be recognized at once and so that these same emotional overtones might thus be experienced gradually by tae spectator, one after another. Î

(p. 396)

Kandinsky' s Apocalyptic paintings further illustrate tllis

78

'.

process\. In the "Hinter91asb~ ,Al! Saints Day, 1911, he o portrays certain images-- the trumpet-blowing ange1 in the

,0

. • 1-upper ,left, the city on the hill and th~ ,frothing waves

bel.w-- which he will' use repea te~ily in a more or ;less

abstracte9 form in other paintings on a similar theme. Ari

example of a slight1y more abstracted painting is a colour .. woodcut in Kandinsky's poetry collection, Klange, of 1913

(fig. 23). Here again the ange l, appears blowing a trumpet in

the upper 1eft, a city of toppling towers stands upon a

centrally placed hill, and swirling tormented figures

emphasize the feeling of impending apocalypse. Finally,,~

Saint's Day II, of 1911, shows the same motifs in an even'

further state of, abstraction ( fig. 24) • ,.. The idea of .

penetrating into the picture is illustrated here since the

viewer must concentrate for a long time in arder ta

understand and absorb all the concealed images. This is a1sQ

necessaL'y in the Baroque Chur ch as, for example, upon

entering Weltepburg, one' s view of the inter ior is ini tially

screened by the columns and low entrance ceiling which \ ...

"conceal" certain images until' one has penetrated into the

church more deeply and towards the high al tar

(fig. 25). In this way aIl aspects of t~~" chur~ design are

interrela:tedl for the purpose of gradually introducing the

. i \ h d' k' . h rel~g ous message to t e observer. Kan lns y s Vlew t at ., "

forms will be reveale9, "only over the course of time to the ;

eng:rossed att'entive viewer" (p. 366) , indicates his belief

79

that understanding an abs~ract painting is an arduous task

4[t the fulfillment of which will come only to those who are

o

o

willing to make the effort.

different levels of spiritual

Karidi~sky illustrates the

understanding with

descriptïon of the spiritual triangle: (1

The spiritual life can be accurately represented by a diag.ram of a large acute triangle divided i:nto unequal parts, with the most acute and smallest division at theo top. ., ... what is today comprehensible only to the topmost segment of the triangle and ta the rest of the triangle is gibberish, becomes tomorrow the sensible and emotional content of the life of the second sëgment. At the apex Qf the to}?most division there stands sometimes only a si~gle man. His joyful vision is like an inner, immeasurable sorrow.

(p. 133) ,

his

Similarly, spiritual salvation, as professed by the Catholic

church, does not come to everyone immediately, but only to

ehose who contribute their time and serious thought. '

Colour was also considered by Kandinsky to be of

primary importance in abstract paint~ng. One reason is

described by Kandinsky in a footnote in Reminiscences: "One

of my first notes concerning the beauty of colour in a

paintJng is as follows: "The splendour of colour in a

picture must seize the viewer, and at the same time it must

conceal the underlying content" (p. 366). Indeed, what is

immediately evident in a painting such as Improvisation III, l

1909, is hot the figures, the horse and ~ider or the

backgr9und archi~ecture, but the harmonious interplay of .

beautiful colours (fig. 26) . Only ~fter one registers the

80

. ,

o

, .

gently lyrical ~nd balanced colour composition does the , . portrayed, scene become appare,nt. Kandinsky explained tha t

. -cofour was a powerful 'element in painting because of two

essential ef(ects it had on the viewer: .

" 1)

2)

Th~re occurs a purely physical effect, the eye itself i5 charmed by the beauty other qualities of the colour. The second main conse.quence éf the contemplation of colour ris] the psychological"effect of colour. The psychological power of colour becomes apparent, calling forth a vibration from soule

i. e. , and

the

, (pp. 156-157)

The fact that colour is the first element experienced when

looking at most works of art can be illustrated by comparing

the effect of The Deluge, 1913/14, by Kandinsky, and The

Coronation of the Virgin which fills the oval ceilin~ in the

nave of Weltenburg (fig. '. 27,28). a

'In both a sense of en.ergy

and movement is presented by the many colours which blend and

interact with each other. œhough orily one imag~ is

representational, the Coronation of the Virgin in the

illusionistic dome in Weltenburg, in both the initial impact

occurs with the effect of colour. In the Coronation of the

Virgin the pr9fusion of images is such that 'it is possible to "

c

experience the çolour before observing the "content." This

colour "introduction" to th~ triumphant nature of the sUbject ,

was evidently of great value to Kandinsky who employed a "

similar technique in his own work. Because The Deluge is

completely abstract the importance of the effect of colour is

81 ,

"

heightened. Just as with the Coronation of the Virgin each o indi vidual ,will have, an emotional reactiot:l to the painting. "

However, with The Deluge colour and form alone will introduce

abstra.ct emotions ,in the spectator unconnected with a

specifie subject.

