Kandinsky: ‘Concerning the Spiritual in Art’

24-page manuscript book, written out in Chinese ink with gouache illustrations on Indian Hemp Cream paper with black Hahnemuhle Bugra endpapers and white Somerset card cover, plain paper jacket. Completed in February 2025

I had never read Wassilly Kandinsky’s short book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, until I picked up a copy in Daunt’s bookshop in Marylebone Road in 2024. As arguably the first abstract artist, I wanted to try and understand what he had to say about the nature of his practice in the context of my interest in combing text and images. The essay is in many ways a precursor to Klee’s lecture, On Modern Art, in arguing for the transcendent dimension in art. There is a certain sense of excitement about this period of art history, which for me continues through the Bauhaus and on to practitioners such as Patrick Heron in the 1950s, but which has not extended into a more contemporary period - or so it seems to me.