The barrio

 

Its been a while

It's been a long time,
  stuff happened,
 but all that matters is now I live in Madrid.

Painting Reality; A Phenomenological approach to painting in the works of Monet, Cezanne and Kandinsky

 Very very old dissertation from my undergrad

‘Only as an aesthetic phenemon is existence and the world eternally justified’

The Birth of Tragedy

Friedrich Nietzsche

‘The work of art for him who can see is a mirror which reflects the artist’s soul’

Paul Gauguin

There is an extensive amount of literature written on the philosophy of art arguing about art’s value, significance, merits and whether art can teach man anything about himself and his surroundings. Does art serve as a means of gaining knowledge of the world? Can it give insight into the human condition or spiritually nourish a person? Or does it just supply simple entertainment. Historically, different aesthetic theories have proposed differing accounts of what it is that all works of art share which gives them their value. The idea of aesthetics can comprise of the study of beauty and taste, or it can represent theories on art which deny a connection between art and aesthetics. It was not until late in the nineteenth century that the idea of art as imitation began to fade from western aesthetics, to be replaced by theories about art as expression, communication, and a pure form. The word aesthetic is derived from the Greek word for perception. The main focus of this dissertation is to centre attention upon the substance of works of art themselves applying a phenomenological approach to ‘seeing’ art and whether this application found its technique in the artistic creativity of three successful artists, Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne and Wassily Kandinsky. I will discuss the historical and social factors that influenced these artists’ painterly philosophies, the birth of modernism, the invention of photography, psychological, and phenomenological investigations into perception, the act of seeing itself.  I will discuss some basic concepts within phenomenology and how they can be applied to the experience of viewing a work of art, which can be linked to the progress of the art movement of Impressionism.  Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theories will be referenced in relation to perception with his writings on Cezanne. I will then review the links between phenomenological investigations and Gestalt theory and if these theories fed into the works of the artists discussed. Merleau-Ponty believed that perception involved those processes by which individuals differentiate and understand things within their scope of experience, ‘All knowledge’ he says ‘takes place within the horizons opened up by

perception’ (Merleau-Ponty. 1996. p.207). These artists, through three different methods all tried to paint in some way the meaning of ‘seeing’ and the truth of subjectivity. As colour depends on the organ of perception, and the eye is personal to each individual artist, the importance of colour emphasises the subjective nature of their art. The artists mentioned contributed their own theories of colour to their work. Monet tried to paint scenes as they immediately appeared to the eye; he liberated his subject matter from convention and standard ideas of how to represent and object or nature. Cezanne went further than Monet in adding depth and structure to the impressionist vision. Kandinsky went further again and discovered that the subject/object was of no importance at all when painting the truth of life. All three were determined to paint truthfully the world which they experienced and lived and all contributed a great deal to the philosophy of art.

Before a discussion of Monet, I will mention briefly some of the ideas within Phenomenology that will prove relevant to the discussion on Monet and the factors leading up to the Impressionist movement. In the latter half of the essay I will focus upon the application of philosophical methods in rendering the truth of a subject on the canvas. Phenomenology is concerned with knowledge and strives to explain the fundamental truth about our knowledge of and relationship with things in the world. Edmund Husserl is known as the father of phenomenology, his work Logical Investigations appeared in nineteen-hundred and the second part in nineteen hundred and one. Set against the backdrop of the Modernist movement, phenomenology is primarily concerned with the problem of appearances. The term most associated with phenomenology is ‘intentionality’ and so the core doctrine of the philosophy is the teaching that ‘every act of consciousness we perform, every experience that we have is intentional: it is essentially “conscious of” or an “experience of” something…’ (Sokolowski, 2000. p.8) All of our awareness is directed towards objects. There is a conscious relationship between a person and an object. All we can be sure of is our own conscious existence and the different states of that consciousness. The main characteristic of consciousness is that it is always intentional.  However complications arrive in different structures of intentionality. The way a person views a geometric shape or photograph is different to viewing an object present in front of us. Photographs involve pictorial intending whereas objects are associated with perceptual intending; basically there are various ways in which something can appear which is then arranged into data by our rational judgements. Phenomenology tries to recognize the reality, truth, and relationship between the appearance of phenomenas, phenomena being ‘imagined objects as opposed to perceived, pictures as opposed to simple objects, mathematical objects (triangles) as opposed to living things’.(Sokolowski, 2000, p.13) Phenomenology’s roots can be seen in Descartes who, concerned with the problem of making errors concluded that nothing should be taken for granted. His famous ‘Cogito Ergo Sum’ provides the theory that only the self is known and anything outside of the self is suspect.