The energy felt through colour in Kandinsky's ahstract

work is equally expressed through the force of movement.

Kandinsky discusses this quality in Point -and Line to Plane: , '

l have substituted "tension" for the almost universally accepted term "!.lovement." "T~nsion" is the force inherent in an element, which represents only one part of its generative "movement." The' other, . part is' i ts "direction" wpich is also ' \determined by "movement." The el~ments of painting are the concrete results of movement, in the form of: 1) tension, and 2) direction. This division also creates a hasis for differentiating between different kinds of elements, e.g., point and line, of which the point carrfes within itself only a tension and dan have no direction, whereas lfne necessarily partakes both of tension and direction.

(p. 573)a

Kandinsky is suggesting that withip a painting the basic

formaI elements react against one another creating adynamie

movement through inner tensions. The sensation' of energy

~h~s. produced is undoubtedly transmitted in sorne form to the

viewer. In Cossacks, 1910/11, \the kinetic quality is

expressed by the Many sharply angled black lines that 'eut

through the picture from aIl sides, creating a feeliRg of .

frenetic energy (fig. 29). Kandinsky has .captured this

feeling by d~picting the complex and often conflicting

82

t

j

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o

)

interaction between the static tension of the "point" and the

movement of "dir~ction" exhibited by the "line'." IIf

Improvisation 19a, 1911, the dynamic sensation of movement 1s

equally powerful but here more'fluidly expr~ssed because ii

is created through intertwining, softer colour forms rather

than harsh àngular linès ~fig. 30).

In the sam~ way tnat the elemepts of an abstract

painting, co'lçur, point, line and plane, ;react against one ., 1

'another ta produce tensionf and· movement, so tao Gdo the . elements of a Bavarian Baroque church interact with each

other. . The architecture, sculpture, pai"nting 'and music o~

. these churches are aIl designeçi to emphasize the kinetic

quality which, as a whole, draws the spectator through the

church. The architecture May express motion in the' massive, ~ o· ,

dignified manner of the Theatin~kirche in Munich, in which

the giant paired CO(I1:lf't1I1S'~w the eye smootQ.ly down the

length of the nave, or in the more undulating curvacious

motion éxpressed' thrèugh the aval plan a·t We I tenburg. , .

Tensions are created through the additionai visual stimuli of ..

sculpture and painting which periodically di~erts the eye

from the natural progression towards the aitar.

· 1 Kandinsky considered that colour and mo~ment together

were elements whose properties gave rise to the element of

time. He discovered that the contrast of Iight and dark aiso

brought a feeling of extended time ta a painted image, "I

realized this division [of light and darkJ conjures on ta the

i3

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o

,~

"

o

~

.. . , <D

canvas an ini tially foreign and apparently inaccessible" "

element for painting-time" (p. 366) • AIl three elements are

prominint in Improvisation: ~~luge, 1913, a painting in whj,ch

'the contrast between the bright colour forms and the dark

tones that surround them cOreates a sense of mystery and

undefined depth (fig. 31). This together with the'agitated ~

1

ntovement of the colour and form absorbs the attention of the

" viewer for an e~tended period of time. The same y~ar tha't he

_ :::œ:4tecl' this p~inting Kand~nskyf wrote that, "my ..• most highly

,prized. el'ements ~were J':'. ~h~ concealed, time and the uncanny"

(p. 367). Wi th the Ifuncanny~' and the "concealed" Kandinsky

cou Id draw th~ ,viewer into the picture and wi th the presens~

of time the thoughts of the viewer ~ould 'be absorbed more

deeply. 'The fact that the painting iso<completely abstract

enables the viewer to envision the colour images' continuing .

