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Notes
Interactions of Kandinsky with the Moscow Futurists, in particular, his alleged participation in their manifesto are discussed in (Kandinskii 2020b, 247–249).
Podzemskaia notes that for Kandinsky, as well as for Potebnya, the notion of spiritual comprises, in particular, the life of the human soul (Kandinskii 2020b, 74).
Kandinsky’s theoretical writings have recently aroused much interest among philosophers working on the phenomenological approach to art. Apart from Michel Henry, whose book on Kandinsky will be discussed below, important work has been done by Maldiney (2000), Kienzler (2020) and Sallis (2017) – to mention but a few names.
The German word Farbe means “colour” as well as “paint” and “pigment”. It is an interesting observation of Podzemskaia that in the first two Russian versions of the treatise Kandinsky uses the Russian word kraska (paint, pigment) and only in the third version employs the more abstract term tsvet (colour) (Kandinskii 2020b, 28).
Podzemskaia’s organicist reading of Kandinsky’s theoretical works is largely based on her hypothesis that an important source of Kandinsky’s metaphysical ideas can be traced to the tradition of Russian followers of Wilhelm von Humboldt, particularly to his theory of the “inner form of the word” popular in the Russian Symbolists’ circles (Kandinskii 2020b, 82–83). Podzemskaia identifies the “inner form of the word”, as interpreted by Alexander Potebnja, with Kandinsky’s “inner sound” inherent in words as much as in colours and forms. This hypothesis is plausible, although the assembled archival and textological material may not be enough to fully justify it. Podzemskaia argues that discussions between Kandinsky and Marianne von Werefkin “must have touched” upon Andrei Bely’s article in which he reflects on the “inner form of the word” (Kandinskii 2020b, 82). In her 2009 paper Podzemskaia put forward the hypothesis that Kandinsky’s ideas about the language of colours have been influenced by the Russian reception of Humboldt’s legacy (Podzemskaia 2009). Her argument is based on the fact that Gabrichevsky, a close friend and colleague of Kandinsky, was an outspoken proponent of this theory. For a related discussion of the “inner form of the word” and Potebnia’s legacy in the Russian Formalists circle see Pilshchikov (2017).
References
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Goldstein, Kurt. 1995. The organism: A holistic approach to biology derived from pathological data in man. New York: Zone Books.
Henry, Michel. 2009. Seeing the invisible: On Kandinsky. Trans. by S. Davidson. London: Continuum.
Henry, Michel. 2004. Kandinsky et la signification de l’œuvre d’art. In De l’art et du politique. Phénoménologie de la vie. Tome III, Paris: PUF.
Kandinskii, Vasilii. 2020a. O duhkovnom v iskusstve. (Polnoe kriticheskoe izdanie s dopolneniiami i drugimi tekstami o nauke ob iskusstve). V 2 tomah; sost., stat’i i komment. N. P. Podzemskaia. T. 1: O dukhovnom v iskusstve. Moskva: BuksMArt.
Kandinskii, Vasilii. 2020b. O duhkovnom v iskusstve. (Polnoe kriticheskoe izdanie s dopolneniiami i drugimi tekstami o nauke ob iskusstve). V 2 tomah; sost., stat’i i komment. N. P. Podzemskaia. T. 2: Istoriia knigi. Nauka ob iskusstve. Moskva: BuksMArt.
Kienzler, Klaus. 2020. Cézanne, Klee, Kandinsky: Zur Phänomenologie der Kunst des Sehens. Freiburg im Breisgau: Karl Alber.
Maldiney, Henri. 2000. Ouvrir le rien, l’art nu. La Versanne: Encre Marine.
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This two-volume edition contains two title pages: one in Russian and one in German. The German title: Vassily Kandinsky. Über das Geistige in der Kunst. Vollständige kritische Ausgabe. I. Band. Über das Geistige in der Kunst. Herausgegeben, eingeleitet und kommentiert von Nadia Podzemskaia. ISBN 978-5-907043-59-6. II. Band. Geschichte des Buches Kulturwissenschaft. Aufsätze und Kommentare zu Kandinsky’s Texten von Nadia Podzemskaia. ISBN 978-5-907043-60-2.
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Yampolskaya, A. Review of: Kandinskii, Vasilii. O duhkovnom v iskusstve. (Polnoe kriticheskoe izdanie s dopolneniiami i drugimi tekstami o nauke ob iskusstve: v 2 tomah; sost., stat’i i komment. N.P. Podzemskaia). – Moskva: BuksMArt, 2020. ISBN 978-5-907043-58-9. 4910
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Stud East Eur Thought 75, 355–359 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-022-09479-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-022-09479-w