On the other hand, there exists equally no purely material form.
A material object cannot be absolutely reproduced. For good or
evil, the artist has eyes and hands, which are perhaps more
artistic than his intentions and refuse to aim at photography
alone. Many genuine artists, who cannot be content with a mere
inventory of material objects, seek to express the objects by
what was once called "idealization," then "selection," and which
tomorrow will again be called something different.
[Footnote: The motive of idealization is so to beautify the organic form
as to bring out its harmony and rouse poetic feeling. "Selection" aims
not so much at beautification as at emphasizing the character of the
object, by the omission of non-essentials. The desire of the future will
be purely the expression of the inner meaning. The organic form no
longer serves as direct object, but as the human words in which a divine
message must be written, in order for it to be comprehensible to human
minds.]
The impossibility and, in art, the uselessness of attempting to
copy an object exactly, the desire to give the object full
expression, are the impulses which drive the artist away from
"literal" colouring to purely artistic aims. And that brings us
to the question of composition. [Footnote: Here Kandinsky means
arrangement of the picture.--M.T.H.S.]
Pure artistic composition has two elements:
1. The composition of the whole picture.
2. The creation of the various forms which, by standing in
different relationships to each other, decide the composition of
the whole. [Footnote: The general composition will naturally
include many little compositions which may be antagonistic to
each other, though helping--perhaps by their very antagonism--the
harmony of the whole. These little compositions have themselves
subdivisions of varied inner meanings.] Many objects have to be
considered in the light of the whole, and so ordered as to suit
this whole. Singly they will have little meaning, being of
importance only in so far as they help the general effect. These
single objects must be fashioned in one way only; and this, not
because their own inner meaning demands that particular
fashioning, but entirely because they have to serve as building
material for the whole composition. [Footnote: A good example is
Cezanne's "Bathing Women," which is built in the form of a
triangle. Such building is an old principle, which was being
abandoned only because academic usage had made it lifeless. But
Cezanne has given it new life. He does not use it to harmonize
his groups, but for purely artistic purposes. He distorts the
human figure with perfect justification. Not only must the whole
figure follow the lines of the triangle, but each limb must grow
narrower from bottom to top. Raphael's "Holy Family" is an
example of triangular composition used only for the harmonizing
of the group, and without any mystical motive.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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