Concerning the Spiritual in Art

A summary of:
Kandinsky, W. (1912). Concerning the Spiritual in Art: and painting in particular. George Wittenborn, Inc.: New York.

“Only just now awakening after years of materialism, our soul is infected with the despair born of unbelief, of lack of purpose and aim. The nightmare of materialism, which turned life into an evil, senseless game, is not yet passed; it still darkens the awakening soul…. Our soul rings cracked when we sound it, like a precious vase, dug out of the earth, which has a flaw” (24).

It’s clear that any discussion of spirituality – and the lack thereof embodied in technology – must include to some degree a discussion of materialism. While a bit hyperbolic, I do like the above quote.

The challenge – one recognized early on in this process – is that making technology more spiritual is not an exercise in turning back the clock. Consider these wise words: “Every work of art is the child of its time; often it is the mother of our emotions. It follows that each period of culture produces an art of its own, which cannot be repeated. Efforts to revive the art principles of the past at best produce works of art that resemble a stillborn child” (23). As it relates to this task, we cannot aim to insert the same kind of spirituality that we identify as now missing from technology. We have to come up with a unique solution that fulfills a contemporary spiritual void.

Kandinsky raises the question of responsibility with regards to one’s creations. He quotes two very different perspectives: 1) “’To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the obligation of the artist,’ said Schumann” (25); 2) “’A painter is a man who can draw and paint everything,’ said Tolstoi” (25). Kandinsky suggests that the latter definition prevails in the world (or it did in the early 20th Century); and we can find evidence of this in VR’s quest for simulacrum, not meaning. For Kandinsky, this is the sin of self-indulgent art (26): “This annihilation of internal vibrations that constitute the life of the colors, this dwindling away of artistic force, is called ‘art for art’s sake’” (26). VR programmer get drawn into the fun and excitement of creating ever more perfect simulations, just as artists get drawn into the technique, thusly: “Out of composition in flat triangles has developed a composition with plastic three-dimensional triangles, that is to say, with pyramids; and this is cubism. But here a tendency has arisen toward inertia, towards a concentration on form for its own sake, and consequently once more a reduction of potential values. But that is the unavoidable result of the external application of an inner principle” (67). The problem is that when we focus on the technique, we lose sight of the purpose (compare this to Ellul’s ‘la technique’): “…at those times when the soul tends to be choked by materialist lack of belief, art becomes purposeless, and it is said that art exists for its own sake alone. The relation between art and the soul is, as it were, doped into unconsciousness” (74-5). In a nutshell, I fear this is what’s happened with technological development, and it is a symptom of working from the premise of Developing Because We Can, instead of Developing Because We Should. Or as Kandinsky says so eloquently of art (and I’m making the case that it applies equally to technology): “In such periods art ministers to lower needs and is used for material ends. It seeks its content in crude substance, because it knows nothing fine. Objects remaining the same, their reproduction is thought to be the aim of art. The question ‘what?’ disappears; only the question ‘how?’ remains. By what method are these material objects reproduced? The method becomes a rationale. Art loses its soul” (28). Insert technology: technology loses its soul.

Kandinsky argues that “Today we are seeking the road which is to lead us away from the external to the internal basis” (54) (compare to the ‘subjective turn’ in Heelas et al., 2007) and “The starting-point is the study of color and its effects on men” (54). He talks about color as conveying information in the form of feelings to people – a sort of subconscious communication. E.g.: “Blue is the typical heavenly color; the ultimate feeling it creates is one of rest. When it sinks almost to black, it echoes a grief that is hardly human. It becomes an infinite engrossment in solemn moods. As it grows lighter it becomes more indifferent and affects us in a remote and neutral fashion, like a high, cerulean sky. The lighter it grows, the more it loses resonance, until it reaches complete quiescence, in other words, white. In music a light blue is like a flute, a darker blue a ‘cell; a still darker the marvelous double bass; and the darkest blue of all – an organ” (58-9). This example is as close as I have yet come to what I mean when I talk about “spiritual engagement” with technology. What emotions/experiences does this engagement evoke? – and could we identify these as being uplifting, or fulfilling a human need?

Similarly, Kandinsky touches on this spiritual engagement when describing the experience of listening to Mozart: “Perhaps with envy and with a mournful sympathy we listen to the music of Mozart. It acts as a welcome pause in the turmoil of our inner life, as a consolation and as a hope, but we hear it as the echo of something from another age long past and fundamentally strange. (65-66) / The strife of colors, the sense of the balance we have lost, tottering principles, unexpected assaults, great questions, apparently useless striving, storm and tempest, broken chains, antitheses and contradictions – these make up our harmony. The composition arises from this harmony is a mingling of color and drawing, each with its separate existence but each blended into a common life, which is called a picture by the force of internal necessity” (66).

