Sunday Salon: Sitting Down with Wassily Kandinsky

Today I am sitting down with Wassily Kandinsky...not the Kandinsky...did you think I was that Ancient?  No, I'm sitting down with his pioneering book Concerning The Spiritual In Art, first published in 1914 under the title The Art of Spiritual Harmony, and this is a Sunday Salon with a new twist.  Salons need to be more than a two-person conversation: the interviews are fabulous and I love doing them.  But I can't get to everyone and I want to expand the conversation.  So every now and then I plan on shaking things up a bit and I hope that a lot of you will join in and add your thoughts and comments.

So...the introduction of Kandinsky's first group of essays, titled "About General Aesthetic," reads thus:

"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."

And my philosophical question open for discussion is this:

How do you think our growing cultural dependency upon technology, such as the internet, and the instantaneous consumption of visual media, influences the art of our age?  How does it influence you in the choices you make as an artist?

I'm pouring a cup of coffee right now and I'm looking forward to tons of comments when I get back...

Comments

[Joann Wells Greenbaum]

Indeed as a late bloomer to an art career, it was only possible to forge ahead with the use of internet classes on promoting my art as well as using technology to reproduce my work. It is exciting to connect with the cyber art community, those who I may never meet face to face, yet feel an instant bond. Thankyou for offering this forum, I'll look forward to seeing more.

[Paulette]

This is interesting...if not for the internet and the satisfaction of the immediate reply... I would not, I am sure, have ventured into the learning process that I have over this last year. My exposure to art is limited at best. The art on my walls are from a couple of local artists and my children. The internet has opened up a whole new world. For example I did not know who Kandinsky was, I did an image search and was amazed to see work that to me looked like music. So I found it very interesting to read that that is what he believed.
Quote "Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul."
What an amazing thought!
I think I'll keep my technology!

[Katherine]

Art on the internet means for me:
1) Stimulation: I get to see better images of artwork than I can see in books - and seeing such images makes me want to go and look at more in major museums and art galleries.
2) Communication: Being able to communicate with other artists really easily makes a big difference to me - and others tell me it's the same for them. We no longer have the Cafe Guerbois - we have our cyber chums with whom we can test out our ideas or get feedback on new ways of approaching our work.
3) Everything seems to happen much faster.

[sue]

Kandinsky divided artists into two types, those who were driven by external demands,the current popular tastes (He called it "art for art's sake") and thus achieved acceptance, and those who were driven by "some inner feeling expressed in terms of natural form...a picture with Stimmung" (essential spirit). This second type of artist, he predicted, would not be appreciated until decades after the work was created, as public understanding would always be heavily influenced by the first type of artist...Bonnie, I think your figures are very powerful and express this "essential spirit", as does the work of the other artists I've interviewed on Sunday Salon.

[Bonnie Luria]

Sue-
I look forward to your Sunday Salons more eagerly than I used to grab the Sunday Times!

You've posed a very timely question here.

As things get faster, more immediate, more frequent and more disposable, I wonder how it can continue to progress at this same rate.

Much as we've become victims of being lured by slogans such as " all you can eat buffets " ( I mean, why would you want to ?), we also start to shut down.
Things lose their value.

I'd like to believe, based on my own experiences with the internet as a source of exchange with other artists, that we have the ability to appreciate its' benefits without being swallowed by it.
Great work will, if anything have more exposure ( as will crap, but that's another issue- after all, we have editing skills ) and hence, salvation.

What its' introduction into my life as an artist has done, has tilted my leanings into the classics, the nostalgic, of former eras when immediacy was not an option.

Perhaps that's just a feature of growing older and becomes a process in which we all engage in.

I am as eager to read everyone elses' posts as you are.

Great, thoughtful posting, as usual and thank you for presenting a very provocative question.