Point and Line to Plane (Kandinsky - Dover paperback)

Author: Wassily Kandinsky

ISBN: 9780486238081

Binding: paperback

Section: Art

"I had the impression that here painting itself comes to the foreground; I wondered if it would not be possible to go further in this direction."

Thus did the young Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) react to his first viewing of Monet's Haystack, included in an 1895 Moscow exhibit of French Impressionists. It was his first perception of the dematerialization of an object and presaged the later development of his influential theories of non-objective art. In Point and Line to Plane, one of the most influential books in 20th-century art, Kandinsky presents a detailed exposition of the inner dynamics of non-objective painting. Relying on his own unique terminology, he develops the idea of point as the "proto-element" of painting, the role of point in nature, music, and other art, and the combination of point and line that results in a unique visual language.