"Connecting With the Spiritual Artist Inside - Wassily Kandinsky Felt the Colors and So Can You"

Feel the colors and you will know great art.

Wassily Kandinsky has been credited with painting the first abstract. So who was Kandinsky and what motivated him in his art? As an artist I am always trying to understand that question, what motivated this person, within the context of visual or spiritual exploration? What made this man to get up in the morning and decide to paint or sculpt or write? What gave him the inspiration needed to do art despite failures, despite the ups and downs of a complicated life? Who are we within that realm?

I am not really all that interested in the 'how to paint' lessons, mix this color with that one and you will have a great shadow or whatever. I am more interested in what song was in the artist's heart. Who were they? What happened when they felt let down and how did they rise again?

Art is an experience of the heart and I want to know what made that heart beat in some of the masters or crusaders of different art movements.

Oft times we gain insight into artists by things they were quoted as saying.

"Feel the color" ~ Matisse

Ahh that simple quote saying soo much. I confess to saying it EVERY single time I step before a canvas. It isn't about how to mix two to three colors together to get this or that shade of blue, no, it's about connecting spiritually with the colors and the emotion you hope to spread on the canvas. Be it a slather or tiny brush strokes, ya gotta 'feel' it, to paint it, to generate any kind of passion at all.

Wassily Kandinsky, born in Russia in December 1866, passed on December 1944. Kandinsky was one of the most famous artists of the 20th century. So, what did he 'think'? What moved him?

The artist didn't start painting till he was 30. He went to art school, Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, spent some time teaching art, left Russia for France when the Nazis took over. He then became a French citizen. Now, that's a life! Emotions must have abounded in his veins throughout the havoc of World War l. Who was he in all of that, what did he paint and what did he have to say?

Kandinsky learned the how to's, yes he did, and then he moved away from it in a search for 'Inner Beauty", it was a search for fervor of spirit, and a deep spiritual desire that was to Wassily Kandinsy an inner necessity. His passion evolved into a longing to understand color symbolism and psychology. Like Matisse, he FELT the colors, in other words.

At the age of 30, after viewing Monet's "Haystack", Kandinsky felt confused yet overwhelmed with the possibility of seeing more than the obvious impression viewed to anyone. I think... he FELT the colors.

He wrote of the experience:

"That it was a haystack the catalogue informed me. I could not recognize it. This non-recognization was painful to me. I considered that the painter had no right to paint indistinctly. I dully felt that the object of the painting was missing. And I noticed with surprise and confusion that the picture not only gripped me, but impressed itself ineradicably on my memory. Painting took on a fairy-tale power and splendor."

Kandindky experimented with colors and moods, before he reached a style of abstract, that took in the 'feelings', of the colors, he chose to fill his brush with. In art school he learned theory, but in life, he learned how to express those colors that thrived within his psyche.

Painting becomes an extension of the artist, when done well. That is, to me, what art is all about, feeling the breath of an artist because they chose to admit to feelings and then released those passions onto a canvas, a song,a piece of stone... whatever.

My muse is music and the neighbors hate me for it. Kandinsky would have been a good neighbor though, because he understood the value of music within the realm of the spiritual artist. Spiritual defined is; relating to; affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things. Kandinsky at times used musical terms regarding his works, calling some of his most spontaneous paintings "improvisations", and gave explanation to more elaborated works calling them "compositions".

"Concerning the Spiritual in Art" is a book originally published in 1911, by Wassily Kandinsky. Every artist and/or lover of the arts, should make sure this powerful book is a part of their library.

Read some quotes by Kandinsky.

Read them... then feel them.

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"The true work of art is born from the 'artist': a mysterious, enigmatic, and mystical creation. It detaches itself from him, it acquires an autonomous life, becomes a personality, an independent subject, animated with a spiritual breath, the living subject of a real existence of being."

"Color is the key. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano with its many chords. The artist is the hand that, by touching this or that key, sets the soul vibrating automatically."

"The more frightening the world becomes ... the more art becomes abstract."

"Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for colors, and that you be a true poet. This last is essential."

"All methods are sacred if they are internally necessary. All methods are sins if they are not justified by internal necessity."

"Each period of a civilization creates an art that is specific in it and which we will never see reborn. To try and revive the principles of art of past centuries can lead only to the production of stillborn works."

"The artist is not a 'Sunday child' for whom everything immediately succeeds. He does not have the right to live without duty. The task that is assigned to him is painful, it is a heavy cross for him to bear."

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These words... these spiritual words by Kandinsky, go beyond art. They offer a bridge to your imagination, in whatever creative form you choose to express it in. I encourage you to 'feel color'. As abstract as this sounds, you can even feel color within the song of a bird that visits you in the early morning, that one voice you often listen for? Hear it and take in the colors of the day. You can feel the spiritual in art in ways you had not realized before, just try it.

Take these emotions home to your heart, embrace them and let them fly in some artistic way in your life. It is just that easy and just that hard.

by Kathy Ostman-Magnusen
copyright 2008

The image is "Passages" 48x36 oil, gold leaf on canvas. It is from my "In Search of Klimt" series, thus the Gustav Klimt connotations.

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ABOUT Kathy Ostman-Magnusen

I paint and sculpt female fantasy art and map fairy tale adventures. I dream of beautiful women on canvas and art of exotic women.

I have illustrated for Hay House Inc.,"Women Who Do Too Much" CARDS, taken from Anne Wilson Schaef's book. I also illustrated for Neil Davidson, who was considered for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing, and several other publications. My paintings are collected worldwide.

Giclee canvas art work, greeting cards and posters are available for sale on my website:

http://www.kathysart.com

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I discuss more about my exploration of creativity and spiritual fulfillment in art.

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