In order to properly understand the phenomenological approach Husserl distinguished two perspectives, the natural attitude and the phenomenological attitude. The natural attitude consists of our everyday view of things in the world, for example trees, chairs, and books. Also present are mathematical things and things that we know exist but have not directly experienced, for example a view of the Pyramids in Egypt. There are many things in the world therefore, which are presented to us in different ways. Also holding an important place in the world is the ego, the self, which the world is arranged around. The self is the context in which all things manifest themselves. The natural attitude is prone to error as it takes things for granted and operates on assumptions that everyone has formed and subconsciously built up about the world. We reform ideas when we discover errors, and so become aware that things are not always as they appear. If we want to arrive at absolute truth we must abandon the natural attitude and take up a philosophical one. In the phenomenological attitude we are detached observers of any and all objects in the world. Once here, we reduce our observations and awareness to only that which appears to us: the phenomenon. We analytically look at all particular intentionalities and their associations. If we assume anything about the phenomenon then we are no longer in a phenomenological attitude. In the phenomenological attitude an object ceases to be something ‘external’ that provides information or indicators about what it is. Instead it becomes a grouping of perceptions and functions that indicate the idea of a particular object. (Sokolowski, 2000, pp. 42-65) Later in his work Husserl would stress the importance of phenomenology to scientific investigations into perception. So with this new philosophy a new way of approaching man’s relationship with phenomena and the world was born. The painter Monet seemed to understand that what an object meant or represented depended as much on the viewer’s perception of the thing as much as on the properties of the object alone. The artist shared with phenomenologist’s a desire to arrive at truth or knowledge and the relation of this truth to a universal truth. Monet in his task to paint subjectivity appears to have parted from the natural attitude just enough to paint his reality without becoming too caught up in an analytical mind-set.

The end of the nineteenth century saw the beginning of Modernism and hence the beginnings of phenomenology. But in a discussion on the artists previously mentioned, new investigations in philosophy were not the only seeds which contributed to a fresh approach to painting the realities of the world on canvas. Cultural and social factors also played an important role in establishing the new approach. Modernism is associated with artistic movements and figures like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf who experimented with literary form and new ways of narrating different styles of experience. In visual arts movements such as Cubism, Fauvism and Surrealism were going to challenge the established rules about what a work of art could or should aspire to be. Ezra Pounds maxim ‘make it new’ could sum up the feelings of the modernist manifesto. Impressionism  is seen as anticipating the beginning of modern art as it challenged the relationship between artist and canvas, the tensions between light, depth, objects, their representation, and the very meaning of a painting itself. . The word impression is seen as ‘the effect produced on the bodily organs by the action of

external objects or the more or less profound effect that external objects make upon the sense organs’ and is ‘always surface a surface phenomenon- immediate, primary, undeveloped’ ( Shiff, 1986, p.18.)    Other stylistic characteristics included painting en plein air and the use of bright colours. In this sense impressionist colour was more natural or true to nature. Impressionist colour was derived from nature directly observed, a nature everyone could experience. Today the paintings of the impressionists are so popular and commercialized that people tend to forget that Impressionism at the turn of the century was an avant garde movement. While the foundations of Impressionism were laid down in the realist works of Courbet and Manet, it was with Monet that the movement got underway and remained in its purest form.