, beyond the confines of the canvas itself and establisnes an

all-encompassing impression. " The "pictorial extension of <>

space" which Kandinsky aChiev:es, here demands involvement on

the part of the spectator. ]nvolvement is necessary in order

to experience the abstract, union of .. artistic elements in ,

painting just as i t is essential ./ '

to understanding the

spiritual and physical Gesamtkunstwerk of Baroque _ churches.

Only with this total commitment on the part of the spectator

might Kclndinsky' s view that "art performs a

service" (p. 792) be realized.

spiritual

True appreciation of Kandinsky's abstract work always

84

,~ . lit.'· .. 'e _____________ ~. _ ~~_ ... _~ __ \

__...1

o

1 •

1

'p .'

)

---

/' '

o ---!----

, to necessity. of l "feeling" rathér than

, "understanding" i t, both on the of ~he artist and'those'

~ who Will view the, fini~hed work.

"feeli'ng, f.or. the artist, 1s

dinsky explai~s. th~ t, \..

ând for the

spectator it is' the necessary g~ide by which fie can enter

into a work "'Of art'" lp. 828 >..To entar into a work of arJ . '- '. "L ' .

Sl.lggests that a monumental "environment" has been create1'i'.and

this was, indeed, Kandinsky's ~rtistic .goal. lt is 1

in'teresting t~a't Wilhelm Worringer, who wrote' Abstractior. and . ,

Empathy ,~08, °descrlbes the same sensation wAen defining

"Empathy'!: ~ ,~ ~

Aesthetic enjoyment is- objectified. self-enjoyment. This implies that ,the process of empathy repres'en"ts a self-affirmat1on, an affirmation of the general will ta activity that. is in· us. In .empathising

, this will to activity into another object, however, we are in the other objecte We-are delivered from o~r, individual beinq âs long as we are absorbed into an external object,' an external form, with' our inner urge to' exper ience . 4 .,

In contrast to Kandinsky's belief in the e~veloping powers of . ; , abstraction, Worringer {) maintai~ed that the "coui1terpole to

the need for . empa thy appears to us ta urge to G ,

abstraction. liS .

(Worringer discusses empathy, ooly in terms of

" ,

representational images.) He goes on to descrlbe the "urge l "

té abstraction [as] the outcome of a great inner. unrës~·

inspired in man by ... the phenomena of the oùtSoic1e w'orld; in a " .

reliqious respect i t corresponds ta a' strongly transce,ndençal ~

tinge ,to all notions. ,,6 Kandinsky, however, expressed",, the

view as~def:tned· ~y' Worrin9tr:,_ .. ' . that empathy and abstraction,

as " f , i

" ,.' 0'

L

, i

\

1.

o

complemented one another. He fel t that in abstré!-ct painting

as much as in the representa tional, "[ the pain ter] can, if he

wants to, compel the beholder to enter here, to follow, a

given path into his pictor ial work and to 'come out' there"

(p. 814). The environment that it ~as Kandinsky's intentl.on

to create in his abstract paintings was one of emotional

absorption. As the ultimate goal of the enVl.ronment was to

tngger a spir i tuaI response', tles with the religious

Gesamtkunstwerk of churches are very strong. The physical

envi ronmen ts tha t Kandinsky crea ted such as the Mus lC Room,

tne theatrical works or the exhibltl.On designs have,

understandabIy, a clearer parallel with the physical

Gesarntkuns twerk of the Baroque church. 'f"

Kandinsky' s

exper l.ments wi th the three-dimens ional abstract env iror.men ts

can also be viewed within the context of a whole ferment of .. artistic interest in the synthetic environment. 7 However,

the transi tion f rom a three-dimens ional ta a two-dimensional

Gesarntkunstwerk evolves out of a more personal and indlvidual "

inspiration to Kandinsky. Ir. order to illustrate th,e 1

transi tion Kandinsky makes, the paraI leI between f irst the

material and then the spiritual aspect,s of both forms of the

Gesamtkunstwerk will be drawn. Kandinsky sta tes ln "Content

and Form" tha t :

The essentially inunutable means expression] are: music-sound and time literature-words and time archi tecture -line and extension sculpture-extension and space

