“At the moment there is a great tendency in painting to discover the 'new' harmony by constructive means whereby the rhythmic is built on an almost geometric form... I am certain that our own modern harmony is not to be found in the 'geometric' way, but rather in the anti-geometric, anti-logical way. And this way is that of 'dissonance in art', in painting, therefore, just as much as in music. And 'today's' dissonance in painting and music is merely the consonance of 'tomorrow.”

— Wassily Kandinsky

Quote in Kandinsky's letter to Arnold Schönberg, 18 Jan. 1911; as cited in Schonberg and Kandinsky: An Historic Encounter, by Klaus Kropfinger; edited by Konrad Boehmer; published by Routledge (imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informal company), 2003, p. 9
1910 - 1915

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Wassily Kandinsky68

Russian painter 1866–1944

Barnett Newman (1905–1970) American artist

Source: 1940 - 1950, The Plasmic Image 1. 1943-1945, p. 139

“Painting, which is essentially a rhythmic harmony of coloured spaces.”

Arthur Wesley Dow (1857–1922) painter from the United States

Composition: A Series of Exercises in Art Structure for the Use of Students and Teachers, Boston (1899)

“You are always related [as an artist] to something. I'm related to the more geometric, or simpler, painting, but the motivation doesn't have anything to do with that kind of European geometric painting. I think the obvious comparison with my work would be Vasarely, and I can't think of anything I like less.... the 'Groupe de recherché d'Art visuel' actually painted all the patterns before I did – all the basic designs that are in my painting – I didn't even know about it.... it still doesn't have anything to do with my painting. I find all that European geometric painting – sort of post Ma Bill school – a kind of curiosity, very dreary.”

Frank Stella (1936) American artist

Source: Quotes, 1960 - 1970, Questions to Stella and Judd' - September 1966, p. 117

“Ken Noland has put things in the center [of the painting] and I'll use a symmetric pattern, but we use symmetry in a different way. It's non-relational. In the newer American painting [in contrast to European geometric art] we strive to get the thing in the middle, and symmetrical, but just to get a kind of force, just to get the thing on the canvas. The balance factor isn't important.”

Frank Stella (1936) American artist

Source: Quotes, 1960 - 1970, Questions to Stella and Judd' - September 1966, p. 118

“The main virtue of geometric shapes is that they aren't organic, as all art otherwise is. A form that's neither geometric or organic would be a great discovery.”

Donald Judd (1928–1994) artist

Donald Judd (1967), quoted in: Alexander Alberro, ‎Blake Stimson (1999) Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology. p. 204
1960s

“There is no art more akin to mysticism than architecture. Abstract, geometrical, musical and yet dumb, passionless, it depends entirely upon symbolism, form and suggestion. Simple lies, and the harmonious combination and numerical relations between these, present something mysterious and at the same time incomplete.”

Alexander Herzen book My Past and Thoughts

My Past and Thoughts(1852-1870)

“.. how the movement of the passers-by [in his Street scene painting of 191-14] is comprehended in the rhombus of the heads which is twice repeated. In this way life and movement arise from an original geometric form. [Kirchner designed a diagram together with this line in the letter]”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker

Letter to Karl Hagemann, 27 February 1937; as quoted in Kirchner and the Berlin street, ed. Deborah Wye, Moma, New York, 2008, p. 81 - note 31
1930's

“Dissonance is the truth about harmony.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

“Why do I paint? In my work as a mathematician, form, structure, and economy of expression are important. In music, add tone quality, balance and harmony. And now in painting, these aesthetic values are enhanced by color, contrast, and composition.”

Robin Hartshorne (1938) American mathematician

Robin Hartshorne Fine Art, fineartstudioonlione.com http://robinfaso.fineartstudioonline.com/about

“A musical event in Münich has brought me a great dolt.... an evening of chamber-music by Arnold Schoenberg (Vienna).... the audience behaved loutishly, like school brats, sneezing and clearing their throats, when not tittering and scraping their chairs, so it was hard to follow the music. Can you imagine a music in which tonality (that is, the adherence to any key) is completely suspended? I was constantly reminded of Kandinsky's large composition which also permits no trace of tonality.... and also of Kandinsky's 'jumping spots' in hearing this music [of Schoenberg], which allows each tone sounded to stand on its own (a kind of white canvas between the spots of color). Schönberg proceeds from the principle that the concepts of consonance and dissonance do not exist at all. A so-called dissonance is only a mere remote consonance – an idea which now occupies me constantly while painting..”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

In a letter to August Macke (14 January 1911); as quoted in August Macke; Franz Marc: Briefwechsel, Cologne 1965; as quoted in Boston Modern - Figurative Expressionism as Alternative Modernism, Judith Bookbinder, University Press of New England, Hanover and England, 2005, p. 35
Franz Marc visited a concert with music of the composer Arnold Schönberg on 11 Jan. 1911 with Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Gabriele Münter and others; they played there compositions of Schönberg he wrote in 1907 and 1909: his second string quartet and the 'Three piano pieces'
1911 - 1914

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Wassily Kandinsky68

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