            In order to understand the radical in Monet’s work one must remember what Impressionism was reacting against.  The French Academy of Fine Arts who held an annual art show every year know as the ‘Salon’  were the main authority on French art and it determined what should and should not be considered art. Historical or religious paintings and portraits which contained cautious, conservative colouring and which mirrored the world were considered as proper art. This art favoured an idealised fictionalized time and space, incorporating classical themes like perfectly formed nudes .The artist’s personality was concealed or abandoned completely. This was not an art of reality, and it asked nothing more of a spectator than an admiration of beauty. From a philosophical perspective this art was firmly rooted in the natural attitude, idealizing ideas of what an subject should aspire to look like, not necessarily what it resembled in reality. Artists such as Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley and Cezanne rejected this idea of art. They painted everyday landscapes, ordinary people, still lives, and consequentially each year their pieces were denied entry into the Salon. Edouard Manet’s Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe was rejected from the eighteen-sixty three exhibitions because it showed realistic nudes at a picnic with fully clothed men, in a contemporary scene. This depiction, it was felt, was not appropriate. Emperor Napoleon III decreed that the public should judge the rejected paintings for themselves and soon the Salon des Refuses was established. This exhibition drew attention to the evolving attitudes towards art. In eighteen-seventy four an exhibition was held in the studio of the photographer Nadar. Monet and his like minded contemporaries exhibited their work there. Thirty artists would exhibit in this show and it was the first of eight that the group would demonstrate between eighteen seventy-four and eighteen eighty-six. Critical responses were mixed. It was critic Louis Leroy who penned the term Impressionists. Taken from Monet’s title ‘Impression Sunrise’ it was meant as an attack on the painting and the Impressionists who were hostile to and defiant of the official academic art of the Salon. He declared that the work was childish and that ‘wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape’(Salis, 1998, p.39).

            The invention of photography was another major challenge and influence on the artists, as it provided a new medium with which to capture reality. Osip Brik argued that

photography could eclipse painting and that it was the most relevant contemporary process of Realism, ‘the photographer captures life and the painter makes pictures’ (Harrison, Wood. 1996. p.454). Photography was still a new development, therefore only producing black and white prints. Brik anticipates the painter’s argument that colour produces an object more faithfully, but he believes this to be wrong. “Painting cannot transpose real colours, it can only copy- more or less approximately- a tint we see in nature...the photographer captures life and events more cheaply, quickly and precisely than the painter. Herein lies his strength, his enormous social importance, he is not frightened by any outdated daub” (Ibid, p456) But he forgets that the principle aim of the painter is not just to mirror images of the world. Focusing on the one thing a photographer cannot do, the artist creates a  subjective vision .The artist is fully aware that he or she cannot represent life itself and it is senseless to imitate it, so the canvas recreates in a separate ‘painterly way’. Photography showed the painter how to exploit colour on canvas, offering a subjective alternative to photographs. The Impressionist goal was to express their perceptions of nature. This new art did not want to project on to nature innate assumptions and preconceptions about things, rather it sought to view the visual world in its raw form and to recreate sections of it with paint according to the artists own perception and interpretation. Courbet once said ‘paint the truth, your own time, from your own point of view’ and this is exactly what Monet was concerned with, he was literally painting what he saw. Monet found that he could capture the momentary and transient effects of time and the play of sunlight by painting en plein air. The Impressionists noticed that shadows were made up of many hues and that colours in shadows include complementaries of the object casting the shadow. They layered colours upon one another and side by side, never mixing the colours before applying to the canvas

Monet and Renoir painted the floating restaurant at Le Grenouilliere and it is here that the genesis of Monet’s future development can be seen in his depiction of the restaurant scene. As opposed to Renoir’s depiction of the exact same scene, Monet’s figures literally dissolve into their outer forms, lacking detail. It seems it does not matter that details are not seen; rather what is important is the initial effect upon the eye of such figures. No one had ever witnessed this type of approach to painting before, and the public were slow to embrace these new wave artists. Monet’s Haystack paintings were once described as ‘the worst offender[s] among Monet’s poorest efforts’ (Seitz. 1956. p.36). Focusing on the series of paintings of Haystacks, John Sallis sees Monet’s landscapes as painting ‘the shining of the sensible’  (Sallis, p.49).  Lets elaborate further on this idea.. Monet never followed or composed any theories to coincide with his painting methods, in fact he always felt a ‘horror’ at the thought of associating himself with theories. He said ‘I have only the merit of having painted directly before nature in my search to render my impressions before the most fugitive affects’ (ibid p.39) He had sometimes up to fifteen canvases all lined up because as he said ‘the sun goes down so fast that I cannot follow it’(ibid) The instantaneity that he wanted was first of all a principle of harmonious unity. He was trying to capture time itself through exact sense-impressions. So Monet’s pictures pointed to no theory or universalities beyond themselves.

