Kandinsky, Hegel, Kojève

« Back

25 Feb 2022 in Free-form Jottings – read.

Nothing better than making connections on a Friday night, especially when the topic was left from five years ago.

Somehow I remembered reading a submission paper senior year in college on Kandinsky's creation process - it was a very philosophical exploration. Although I turned it down (I no longer remember the reason why), it proposed an interesting topic that I seldom studied - art - since I focused on metaphysics purely.

So in trying to recollect the thesis, I googled Kandinsky's painting philosophy, then learned the following.

First of all, art, like philosophy, is a product of history. Both subjects participate in the debate of human inquiry, while different historical stages provided different perspectives.

So to understand Kandinsky's paintings, it is important to recognize major breakthroughs in the 18th and 19th centuries, which we saw the emergence of psychoanalysis (Freud), evolution theory (Darwin), general relativity (Einstein), rise of Communism (Marx), and God is dead (Nietzsche). These findings had the general theme of proving previous ideas wrong, and such shook the world view of a generation.

The need to propose a new solution/theory is necessary, since the foundation of beliefs no longer existed. The solution many proposed was appeal to rationality, expressed in various forms:

Hegel (1770-1831): Geist (Idea with capitalized I) is the absolute being behind reality, and it expresses itself through rationality. Thus rationality is the only principle one should follow to approach Geist.
Kandinsky (1844-1904): paintings should abolish corporeal beauty and manifest the things in themselves, which is through artists' reflection on shapes, colors, and compositions.

To elaborate:

Hegel's philosophy on Art:
- Art, religion, and philsophy are the three branches that could provide insight to Geist.
- Similar to Kant, there is the division between objectivity and subjectivity, naturally following his metaphysical claims.
- Beauty is defined as the "child of Geist," immediate subject of consciousness, and immediate unity of concept and appearance (form and content). The last definition to a sense it is similar to Schopenhauer's idea of human body, which is the unity between subjectivity and objectivity, the gateway to the secret of the Will.
- Natural beauty is worse than artistic beauty, for the simple reason of lacking reflection and rationality.
Kandinsky's beliefs on Art:
- Art ought to express spiritualism, which is the inner necessity of the artist. To define his spiritualism, however, needs more work to be done.
- Inner necessity consists of shape, color, and composition. There are logical relations among these three elements. And different combinations trigger different responses from the audience. Thus they need to be carefully chosen.
- To abstract, Kandinsky removes "simulations" and "relation of things" from his paintings, which is equal to removing phenomena to reveal the noumena.
- The three responsibilities of an artist:
  - to realize the thing-in-herself/himself
  - express Spiritualism's manifest in time (Idea's representation via time = history)
  - be a servant to Spiritualism and always obey to its calling

Hegel perhaps set up the metaphysical framework for Kandinsky's creation. And Kandinsky realizes Hegel's vision via his creation process. It is amazing how we humans are just dirts in this universe, and universal ideas could indeed manifest through individuals as history makes its impact. The world we live in shapes our beings, but brings out our universality - perhaps that is through rationality.

Then I found out that Kandinsky is Kojève's uncle. I've studied Kojève breifly during a course in Junior year. Kojève had worked on Hegel's Phenomenalogy of the Spirit, so perhaps that aligned the Kandinsky's worldview with Hegel's a bit.

Yet too much for a Friday night, I shall come back to reread Kojève's essay on art.

Kojève's agenda on art is summarized succintly in the conclusion paragraph. Being a radical romanticist, Kojève's idea of Beauty is appealing to Platonic forms. He wants to define Beauty as pure beauty, for nothing but the purpose of beauty. Only Beauty for beauty has value. Beauty does not have value - is not beautiful - if it is not for Beauty itself. I think he is dodging the question and just using definitions to explain himself.

Only fitting to add Shostakovich here.