This book examines the art and writings of Wassily Kandinsky, who is widely regarded as one of the first artists to produce non-representational paintings. Crucial to an understanding of Kandinskys intentions is On the Spiritual in Art, the celebrated essay he published in 1911. Where most scholars have taken its repeated references to spirit as signaling quasi-religious or mystical concerns, Florman argues instead that Kandinskys primary frame of reference was G.W.F. Hegels Aesthetics, in which art had similarly been presented as a vehicle for the developing self-consciousness of spirit (or Geist, in German). In addition to close readings of Kandinskys writings, the book also includes a discussion of a 1936 essay on the artists paintings written by his own nephew, philosopher Alexandre Koj?ve, the foremost Hegel scholar in France at that time. It also provides detailed analyses of individual paintings by Kandinsky, demonstrating how the development of his oeuvre challenges Hegels views on modern art, yet operates in much the same manner as does Hegels philosophical system. Through the work of a single, crucial artist, Florman presents a radical new account of why painting turned to abstraction in the early years of the twentieth century.