There was no story or image beyond the one presented in colour. The spectator is simply required to bring their eye back to the initial impression and the object exists presently by itself.  Linear perspective is disregarded. The depth of background is compromised and painted as shallow corner to corner organized space. Monet spoke of man as only an atom in comparison with the universe and advised a lady painter to ‘remember that every leaf on a tree is as important as the features of your model’ (Seitz. P.34). So what then can be seen in the wheat-stack paintings? Gustave Geffory described the wheat stacks as  being like ‘mirrors or fulcrums’ (Sallis. p.43) It is by the presence of the haystacks themselves that we can witness the effects that light and atmosphere have on its surroundings’ the sudden bursts of light.. the last rays of sunlight, the fallen snow, they serve as a fulcrum for light and shadow, sun and shade circling about them’ (ibid, p.43) Commenting on two portraits of the same woman painted under differing atmospheric conditions Monet concluded that while he could have completed fifteen portraits of the woman, ‘for me it is only the surroundings which give true value to the subject’ (ibid)   It is through the surrounding relationship of light and atmosphere towards a subject where the surroundings of a landscape reveals itself.  No one had ever tried to paint so sincerely the experience of unqualified seeing before the haystacks. Kandinsky on seeing one of the haystacks in Moscow was blown away by the painting, it confused him yet he says ‘suddenly for the first time in my life I found myself looking at a real picture (ibid, p.40) it showed him the’ previously unimagined unrevealed and all surpassing power of the palette’ (Ibid. p.41]

It was with Cezanne that art became modern art. He laid the foundations of the transition from the nineteenth century formation of artistic attempts to a new and radically different world of art in the twentieth century. Known as the painter’s painter, he inspired artists such as Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin and Pablo Picasso. Symbolism and Cubism would find its roots in the work of Cezanne. While still one of the Impressionists, he confused the light airy tranquil of the impression paintings. He put structure into Monet and slowed Impressionism down. He sought to find order in nature and he studied form and depth only to forget it again in his attempt to paint objects as they appeared to the viewer, without outline and before our pre-determined judgments could change the appearance. For Cezanne solidity needed to be connected to fluidity, the changeable. For him the abstract became real and reality was merely an idea. Contours of objects are pressurized by a sense of pattern. While Cezanne said that his paintings were based on theory, he never managed to clearly formulate this theoretical basis. Cezanne comes to redefine the rhythmic structure of painting and comes closest to Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological investigations.  He sees Cezanne’s work as trying to capture the true phenomenology of the visual on canvas, to reflect upon reflective consciousness.

Both phenomenology and psychology are concerned with the conscious and specific acts of consciousness such as perception, reasoning, and meaning, yet the theoretical

