Wassily Kandinsky Quotes

Colour is a power which directly influences the soul.

There is no must in art because art is free.

Everything starts from a dot.

Color provokes a psychic vibration. Color hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body.

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 must train not only his eye but also his soul.

To create a work of art is to create the world.

The spirit, like the body, can be strengthened and developed by frequent exercise. Just as the body, if neglected, grows weaker and finally impotent, so the spirit perishes if untended.

Color is a means to exert a direct influence on the soul.

The artist is the hand that, by touching this or that key, sets the soul vibrating automatically.

Orange is red brought nearer to humanity by yellow.

Color is the keyboard. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano, with its many strings.

That is beautiful which is produced by the inner need, which springs from the soul.

The joy of life consists in the inevitable, continual triumph of new values.

Every work of art is the child of its age and, in many cases, the mother of our emotions. It follows that each period of culture produces an art of its own which can never be repeated.

Each color lives by its mysterious life.

As a picture painted in yellow always radiates spiritual warmth, or as one in blue has apparently a cooling effect, so green is only boring.

The nightmare of materialism, which has turned the life of the universe into an evil, useless game, is not yet past; it holds the awakening soul still in its grip.

It is essential that the painter should develop not only his eyes, but also his soul, so that it too may be capable of weighing colors in balance.

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

Abstract art places a new world, which on the surface has nothing to do with 'reality,' next to the 'real' world.

I really believe that I am the first and only artist to throw not just the 'subject' out of my paintings, but every 'object' as well.

Color cannot stand alone.

Music is the ultimate teacher.

I applied streaks and blobs of colors onto the canvas with a palette knife, and I made them sing with all the intensity I could.

A world of colors on the palette remaining... wandering... on canvases still emerging.

The composition is the organized sum of the interior functions of every part of the work.

An empty canvas is a living wonder - far lovelier than certain pictures.

Painting took on a fabulous strength and splendor; the object was discredited as an indispensable element of the picture.

The sensations of colors on the palette can be spiritual experiences.

Everything shows me its face, its innermost being, its secret soul, which is more often silent than heard.

I value those artists who embody the expression of their life.

In the hierarchy of colors, green represents the social middle class, self-satisfied, immovable, narrow.

Almost without exception, blue refers to the domain of abstraction and immateriality.

The eyes are hammers.

The more abstract is form, the more clear and direct its appeal.

Colors produce a spiritual vibration, the impression they create is important only as a step towards this vibration.

It should not be forgotten that art is not a science where the latest 'correct' theory declares the old to be false and erases it.

The artist must have something to say, for mastery over form is not his goal but rather the adapting of form to its inner meaning.

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.

In place of an intensive cooperation among artists, there is a battle for goods. Hatred, partisanship, cliques, jealousy, and intrigues are the natural consequences of an aimless, materialist art.

Our epoch is a time of tragic collision between matter and spirit and of the downfall of the purely material world view.

The arts are encroaching one upon another, and from a proper use of this encroachment will rise the art that is truly monumental.

Every man who steeps himself in the spiritual possibilities of his heart is a valuable helper in the building of the spiritual pyramid which will someday reach to heaven.

Only just now awakening after years of materialism, our soul is still infected with the despair born of unbelief, of lack of purpose and aim.

The impact of the acute angle of a triangle on a circle produces an effect no less powerful than the finger of God touching the finger of Adam in Michelangelo.

In their pursuit of the same supreme end, Matisse and Picasso stand side by side, Matisse representing color and Picasso form.

The world is full of resonances. It constitutes a cosmos of things exerting a spiritual action. The dead matter is a living spirit.

A parallel between color and music can only be relative – just as a violin can give warm shades of tone, so yellow has shades, which can be expressed by various instruments.

The organic laws of construction tangled me in my desires, and only with great pain, effort, and struggle did I break through these 'walls around art.