86

[of artistic

r

C-painting.,coloùr and ~

sp~ce

Cp. 89 ) , , ~

The Gesamtkunstwerk of the - Bavarian Baroque Church is by its

very nature made up of a union of aIl the above named

elements. These elements will, ideally, express the

spir i tuali ty of the church through the' harmonious interaction

of symboUc images . • Kandinsky arrives at 'the possibility of

incorporating the five elements into a pictorial form by Il

establishing wha t the essential qualities of each are. When

music, li terature, architecture, sculpture_and painting are

trans la ted into' var ious 'CorrŒlina tions of the companen ts:

sound, Ume, words, line, extension, space and colour we are

confronted with the familiar ,'vocabulary that" KanJiinsky uses

to aescribe his pictorial work., As l have shown, he

frequently describes the praperties 'Of colours in terms of

t'he " sounds" they evoke. "Time" , a property of both music .

and literature, can also potentially be found in painting if,

as Kandinsky has explained, one makes use of the "concealed"

and a sense of mys tery which can be expressed through

drama tic changes in light and dark calour tones. "Wotds"

tha tare repea ted many times are reduced ta symbols and

Kandinsky translated the written symbol into the piçtorial

symbol to portray many recur;-ent themes in his work.

and '''colQlJ,r'' are a fundamental part of any painting and

Kandinsky realized tha t the abstract properties of these two

could give rise to the "pictorial extension of space. " In

87 , .

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this way Kandinsky has captured different aspects of aIl the

e1.ements of a physical Gesamtkuns1;werk into a two-dirnensional

form.

The spiritual quality is necessary in order ta

" establish the religious nature of a Gesarntkunstwerk. In the 6

Bavarian churches that would have inspired 1 Kandinsky in

Germany the spirituality is d~picted in very clear, drc1matic

and representational images of the biblical stories. The

Iightness and profusion of colour' and ornament and of

archi tectural and sculptural details ~ . \ h l;nd~cates, t e

essentially optimistic disposition of Christian belief in

, Bavaria. Kandinsky also wished to convey a sense of

spirituality in his paintings but of a more universal nature

50 as to reach a wider group of people. A confJ,ict does

arise when one considers the specifically Christian source of

Kandins ky , s inspîration and his subsequent desire for

uni versali ty. However 1 he transforms his concrete feelings

of spirituality into abstract paintil1gs which in turn he

hopes will inspire an undefined spirituality that is unique , to each specta tor . He explains in "Painting as Pure Art,": ...

The work of art consists of two elements: the inner and the outer. The inner element, taken by i tself , is the emotion in the soul of the artist. This emotion is capable of calling forth wha t is, essentially, a corresponding emotion in the soul of the observer.

Emotions-feelings-the work of art-feelings-emotion. (p. 349)

, Kandinsky's "emotions," triggered by his belief

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Christianit_y, created the desire to imbue the "wotk of art"

with his "feelings" of spirituality. As the work of art,

expressed his emotions through abstraction, an undefined

spirituality could be experienced that "wou Id arouse the

"corresponding emotion in the soul of the -- observer. "

Therefore, in Kandinsky's art as much as in Baroque religiQus

art, the presence of an "emotional stimulus to piety"a that

would awaken the sensation of spirituality in every

spectator, is of utmost importance.

This discussion should conclude by addressing the

relative success of Kandinsky's artistic endeavours. On a

theoretical level, the concept of a two-dimensional,

envelopifig Gesamtkunstwerk can be understood quite easily.

Kandinsky has clearly described how the elements of a three-

dimensional Gesamtkunstwerk also exist in painting. However,

the ability of the work of ar.t to enfold the spectator and

inspire emotions of a spiritual nature can only be jUdged on

a subjective level. Furthermore, there is a contradiction in

Kan':Unsky' s theoretical reasoning as he was against "art

understanding" (he wanted man to "feel" art), and yet in

order to make the necessary move to abstraction he suggested

'a complex process in which one would have to be familiar with

most of his own theories in order to • t' apprecl.ate the

expression", after which he was searching. \,

The final

assessment of whether or not Ka~insky' s work is viewed as a

two-dimensional environment will be individual. , However,

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. Kandinsky has declared that he was witness to his success:

o "Sometimes ~ too, l succeeded: l have observed it in the

spectators" (p. 369).