approach in which these themes are approached differ. In this paragraph I will briefly outline some of the theories that underline Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological approach to consciousness and then a scientific approach outlined in Gestalt theory. I will then try to link these theories to see if such ideas could have contributed to Cezanne’s theoretical approach to painting, mixing the impressionist ideal with a more radical structured approach to perceiving and painting the actual appearance of an object.  Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception amongst other things, responds to Husserl’s ideas regarding the intentionality of consciousness and psychological approaches to consciousness. The book first published in nineteen forty-five, works towards the theory that all consciousness is perceptual consciousness as opposed to Husserl’s idea that all consciousness is conscious of something which implies a distinction between acts of thought and intentional objects of thought. According to Merleau-Ponty what Husserl failed to realise was the intentionality of consciousness is first a bodily intentionality; what is revealed or given by an object already has a history and is part of a whole series of relations (Langer, 1989, pp.vii-xvii). Experience is a process of transience, consciousness, the world and the human body intertwined. ‘All knowledge takes place within the horizons opened up by perception, that the primordial structures of perception pervade the entire range of reflexive and scientific experience, and that all forms of human co-existence are based on perception’ (Ibid, xv). Aside from the phenomenological approach to discovering the basis of perceptions and sensations there is the scientific approach. In the nineteenth century the main task of psychology was to explain the totality of facts which lead to sensation and perception. The psychology of the time ‘interpreted certain sensory data occurring in consciousness as the effects of physical processes and, at the same time, as signs which refer to the latter without bearing likeness or even similarity to them’(Gurwitsch, 1966, p.3). Perceptual experience has often been understood, as providing a passive documentation of external stimuli. One uses the sense receptors to see a flower, this image of the flower is recorded with the eyes’ retina and then its sensory information travels to eventually reside on the level of sensory consciousness. Acts of consciousness appear as ‘mundane events’, events which occur in the real world and objective time as any other events, standing within a relationship of ‘casual and functional dependence’, so psychology is in logical connection with and relies partly upon the physical and biological sciences (Gurwitsch, p.89). Associated with Max Wertheimer, Gestalt theory is involved with visual perception and the psychology of art. The Gestaltist’s believed that through experimental investigations it seemed that perception was not an intellectual operation. Merleau-Ponty felt a new study of perception was justified by contemporary developments in experimental researches contributed by ‘progress in a new psychology of perception in Germany (gestaltpsychologie), by developments in physiology of  the nervous system, developments in child psychology and new philosophies which called in to question the guiding ideas of critical thought(Sallis, p.9 1981). Gestalt is concerned with the relationship between the parts and the whole of a composition. Gestalt theory first arose in eighteen-ninety as a reaction to atomism which was the prevailing psychological theory of

the time. In a paper written in eighteen-ninety, entitled On Gestalt Qualities, Wertheimer pointed out that when a musical order is heard, an impression accompanies this initial aural sensation which can be identified as melody. This melody is still recognizable when played in different keys, so this melody is a Gestalt quality as it cannot be identified with any particular set of notes, but it is founded upon them (Gurwitsch, pp.6-10) Gestalt theorists were concerned by the way our mind perceives wholes out of incomplete elements, ‘ whole is not simply the sum of its parts, but a synergistic “whole effect,” or gestalt…likewise the effect of apparent movement is generated not so much by its individual elements as by their dynamic interrelation’(Behrens. 2004). Gestalt theory therefore shares links with phenomenology in that both schools try to discover the fundamental concepts involved in the nature of perceiving acts of consciousness. The artists of the era also showed an interest in the theories; Kandinsky attended a series of lectures about gestalt theory by Count Karlfried von Dürckheim, a visiting psychologist from the University of Leipzig, in the winter of nineteen-thirty and nineteen thirty-one (Ibid).

When asked his opinions on his own artistic theory Cezanne’s statements were usually ‘cryptic and trite’ (Shiff, p.187). It is well known that Cezanne was a difficult man, known as an eccentric, prone to fits of temper and who disliked to be touched.  He isolated himself from his peers and chose to paint on his own. He rarely signed or dated his paintings and left many unfinished. Throughout his restless life he questioned his methods, his success and he struggled to find way of expressing himself and nature. Whether or not this can account for the paradox of structure and impression in his work is debatable, after all, our perception of an object when we do not use Husserl’s philosophical attitude is tainted by our preconceived ideas and subconscious influences. The popular nineteenth century belief among critics saw the artistic principle both as the ‘individual vision of the painter (associated with his personality and temperament) and as a universal normative style (associated with the tradition of art)’ (Ibid. p.188). All art must involve subjectivity; after all, it is the artist’s vision that is being transferred to the canvas. In his essay entitled Cezanne’s Doubt, Merleau-Ponty acknowledges the psychological tendencies of the painter can be seen but will not will explain his work completely, ‘[if] Cezanne’s life seems to us to carry the seeds of his work within it, it is because we get to know his work first and see the circumstances of his life through it charging them with a meaning borrowed from that work’ (Merleau-Ponty 1964, p.20). They might in some way contribute in an understanding of why he painted as he did, ‘the two are connected’ (Ibid.). It is in the freedom the man possessed as an artist that we can find meaning in his artwork.  His art was not simply an expression of his life but the struggle for expression of the confusion of being-in-the-world, his objectivity can be seen in his study of colour, trying to realise the ‘motif’, and the coldness of his portraits (Brodsky, 1981, p.128). Furthermore one assumes that Cezanne was all too aware of that danger of letting learned reason, critic’s commentaries, and denying the subject truthful appearances to affect his work, instead it seems his anxiousness fuelled his desire. Cezanne’s painting’s are rooted in a philosophical and approach to objects, which one can see via the

distortions of perspective if one looks at a painting of Cezanne from his later period One will notice that the perspective and depth of the objects appears to be distorted or to possess an unreal, almost primitive like quality. Take his painting Basket of Apples 1890-1894 below,

