Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (Russian: Васи́лий Васи́льевич Канди́нский, tr. Vasily Vasilyevich Kandinsky) (16 December [O.S. 4 December] 1866 – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist.
In general, therefore, color is a means of exerting a direct influence upon the soul. Color is the keyboard. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano with its many strings. The artist is the hand that purposefully sets the soul vibrating by means of this or that key.
The composition is the organized sum of the interior functions of every part of the work.
That is beautiful which is produced by the inner need, which springs from the soul.
The artist must be blind to distinction between 'recognized' or 'unrecognized' conventions of form, deaf to the transitory teaching and demands of his particular age.
Abstract art places a new world, which on the surface has nothing to do with 'reality,' next to the 'real' world.
Art is not vague production, transitory and isolated, but a power which must be directed to the improvement and refinement of the human soul.
Everything shows me its face, its innermost being, its secret soul, which is more often silent than heard.
In the hierarchy of colors, green represents the social middle class, self-satisfied, immovable, narrow.
Music is the ultimate teacher.
The observer must learn to look at the picture as a graphic representation of a mood and not as a representation of objects.
The artist is the hand that, by touching this or that key, sets the soul vibrating automatically.
Every artist, as child of his age, is impelled to express the spirit of his age.
The arts are encroaching one upon another, and from a proper use of this encroachment will rise the art that is truly monumental.
Absolute green is the most restful color, lacking any undertone of joy, grief, or passion. On exhausted men this restfulness has a beneficial effect, but after a time it becomes tedious.
Everything starts from a dot.
I value those artists who embody the expression of their life.
The deeper the blue becomes, the more strongly it calls man towards the infinite, awakening in him a desire for the pure and, finally, for the supernatural The brighter it becomes, the more it loses its sound, until it turns into silent stillness and becomes white.
To create a work of art is to create the world.
Almost without exception, blue refers to the domain of abstraction and immateriality.
All methods are sacred if they are internally necessary. All methods are sins if they are not justified by internal necessity.