Pablo Neruda | Per tanto amore la mia vita.. / De tanto amor mi vida..

Per tanto amore la mia vita si tinse di viola

e andai di rotta in rotta come gli uccelli ciechi

fino a raggiungere la tua finestra, amica mia:

tu sentisti un rumore di cuore infranto

e lì dalle tenebre mi sollevai al tuo petto,

senz'essere e senza sapere andai alla torre del frumento,

sorsi per vivere tra le tue mani,

mi sollevai dal mare alla tua gioia.

Leonid Afremov (1955-2019) | Romantic Impressionist painter

Wassily Kandinsky | VI. The language of Form and Color

Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1910

Part II: About painting

The man that hath no music in himself,

Or is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;

The motions of his spirit are dull as night;

And his affections dark as Erebus;

Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

(The Merchant of Venice, Act v, Scene I.)

"Musical sound acts directly on the soul and finds an echo there because, though to varying extents, music is innate in man".

"Everyone knows that yellow, orange, and red suggest ideas of joy and plenty" (Delacroix).

Wassily Kandinsky | V - The psychological working of color

Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1910

Part II: About painting

To let the eye stray over a palette, splashed with many colours, produces a dual result. In the first place one receives a PURELY PHYSICAL IMPRESSION, one of pleasure and contentment at the varied and beautiful colours.

The eye is either warmed or else soothed and cooled. But these physical sensations can only be of short duration.

They are merely superficial and leave no lasting impression, for the soul is unaffected. But although the effect of the colours is forgotten when the eye is turned away, the superficial impression of varied colour may be the starting point of a whole chain of related sensations.

On the average man only the impressions caused by very familiar objects, will be purely superficial.

Wassily Kandinsky | Roses, 1993

Wisława Szymborska | First Love / Il primo amore

They say

the first love's most important.

That's very romantic,

but not my experience.

Something was and wasn't there between us,

something went on and went away.

Andre Kohn | The burnt orange beret

Wassily Kandinsky | IV - The Pyramid

Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1910

And so at different points along the road are the different arts, saying what they are best able to say, and in the language which is peculiarly their own. Despite, or perhaps thanks to, the differences between them, there has never been a time when the arts approached each other more nearly than they do today, in this later phase of spiritual development.

In each manifestation is the seed of a striving towards the abstract, the non-material.

Consciously or unconsciously they are obeying Socrates' command - Know thyself. Consciously or unconsciously artists are studying and proving their material, setting in the balance the spiritual value of those elements, with which it is their several privilege to work.

Wassily Kandinsky | V - La Pittura - L'effetto del colore

Lo spirituale nell'arte, 1910

Se si osserva una tavolozza coperta di colori si hanno due risultati:

1 - Si ha un effetto puramente fisico, cioè l'occhio è affascinato dalla bellezza c dalle qualità dei colori. L'osservatore prova un senso di appagamento, di gioia come un buongustaio che gusta una squisitezza. Oppure l'occhio viene stuzzicato, come lo è il palato da un cibo piccante.

O, ancora, può calmarsi e raffreddarsi, come quando un dito tocca il ghiaccio. Sono tutto sensazioni fisiche, che in quanto tali durano poco.

Sensazioni superficiali, del resto, che non fanno molta impressione a chi è insensibile. Proprio come, se si tocca il ghiaccio, si prova solo una sensazione fisica di freddo, che svanisce quando il dito si scalda, così, girato lo sguardo si dimentica l'effetto fisico del colore.

Wassily Kandinsky | Gabriele Munter Kallmunz, 1903

Wassily Kandinsky | IV - La Piramide

Lo spirituale nell'arte, 1910

Così, lentamente molte arti si avviano a dire quello che hanno da dire, con i loro mezzi specifici.

E nonostante questa separazione, o grazie ad essa, le arti non sono state mai tanto unite come in quest'ultima fase della svolta spirituale.

In tutte si avverte la tendenza all'antinaturalismo, all'astrazione e all'interiorità. Consciamente o inconsciamente ubbidiscono al detto di Socrate: "Conosci te stesso!". Consciamente o inconsciamente, gli artisti si occupano sempre più del loro materiale, lo saggiano, pesano sulla bilancia spirituale il valore interiore degli elementi creativi.

Wassily Kandinsky | Unstable Compensation, 1930

Wassily Kandinsky | III - The Spiritual revolution, 1910

Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1910

The spiritual triangle moves slowly onwards and upwards. Today one of the largest of the lower segments has reached the point of using the first battle cry of the materialist creed. The dwellers in this segment group themselves round various banners in religion. They call themselves Jews, Catholics, Protestants, etc. But they are really atheists, and this a few either of the boldest or the narrowest openly avow. "Heaven is empty", "God is dead".

In politics these people are democrats and republicans. The fear, horror and hatred which yesterday they felt for these political creeds they now direct against anarchism, of which they know nothing but its much dreaded name.