Note how the basket in the left of the picture seems to be balancing almost in the air, while the tablecloth seems unnaturally placed atop of a slanted table whose contours do not match up. The perspective seems distorted, the depth flat. Emile Zola in his criticisms wrote on the Impressionists technical errors, ‘the difficulties begin with the execution’ (Shiff. 1986, p.34). The sketch like affects, bright colours and simplified composition could not guarantee the artists success at trying to paint originally and subjectively, they were still subject to ‘objective evaluation and criticism’ (ibid. p.35) Cezanne had been criticised previously for his lack of perspective and execution. One critic one called his work ‘the painting of a drunken privy cleaner.’ (Ponty. 1964, p.9) However as Merleau-Ponty will point out his paintings do provide perspective and depth just not in the traditional, falsified, scientific sense that was in use during the Renaissance, that of using a vanishing point and mathematical procedures. Merleau-Ponty was influenced by psychology and Gestalt theory and incorporated some if its ideas into his writings, although it is not certain whether or not Cezanne was aware at the time of his work of these emerging modernist theories. He, along with the artist realises that human beings do not actually see things in geometrical structures, Berkley said that depth was not visible as whatever might be true of a retinal image we receive, ‘depth cannot be seen because it is not spread out before our eyes but appears only in foreshortened form’ (Merleau-Ponty. 1996, p.255) so like all other special relationships such as distance it only exists for a subject who embraces it in thought Cezanne discovered the ‘lived perspective’ that which we actually perceive. Merleau-Ponty points out in his chapter on space in Phenomenology of Perception that depth is more ‘existential’ than the other spatial dimensions because it clearly is neither a property of the object nor an intellectual

 creation; therefore its consideration prompts us more directly to rebut our preconceived notions and rediscover the primordial experience of the world.  ‘Cezanne’s genius [is]when the overall composition of the picture is seen globally perspectival distortions are no longer visible … but rather contribute, as they do in natural  vision, to the impression of an object in the act of appearing, organizing itself before or eyes.’ (Ponty.1964, p.14)
             Cezanne wanted to simplify naturally occurring forms to their geometric essentials, choosing to remain faithful to the phenomena to, ‘treat nature by the cylinder, the sphere, the cone.’ Ponty elaborates on this thought further as he  points out that a line encircling an object does not exist in the visible, real world but to geometry, to draw  an outline is to turn a shape into an object. Take a Cezanne apple for example. To trace an outline is to surrender its depth but not to indicate any shape will steal an object of its character. Lines therefore should not be present in a painting. In the pursuit of knowledge Cezanne strove to capture nature and colour plays a key role in his theory. ‘Everything comes to us from nature, we exist through it, nothing else is worth remembering’ (Ponty. 1964,) Some gestalt theory may be found in Cezanne through the artists significant treatment of colour using "simultaneous contrast." This effect was described scientifically in eighteen thirty-nine by a French chemist, Michel-Eugene Chevreul, who essentially found that a colour may appear to change, often dramatically, when moved from one background to another. A swatch of red, for example, may exhibit intensity on a green background, while becoming another on orange. As a result of this phenomenon, there is no easy answer to the question ‘What is the true appearance of a colour?’ Gestaltists are likely to say that all such appearances of a colour are legitimate, because we always experience perceptual wholes, not isolated parts (Behrens).To find the object again and place it within the appropriate background Cezanne used warm colours and black. Blacks and browns were absent from the work of Monet as sunlight never produced the outcome of a black shadow, blue was always used for that purpose. Instead Cezanne uses colour to chart the size and shape of the apple, this colour blends with the other colours in the picture, this way there are no lines, and there are only contrasts. ‘When colour attains its richness, form attains its plenitude.’ (Denis. 1910, p.44)
            While Monet documented the use of light and atmosphere to account for the glimpsing of an impression, Cezanne without abandoning the impressionist technique sought to freeze the object as it immediately appears to us, Kandinsky brought the work of Monet and Cezanne to its conclusion, for him their work was ‘the logical conclusion of the naturalistic impulse in art.’ (Sallis. 1998. p.68). He developed theoretical accounts which eventually led him to believe in order to represent the truth of the artist, of his world and the ‘inner soul’ he had to dissolve the object completely so that this inner truth could shine through. His principle aim was to push the boundaries of self expression to the ultimate frontier. He believed through abstraction that an individual had the greatest freedom to express their inner soul. Kandinsky differs from the ideas Cezanne had about the relationship between artist/viewer and the phenomena which will be explored in his essay Concerning the Spiritual in Art. He focuses on the whole experience of the inner soul towards life as opposed to a more clinical study of sense experience. Wassily Kandinsky left Russia at the age of thirty to start painting in Munich in eighteen ninety-six. Munich was a renowned international

