Concerning the spiritual in art - W. Kandinskij

I really like Kandinskij and I wanted to know more about what he thought and how he wrote, so I picked this up. I was also interested in his conception and usage of symbols after going through Jung, so there you have it. There should be an autobiography lying around, but I couldn’t find an English version - or any version at all, actually. I can’t google in Russian.

This book is divided in two parts, “About general aesthetic” and “About painting”. I would rate the first part eher uninteressant - one should probably know more about the historical period and cultural context to be able to appreciate it. I liked this description of visits to the museums:

Imagine a building divided into many rooms. The building may be large or small. Every wall of every room is covered with pictures of various sizes; perhaps they number many thousands. They represent in colour bits of nature - animal in sunlight or shadow, drinking, standing in water, lying on the grass; near to, a Crucifixion by a painter who does not believe in Christ; flowers; human figures sitting, standing, walking; often they are naked; many naked women, seen foreshortened from behind; apples and silver dishes; portrait of Councillor So and So; sunset; lady in red; flying duck; portrait of Lady X; flying geese; lady in white; calves in shadow flecked with brilliant yellow sunlight; portrait of Prince Y; lady in green. All of this is carefully printed in a book - name of artist–name of picture. People with these books in their hands go from wall to wall, turning over pages, reading the names. Then they go away, neither richer not poorer than when they came, and are absorbed at once in their business, which has nothing to do with art. Why did they come? In each picture is a whole lifetime imprisoned, a whole lifetime of fears, doubts, hopes, and joys.
[…] With cold eyes and indifferent mind the spectators regard the work. Connoisseurs admire the “skill” (as one admires a tightrope walker), enjoy the “quality of painting” (as one enjoys a pasty). But hungry souls go hungry away.
The vulgar herd stroll through the rooms and pronounce the pictures “nice” or “splendid”. Those who could speak have said nothing, those who could hear have heard nothing. This condition of art is called “art for art’s sake”. This neglect of inner meanings, which is the life of colours, this vain squandering of artistic power is called “art for art’s sake”.

Quite brutal, but it made me laugh. And I think he has a point. About positivists:

Here and there are people with eyes which can see, minds which can correlate. They say to themselves: “If the science of the day before yesterday is rejected by the people of yesterday, and that of yesterday by the us of today, is it not possible that what we call science now will be rejected by the men of tomorrow?” And the bravest of them answer, “It is possible”.

This is all good and fun, but I don’t think there’s much to take home. The second part was quite interesting and more original, I liked the description of antitheses in colours.
The first antithesis is between (warm) yellow and (cold) blue:

The movement is an horizontal one, the warm colours approaching the spectators, the cold ones retreating from him.

It made me think of the Doppler effect. More to it:

If two circles are drawn and painted respectively yellow and blue, brief concentration will reveal in the yellow a spreading movement out from the centre, and a noticeable approach to the spectator. The blue, on the other hand, moves in upon itself, like a snail retreating into its shell, and draws away from the spectator.

The second antithesis is between (light) white and (dark) black:

These colours have once more their peculiar movement to and from the spectator, but in a more rigid form. […] White has the appeal of the nothingness that is before birth, of the world in the ice age. A totally dead silence, on the other hand, a silence with no possibilities, has the inner harmony of black.

A bit like black and white holes. This bit I found curious:

Not without reason is white taken as symbolizing joy and spotless purity, and black grief and death. […] Violet is […] worn by old women, and in China as a sign of mourning.

So he knows about the meaning of violet in Chinese culture, but not white? Cherry-picking?

The third antithes is between red and green, respectively expressing motion within itself and motionless (resulting from the combination of the opposite motions of yellow and blue). The fourth antithesis is between orange and violet, obtained by mixing red respectively with yellow and blue.

There is of course much more to it, but this is already enough to begin experimenting. I have the impression this is the only way of really understanding more about the theory outlined (as usual).