Concerning the spiritual and the concrete in Kandinsky's art / Lisa Florman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Florman, Lisa Carol, author.

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Kandinsky, Wassily, 1866-1944--Criticism and interpretation.

Kandinsky, Wassily.

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831. Ästhetik.

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich.

Kandinsky, Wassily, 1866-1944.

Painting, Abstract.

Painting, Modern--20th century.

Painting, Modern.

Art--Philosophy.

Art.

Aesthetics.

Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

xvii, 236 pages : colored illustrations ; 26 cm

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2014]

Summary:

This book examines the art and writings of Wassily Kandinsky, who is widely regarded as one of the first artists to produce non-representational paintings. Crucial to an understanding of Kandinsky's intentions is On the Spiritual in Art, the celebrated essay he published in 1911. Where most scholars have taken its repeated references to "spirit" as signaling quasi-religious or mystical concerns, Lisa Florman argues instead that Kandinsky's primary frame of reference was G.W.F. Hegel's Aesthetics, in which art had similarly been presented as a vehicle for the developing self-consciousness of spirit (or Geist). In addition to close readings of Kandinsky's writings, the book includes a discussion of a 1936 essay on the artist's paintings written by his nephew, philosopher Alexandre Kojève, the foremost Hegel scholar in France at that time. It also provides detailed analyses of individual paintings by Kandinsky, demonstrating how the development of his oeuvre challenges Hegel's views on modern art yet operates in much the same manner as does Hegel's philosophical system. Through the work of a single, crucial artist, Florman presents a radical new account of why painting turned to abstraction in the early years of the twentieth century. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction 1

Part I Painting in Theory

First Moment

Hegel's Aesthetics 5

Second Moment

Part 1 Kandinsky's Über das Geistige in der Kunst 12

Part 2 Kandinsky's Punkt and Linie zu Fläche and Related Essays 33

Third Moment

Kojève's "Les Peintures concrètes de Kandinsky" 45

Part II Painting in Practice

The Development of Kandinsky's Oeuvre 71

Conclusion 143.

Notes:

Contains an English translation of Les Peintures concrètes de Kandinsky by Alexandre Kojève.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contains:

Kojève, Alexandre, 1902-1968. Peintures concrètes de Kandinsky. English

ISBN:

9780804784832

0804784833

9780804784849

0804784841

OCLC:

843858257