“The work of art is born of the artist in a mysterious and secret way. From him it gains life and being. Nor is its existence casual and inconsequent, but it has a definite and purposeful strength, alike in its material and spiritual life.”

— Wassily Kandinsky

VIII. Art and Artists
1910 - 1915, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1911

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The work of art is born of the artist in a mysterious and secret way. From him it gains life and being. Nor is its exis…" by Wassily Kandinsky?

Wassily Kandinsky 68

Russian painter 1866–1944

Elizabeth Hardwick (1916–2007) Novelist, short story writer, literary critic

"Katherine Anne Porter" (p. 300)
American Fictions (1999)

“Art is a spiritual function of man, which aims at freeing him from life's chaos. Art is free in the use of its means in any way it likes, but is bound to its laws and to its laws alone. The minute it becomes art, it becomes much more sublime than a class distinction between proletariat and bourgeoisie.”

Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) German artist

Manifesto Proletkult, 1923
Schwitters, in discussion with political Dadaists as Huelsenbeck.
1920s

“Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.”

Margot Fonteyn (1919–1991) English ballerina

Source: Margot Fonteyn : Autobiography‎ (1975), p. 81

“Islam chose to unite earth and heaven in a single system, present both in the heart of the individual and the actuality of society, recognizing no separation of practical exertion from religious impulse. … The center of its being and the field of its action is human life in its entirety, spiritual and material, religious and worldly. Such a religion cannot continue to exist in isolation from society, nor can its adherents be true Muslims unless they practice their faith in their social, legal and economic relationships.”

Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) Egyptian author, educator, Islamic theorist, poet, and politician

Source: Social Justice in Islam (1953), p. 26

“There is no pulse so sure of the state of a nation as its characteristic art product which has nothing to do with its material life.”

Gertrude Stein book Paris France

Source: Paris France (1940), p. 12

“If the genius is an artist, then he accomplishes his work as art, but neither he nor his work of art has a telos outside him.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: 1840s, Two Ethical-Religious Minor Essays (1849), P. 108

“There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world- its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles.”

Anne Rice book Servant of the Bones

Source: Servant of the Bones

“The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life… Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

" The Life and Teachings of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus http://magdelene.net/Thoth%20Hermes%20Trismegistus.htm", in The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928) by the Canadian occultist Manly Hall; a few quotation websites credit this to Addison.
Misattributed

“It is impossible to understand Art and the glory of its history without avowing religious spirituality and the mythical roots that lead us to the very reason of being of the artistic phenomenon. Without the one or the other there would be no Egyptian pyramids, nor those of ancient Mexico. Would the Greek temples and Gothic cathedrals have existed?”

Luis Barragán (1902–1988) Mexican architect

In his acceptance of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1980

“Art is not simply an identity of illusion and reality, but a counter-illusion: its world is a material world, but the material of an intelligible spiritual world.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

1:73
"Quotes", Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2002)

“The work of art is born of the artist in a mysterious and secret way. From him it gains life and being. Nor is its existence casual and inconsequent, but it has a definite and purposeful strength, alike in its material and spiritual life.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Wassily Kandinsky 68

Related quotes

Related topics