Kandinsky makes this assertion: “Matisse – color. Picasso – form. Two great signposts pointing toward a great end” (39). Consider how this applies (according to him) in a work of art: “A warm red tone (acting as an irritant in isolation) will materially alter in internal value when it is no longer isolated as an abstract tone, but is applied as an element of some other object and combined with natural form. Combining red with various natural forms will also cause different spiritual effects, all of which will harmonize with that of the original isolated red. Suppose we combine red with the sky, flowers, a garment, a face, a horse, a tree. / A red sky suggests to us sunset, or fire, and has a consequent effect upon us – either of splendor or menace….” (69). This suggests three questions worth considering: 1) Are there technological analogs to “color” and “form”?; i.e. what are the building blocks which, if combined one way as opposed to another, produce either a spiritual or non-spiritual result? 2) Is some of the supposed “spiritual” experience of one combination more to do with subjective interpretation combined with a flair for linguistic description to make this case?; i.e. how can you substantiate your claims about one technology being more spiritual than another without relying on fertile language to do so? 3) Fundamentally, do we experience technology as we experience art? – particularly since one is theoretically primarily functional while the other is primarily aesthetic; i.e. is this technology/art comparison fair? – is there the same potential within technology to evoke emotions, or are there different expectations for our technology that we can’t get around? – is there the same potential for both to evoke psychological effects (44)?

This writing also inspires questions about how to go about designing radical technological innovation may take. Kandinsky writes: “It is clear, therefore, that the choice of an object (i.e., one of the elements of form) must be decided by a purposive vibration in the human soul; therefore, the choice of the object also originates from the principle of internal necessity. / The freer the abstract form, the purer and more primitive the vibration. Therefore, in any composition where corporeal form seems superfluous it may be replaced by abstract or semi-abstract form” (50). This implies that the first step in the process is to determine (somehow!) what it is that vibrates in the human soul – which is a poetic way of saying that step one is to discern our human values. Step two would then be finding a way of abstracting those values and representing them in the technology. (I would also add that there needs to be a step three of making those values explicit as well as subconsciously represented.) Now we have guidelines for ‘good’ or ‘bad’: “If its form is ‘poor,’ it is too weak to call forth spiritual vibration. Likewise a picture is not necessarily ‘well painted’ if it possesses the ‘values’ of which the French so constantly speak. It is only well painted if its spiritual value is completed and satisfying” (74). We should be putting in the kind of thinking work that Kandinsky has put into the composition of a painting – it is as important, more so even, to put this effort into thinking about what we’re doing with technology and what spiritual effects it will have on us.

Kandinsky makes another important point about the need to forget conventions (this might equally be described as Beginner’s Mind in Zen terms): “The artist must ignore distinctions between ‘recognized’ or ‘unrecognized’ conventions of form, the transitory knowledge and demands of his particular age” (53). So what does one follow? Much in line with the ‘subjective turn’ (which technically happens much later than Kandinsky wrote this), his inspiration must come from within: “He must watch his own inner life and hearken to the demands of internal necessity. Then he may safely employ means sanctioned or forbidden by his contemporaries. This is the only way to express the mystical necessity. All means are sacred which are called for by internal necessity. All means are sinful which are not drawn from inner necessity. (53) / It is impossible to theorize about this ideal. In real art, theory does not precede practice but follows it. Everything is a matter of feeling. Even though the general structure may be formulated theoretically, there is still an additional something which constitutes the soul of creation” (53-4).

Another point that the artist makes is that the materialist age has produced a kind of receptive passivity, something which we could argue is also true with regards to our uptake of technology: “Spectators are too accustomed to looking for a ‘meaning’ in a picture, i.e., some external relation among its various elements. Our materialist age has produced a kind of spectator, a ‘connoisseur,’ who is not content to place himself in front of a picture and let it speak for itself. He does not search for the internal feeling of the picture directly for himself, he worries himself into looking for ‘closeness to nature,’ or ‘temperament,’ or ‘handling,’ or ‘tonality,’ or ‘perspective,’ and so on. His eye does not probe the external expression to arrive at the internal significance. In a conversation with an interesting person, we endeavor to get at his fundamental ideas and feelings. We do not bother about the words he uses, nor his spelling, nor the breath necessary for speaking, nor the movements of his tongue and lips, nor the psychological effect on our brain, nor the physical sound in our ear, nor the physiological effect on our nerves. We realize that these things, though interesting and important, are not the problem. The meaning and ideas are what concerns us. We should have the same attitude when confronted with a work of art if we are to absorb its abstract effect. If this attitude ever becomes general, the artist will be able to dispense with natural forms and colors and to use purely artistic means” (70). Again, this suggests our obsession with la technique (Ellul); and it blinds us from seeing, in the case of technology, the inherent meaninglessness. In other words, we are dazzled by the features of the technology (e.g. screen resolution, hard drive size, etc.), pointing at these features with reverence, thinking that they are meaningful in and of themselves (as evidence of human ‘progress’), meanwhile never asking the deeper questions about, ‘Well, what does it really mean?’ In our idolization of technology, in our reverence of la technique, we have forgotten this: “The artist must have something to communicate, since mastery over form is not the end but, instead, the adapting of form to internal significance” (75).

Kandinsky’s hope that “an age of conscious creation” (Constructionists), as opposed to divine inspiration (like the Impressionists), is leading us towards “an epoch of great spirituality” (77) might provide yet another lesson for us in terms of technological development. Rather than just jumping right into development, we need to be considered in our approach, really think about what we want to put in our technology and what effect it will have of the receiver/user.