Point and Line to Plane

Wassily Kandinsky

• Editore: Dover Publications
• Anno: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780486136240
• Argomento: Art
• Categoria: History of Contemporary 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.
During study and travel in Europe, the young artist breathed the heady atmosphere of artistic experimentation. Fauvism, Cubism, Symbolism, and other movements played an important role in the development of his own revolutionary approach to painting. Decrying literal representation, Kandinsky emphasized instead the importance of form, color, rhythm, and the artist's inner need in expressing reality.
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. He then turns to an absorbing discussion of line — the influence of force on line, lyric and dramatic qualities, and the translation of various phenomena into forms of linear expression. With profound artistic insight, Kandinsky points out the organic relationship of the elements of painting, touching on the role of texture, the element of time, and the relationship of all these elements to the basic material plane called upon to receive the content of a work of art.
Originally published in 1926, this essay represents the mature flowering of ideas first expressed in Kandinsky's earlier seminal book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art. As an influential member of the Bauhaus school and a leading theoretician of abstract expressionism, Kandinsky helped formulate the modern artistic temperament. This book amply demonstrates the importance of his contribution and its profound effect on 20th-century art.

LINE

The geometric line is an invisible thing. It is the track made by the moving point; that is, its product. It is created by movement—specifically through the destruction of the intense self-contained repose of the point. Here, the leap out of the static into the dynamic occurs.

The line is, therefore, the greatest antithesis to the pictorial proto-element—the point. Viewed in the strictest sense, it can be designated as a secondary element.

Origin

The forces coming from without which transform the point into a line, can be very diverse. The variation in lines depends upon the number of these forces and upon their combinations.

In the final analysis, all line forms can be reduced to two cases:

1. application of one force and
2. application of two forces:
   1. single or repeated, alternate action of both forces,
   2. simultaneous action of both forces.

Straight Line

I A. When a force coming from without moves the point in any direction, the first type of line results; the initial direction remains unchanged and the line has the tendency to run in a straight course to infinity.

This is the straight line whose tension represents the most concise form of the potentiality for endless movement.

For the concept “movement,” which is used almost everywhere, I have substituted the term “tension.” The customary term is inexact and thereby leads us down the wrong roads and is the cause of further terminological misconceptions. “Tension” is the force living within the element and represents only one part of the creative “movement.” The second part is the “direction,” which is also determined by the “movement.” The elements of painting are material results of movement in the form:

1. of the tension, and
2. of the direction.

This division creates, furthermore, a basis for the differentiation of various kinds of elements as, for example, point and line. Of these, the point carries only one tension within it and it can have no direction; the line definitely shares in both the tension and the direction. If, for instance, the straight line were to be investigated from the standpoint of its tension alone, it would be impossible to distinguish a horizontal line from a vertical. The above holds equally true in connection with colour analysis, since some colours are to be distinguished from others only in the directions of their tensions.¹⁶

We note that there are three typical kinds of straight lines of which other straight lines are only variations.

1. The simplest form of the straight line is the horizontal. In the human imagination, this corresponds to the line or the plane upon which the human being stands or moves. The horizontal line is also a cold supporting base which can be extended on the level in various directions. Coldness and flatness are the basic sounds of this line, and it can be designated as the most concise form of the potentiality for endless cold movement.
2. In complete contrast to this line, in both an external and inner sense, is the vertical which stands at right angles to it, and in which flatness is supplanted by height, and coldness by warmth. Therefore, the vertical line is the most concise form of the potentiality for endless warm movement.
3. The third type of straight line is the diagonal which, in schematic form, diverges from both of the above at the same angle and, therefore, has the same inclination to both of them; a circumstance which determines its inner sound—equal union of coldness and warmth. Therefore, the diagonal line is the most concise form of the potentiality for endless cold-warm movement (Figs. 14 and 15).

Fig. 14
Basic types of geometric straight
lines.

Fig. 15
Diagram of basic types.

Temperature

These three types are the purest forms of straight lines and they are differentiated from each other by temperature:

Endless movement.	1. cold form,	Most concise forms of the potentiality for endless movement.
	2. warm form,
	3. cold-warm form.

To a greater or smaller extent, all other straight lines are only deviations from the diagonal. The differences in a greater or lesser tendency to coldness or to warmth determine their inner sounds (Fig. 16).

Fig. 16
Diagram of deviations in temperature.

In this way is formed the star of straight lines which are organized about a common meeting-point.

Plane Formation

This star can become ever denser and denser so that the intersections form a more compact center, in which a point develops and seems to grow. This is the axis about which the lines can move and, finally, flow into one another; a new form is born—a plane in the clear shape of a circle (Figs. 17 and 18).

Fig. 17
Condensation.

Fig. 18
Circle as result of condensation.

It may be remarked briefly, that in this case we have to do with a special characteristic of the line—its power to create a plane. This power expresses itself here in the same manner that a shovel creates a plane with the incision-like lines it cuts into the earth. Moreover, the line can by still another method produce a plane, but of this I will speak later.

The difference between the diagonals and the other diagonal-like lines, which one could with justification call free straight lines, is also a temperature difference as the free straight lines can never attain a balance between warmth and coldness.

Free straight lines can, thereby, lie upon a given plane with a common center (Fig. 19), or lie outside of the center (Fig. 20); accordingly, they can be divided into these two clas...

Indice dei contenuti

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• PREFACE
• FOREWORD
• FOREWORD TO THE SECOND EDITION
• INTRODUCTION
• POINT
• LINE
• BASIC PLANE
• APPENDIX
• INDEX