Author as a Visual and Theological PhenomenonSvětlana Ondroušková, Hermes 2015 Prague

Wassily K

an

din

sky,

Com

posit

ion

VI,

19

13

Author Latin: auctor „originator“, „creator“;

augēre „to make many“, „to spread“ author – „who creates?“ literary studies – narratology author is not just a domain of literature,

but media in general

Wassily Kandinsky, Composition IV, 1911

Author by Kandinsky

Artist Personality the Spiritual (das Geistige) inner need (innere

Notwendigkeit) inner sounding (inner Klang) „Sichausdrückenwollen“

„Kunstwollen“ Wilhelm Worringer: Abstraction and Emphathy (1907)

Wassily

Kan

din

sky, C

om

positio

n V

II, 19

13

Texts

Kandinsky: „Concerning the Spiritual in Art“ (1911) Kandinsky: „On the Question of Form“ (1912) Mukařovský: „Personality in Art“ (1944)

Wassily Kandinsky, Composition V, 1911

Mukařovský’s criticism

„…every individual‘s own psychic privatissimum is incommunicable in its entire uniqueness…“

„There are simply two parties between whom the work mediates; and on account of this ability to mediate, the work is a sign, not an expression.

expression / Ausdruck / výraz

Wassily Kandinsky, Composition X, 1930

Mukařovský: expression = sign = work of art

Kandinsky: expression + sign = work of art

Wassily Kandinsky, Green Composition, 1923

Expression

Hans Blumenberg: The Legibility of the World (1979)1. Renaissance –

advancements in optics2. Baroque – renewed

attachement to religion

visual turnoptical illusion

Arcimboldo, Water (1566)

Medial quality of an expression

SUBJECT OBJECTEXPRESSION

establishes relationship, makes visible or material; processual and dynamicexpress = mediate

Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VIII, 1923

Leibnitz: World as an expression of God‘s will.

Medial quality of an expression

Kandinsky artistic creation:1. Anti-mimetic2. Foregrounds the dynamic

element of creationBohumil Kubišta, Meditation, 1915

CONSTRUCTION and COMPOSITION

static dynamicpurely abstract process

movementrhythm (musical and visual)

Paul Klee, Redgreen and Violet-Yellow Rhythms, 1930

Synaesthesia

1.Medical/biological condition

2.Figure of speech3.Technique or method of

mediating Les VoyellesArthur Rimbaud

A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu : voyelles,Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances latentes :A, noir corset velu des mouches éclatantesQui bombinent autour des puanteurs cruelles,

[…]

Synaesthetic (sensory and affective)Effect of colour: (1)physical (2)psychic – associationCan we induce synaesthesia through art? Media Synaesthetics

Kandinsky on emotions:1. Elementary emotions: Joy,

Fear, Anxiety, Happiness etc.

2. Awaken finer emotions through art, these emotions are still nameless, unindentified

Kandinsky od copying: Do not copy the form, copy

the principial.Wassily Kandinsky, Composition IX, 1936

Matěj Krén, Idiom („a tower made from books“)1998, Prague Municipal Library