,

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Notes

1wass i1y Kandinsky Wassily Kandinsky: Co:np1et-e=Wr i tings

on Art~ ed. Kenneth Lindsay and Peter Vergo (Boston, Mass. :

G.K. Hall & Co., 1982), vol. 1 pp. 194/195.

Kandinsky was referr ing to Cubism when speaking of the "f irst

steps 'into the rea1m of the abstract."

2Mus ic Room: The design for Mies van der Rohe' s . r-7usic

Room was in the International Exhibition of Arch! tecture in

Ber lin, 19'31. Carol Giedion We1c!<:er wri tes that in this room

"painting went beyond aestheticism and forma1ism to become

the spritual expi~ssion bf an inner sp~ce in harmony with"

architecture, and its own particular purpose: The creation c ,

of a musical center." p. 56 in "Kandinsky' s Approach to the

Monumental," Hamage to Wassily Kandinskv (New York: Leon -

Amie1 Publishers, 1~76)

The" flyrical yet controlled geometric shapes that flow in ever

cbanging patterns around the room create a charming parallel

to the variations of a musical score. The grid patt'ern, ,

formed by the ceramic tiles, exert an exterior and '-. architectural control on the otherwise buoyant form~, just as"

,-

the staff controls the notes in music.

Reception Hall: Jurifreie Exhibition,

designed the mural paintings for the Hall.

o

, 1922. Kandinsky

\,

The bursts of

colour on the dark ground create a fittingly celebra tory _ ~_

introduction to the Exhibition. In 'bath cases Kandinsky was

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'concerned with designing an environment in which the art

expresses the function of tne room. ., 3Edward Kimball and peg Weiss "A Pictorial Analysis of

'In the Black Square'" Art Journal, (vol: 43, no. 1, Spring

198 3) pp. 36 - 4 0 •

4Wilhelm Worringer Abstraction and Empathy: A

Contribution to the Psychology of Style trans. Michael

Bu110ck (New York: International Uni versi ties Press, l nc., ~

196'3), p. 24.

SIbid., p. 14.

6Ibid., p. 15.

7In Nancy Troy's The De Stijl Environment (Cambriodge

Mass. 1 _~nd London, England: \The MIT Press, 1983) , she

discusses the impbrtance of the "abstract environment" to the

De S'tij l artists as weIl as emphasizing that the ideal for a

synthesis of the arts was aspired to by numerous artists . at , ~

the turn of the century. \

BR. Wittkower Arts and Architecture in Italy 1600-1750.

(Pelican History of Art, Penguin Books, 1972) p. 2.

-Wi,ttkower cites "the emotional stimulus to pi et y: as one. of

three necessary quali ties, established by Baroque theological

writers, for the religious art of that tim\ r --:,

~ , "

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CONCLUSION

~-'(J

Kandinsky' s rnove to abstraction in the early twentieth \

century was a crucial phase in his artistic career and as

such has attracted considerable and careful study. Upon

examining the possible sources of inspiration that had been

suggested for Kandinksy' s interest in abstraction, in

conjunct:ion with his own writings on the subject, it appeared

-that insufficient attention had been given to'the concept of

the Gesamtkunstwerk as it reflected Kandinsky' s religious .!.

bel1efs. It has therefore been the purpose of this thesis to

outline how Kandinsky' s abstract art could have been inspired

by thi s source. It is clear by his work ar.d writings that

Kandinsky was familiar wi th the Gesamtkunstwerk both "in i:<t:s

historical context and as a contemporary ideal. It is also

() evident that he wished to c,apture the monumentality of a

three-dimensional synthesis of the arts in a two-dimensional - . "

forme In order to, iIIustrate how Kandinsky used his

knowledge of contemporary. and past arts to extract e~ements

which could be .incoE'porated into painting, l have isolated

the component parts of the Gesarntkunstwerk and analyzed each t

, separateIy. His early work with synthesis ~ead hiril- to

produce a number of theatrical and li terary works which

demonstrate the many forros the Gesamtkunstwerk could take and

indicates how he experiroented with the possible variations.

However, the essential part of '-any ",ork "" "~"-,.

