Kandinsky's Hierarchy

 In Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art, the author creates a triangle that includes masterful influencers in Art and how they have come about. The triangle resembles a pyramid scheme that we might be used to in something like an economics class. The artists present on the top of the triangle are untouchable in the influence that they have had on aspiring artists and the masses. 

Kandinsky believes that these artists at the top have attained the spiritual in art, which has allowed them the honor of being at the top. Their work has inspired the masses because they have gone beyond the material influences on art. They are not concerned with making money but are rather committed to listening to the real inner need, which is a term used to represent an intrinsic appetite that an artist has to fulfill. 

The way that Kandinsky describes the triangle resembles how a pastor or imam would explain the hierarchy of prophecy in religion. His descriptions set an uncomfortable but fair analysis that art or talent in art has an untroubled hierarchy in which the artists at the top resemble prophets. We love Picasso more than a contemporary artist but we might not be able to explain why. And that 'why' is what has troubled me.  

Being a reader of art, I struggled to understand how different decades of cultures can appreciate art in a manner inferior to another within the triangle. Even though an artist from our time can transcend to the top of the pyramid, why do they have to achieve such a feat? Have some generations appreciated art in a way that is unholy?  

That might be the case. This makes me think that Kandinsky, in his own peculiar way, has formed a critique of the modern appreciation of art. We fail to notice the inner need, the origin of which is hidden and is only revealed if we feel it through a painting.

According to Kandinsky, a hierarchy in the art exists because we have failed in looking away from materialistic gains, which has created an art that is mechanical. 

Even though Kandisky's hierarchy of spiritual art is plausible I do not completely endorse it. Art is a form of expression that has encapsulated a time, a story, or a generation to the utmost degree. Whether the appreciation of that art is to be on top or bottom of the triangle is irrelevant. For me, if a material artist is inspiring a material world, they deserve prophecy because they have created something spiritual by exposing one to see or feel.   

Comments

  1. Krishnan VenkateshNovember 27, 2022 at 8:41 PM

    Yours would be a more democratic approach for sure. Would sports be a valid analogy? -- where there are a few superstars in each generation who change the game for everyone. It's not that the others aren't good, it's just that occasionally there are these almost superhuman figures that raise the game to another level. If sports can be this kind of aristocracy, why not art?

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