Wassily Kandinsky | IV - The Pyramid

Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1910

And so at different points along the road are the different arts, saying what they are best able to say, and in the language which is peculiarly their own. Despite, or perhaps thanks to, the differences between them, there has never been a time when the arts approached each other more nearly than they do today, in this later phase of spiritual development.

In each manifestation is the seed of a striving towards the abstract, the non-material.

Consciously or unconsciously they are obeying Socrates' command - Know thyself. Consciously or unconsciously artists are studying and proving their material, setting in the balance the spiritual value of those elements, with which it is their several privilege to work.

Tito Conti (1842-1924) | Genre painter

Tito Conti was an Italian 19th Century painter who was born in Florence, mainly of genre costume or historical subjects.

He lived in Florence, where he studied at the Institute of Fine Arts.

He was resident professor at the Academic College of Fine Arts of Florence.

Among his works are: "La Presentazione"; "Il quarto d'ora di Rabelais e La musica" (1876); "Il brindisi alla bettoliera"; "L'addio"; "Portrait of his wife"; "Il sospetto"; "Il Cantastorie"; "Il Moschettiere"; and "Per la passeggiata" (1886, Florence). Among his pupils was Arturo Ricci.

Wassily Kandinsky | V - La Pittura - L'effetto del colore

Lo spirituale nell'arte, 1910

Se si osserva una tavolozza coperta di colori si hanno due risultati:

1 - Si ha un effetto puramente fisico, cioè l'occhio è affascinato dalla bellezza c dalle qualità dei colori. L'osservatore prova un senso di appagamento, di gioia come un buongustaio che gusta una squisitezza. Oppure l'occhio viene stuzzicato, come lo è il palato da un cibo piccante.

O, ancora, può calmarsi e raffreddarsi, come quando un dito tocca il ghiaccio. Sono tutto sensazioni fisiche, che in quanto tali durano poco.

Sensazioni superficiali, del resto, che non fanno molta impressione a chi è insensibile. Proprio come, se si tocca il ghiaccio, si prova solo una sensazione fisica di freddo, che svanisce quando il dito si scalda, così, girato lo sguardo si dimentica l'effetto fisico del colore.

Wassily Kandinsky | Gabriele Munter Kallmunz, 1903

Addio a Luciano Ventrone!

The Italian painter Luciano Ventrone died during the night in his house in Collelongo - Aquila, Italia.

Luciano Ventrone was born in Rome in 1942, he attended Liceo Artistico in Rome. After graduation in 1946 he started studying Architecture. In 1968 he left the University and focused on painting.

Even though Luciano Ventrone is internationally recognized as one of the master realist painters of his generation, he believes that his works are really about optics:

"Painting is not about the mere representation of an object, but its color and light", he says.

"The subject cannot be seen as it is but as an abstract element".

Alda Merini | Superb is the Night / Superba è la notte, 2000

The superbest thing it is the night

When the last fears fall

And the soul thrust itself into adventure.

He hushes in your womb

As if reabsorbed into the blood

Daniel Gerhartz | Return To Me