93 ),

of art was, c

for

Kandinsky, the presence of spiri tuali ty and indeed he fel t o o that the purpose of art was ta awaken a sense of the

, ,

o

spiri tuaI in every spectator. As l have argued, he would

theréfore have been drawn towards those manifestations of the

Gesamtkunstwerk which had a religious' function such as the

church architecture he adrnired in Russia and in Germany. The

fact that Kandinsky was profoundly moved when in an

enveloping artistic envirorunent that united spirituality and

art in a harmonious balance created the incentive to produce

é\11 equally . inspir ing work himself.

Abstraction in painting became necessary for two

reasons. If spir i tuali ty were expressed in abstract terms a

the painting would have a more universal effect as it would . '

not be linked with any one religious source. In addi tion 1

,Kandinsky realized that an abstract painting could confron t,

the viewer in a more all-encompassing way by being both

mentally absorbing and by seeming to expand beyond the ,

boundaries of the canvas. It should be understood that both

the presense of spirituality in art and the concept of the

Gesamtkunstwerk were not only important to Kandinsky during

his transi tion , to abstraction but continued to be a ,

significant sourde of inspiration throughou"t his artistic , , -

career. r

In KanhinSky' s last pUblished statement in 1943 he \ \

to the undeniable. presense of the "spirit" in \' ,

refers again 1

aIl art by declarinq that it is impossible tlto check the \

course of art phenomena [as]' their 'source' lies in the very 1

,94 . .

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depths of 'the world of the spirit" (p. 844).

Kandinsky manifested his continued interest in both a

three-dimensional and a two-dimensional synthesis of the arts

in two very clear ways: by his work in the Bauhaus and

, through his book Point and Line to Plane. In 1922, Kandinsky

accepted a teaching pasi-tion at the Bauhaus that was ta last

eleven years. The founder of the institution, Walter

Grppius, described the Bauhaus as:

embracing the whole range of visual arts: architecture, planning, painting, sculpture, industrial design and stage work. The aim of the Bauhaus wa~ to find a new and powerful working correlation of all the processes of artistic creation to culminate finally in a new cultural equilibrium of' our visual envirenm~nt.1

The intèntions of the Bauhaus "manifesto" to ",create together ~ ,

the new building of the future,... which will ri se one qay

toward heaven from the hands of a millio~ hand workers as the

crystal symbol of a new, coming faith, ,,2 are very simil,ar te

Kapdinsky's Ideals of the B~ter years. His bellef

that spirituality,will awaken a corresponding emotion in the

observer is again reiterated.

Kandinsky taught at both Weimar and later Dessau, when

the Bauhaus moved. At the former he supervised the workshop

for mural painting, while at the latter he taught his own

"optional painting classés" as weIl as' helping with the

"foundation-year course ... 3 Any interest in a three-

dimensional Gesamtkunstwerk would natur~lly be encouraged to

develop in the Bauhaus environment and it was during this

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time that he contributed his mural designs for the Jurifreie •

Exhibi tion, the Music Room and designed the sets for

Mussorgsky' s Pictures at an Exhibition. "

Point and Line to Pl:'èn1e, first published in 1926,

analyzes painting in terms of how the individual elements

react against· each. other. Kandinsky established that the

same forces and tensions exist between these elements as

between the different arts of a three-dimensional

Gesamtkunstwerk. He suggested that once aware of the:"

play of horizontals and verticals, l.fnes and dashes that are bent by motion in different directions, and of accurnulating and dispe.rsing patches of colour, sometirnes low, sometimes shrill, [there] exists the possibility of entering into the 'Hork of af't, involving oneself actively in i t, and experiencing i ts pulsations wi th aIl one' s senses.

(p.532)

His systematic study in this book of the fundamental elements ,

/of art enabled Kandinsky to understand t~e personal\ approach "

he should take to create a powerful and moving work of art on

canvas, one , that uni ted his technical and re ligious

inclinations into an- environmental and thought-provoking

modern Ges~tkunstwerk.

, "

96

'-- -~ .. ,-

• Notes

lWalter • ft GroplUs (ed. ) , The Theatre of the Bauhaus.

(Conneticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1961), p. 7.

2Marcel Franciscono, Walter Gropius and the Creation of

the Bauhaus in Weimar. (Chicago: University of Illinois

'Press, 1971), p. 88.

3Kenneth Lindsay and Peter Vergo (eds.), Kandinsky: Complete

Writings on Art.

vo 1. 2, p. 722. ,

(Boston, Mass.: G.K. Hall & Co., 1982) , •

"

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