 art centre and home for émigré Russian painters and art students. Kandinsky is associated with the German Expressionists, a group comprised of artists such as Franz Marc, August Macke, Gabriele Munter, and Paul Klee whose artwork expressed their inner life. Kandinsky stated:  ‘I value those artists who really are artists, that is, who consciously or unconsciously, in an entirely original form, embody the expression of their inner life; who work only for this end and cannot work otherwise.’(Kandinsky, 1977, VII). Kandinsky was influenced by the Impressionists, folk art, child art, psychology, Symbolism, Theosophy and music, He felt that human experience worked in hierarchies and works of art possessed essential expressive or spiritual value, hence, the representation and appearance of phenomena on the canvas did not warrant any importance. His work in abstract art would go on to inspire students in the Bauhaus where he taught, and prominent artists such as Jackson Pollack and  Andre Breton, who quipped that he was ‘one of the first and one of the greatest revolutionaries of vision’ (Polity Reader. 1994. P.255 )  Kandinsky along with Franz Marc co-founded Der Blaue Reiter  in nineteen-eleven whose principle aim written in its manifesto, was to focus on the importance of the inner world alone, ‘the displacement of the centre of gravity in art…the intensive turn to inner nature…to make known the externalisation of inner strivings in every form with inner sound…’ (Gordon. 1987. P.84) The turning point for Kandinsky’s movement towards the more abstract came when he saw one of Monet’s canvases and could not recognize the object presented was a haystack, according to the catalogue title. ‘I noticed with surprise and confusion that the picture had not only gripped me but impressed itself upon my memory…unconsciously, objects were discredited as an essential element within the  picture’ (Caws, Polity. 1994, P.254). For Kandinsky the power and force of the painting was within the obscuring of the object, unconsciously, ‘objects were discredited as an essential element within the picture, (Sallis, p.68).   Through studying children’s art Kandinsky noticed a theme of naive expressionism. There was no importance between the spatial relationships of objects, and their depth. He believed children could paint unconsciously, their inner souls, free of learned form and theory. Kandinsky felt they were closer to achieving a pure representation. Where Cezanne abandons conventional perspective and depth Kandinsky abandoned it altogether. The painting Church in Murnau 1910 has the feel of impressionism about it, but there is no perspective and objects and colour are placed wherever Kandinsky wishes. With future paintings that would be simply labelled compositions, he dissolved the objects completely, emphasising the importance of the composition alone and not the content. This form of thinking was also in line with the French theoretical ideas of symbolism whereby; ‘the meaning of a painting is not in principle any more firmly secured by its resemblance to features of the real world than the meaning of a poem is secured by some independent causal connection between its various words and the objects those words happen to signify. In each case, it is the internal relations between the parts that secures the possibility of meaning and effect for the whole.’ (Harrison, Wood, 1996. p.14)
            Kandinsky wrote Concerning the Spiritual in Art among other publications as a response to what he saw as the prevailing materialistic philosophy and the hijacking of art

which ‘the awakening soul [was] under the influence of’ (Kandinsky, 2004). In this publication Kandinsky believes that ‘The spiritual life, to which art belongs and of which she is one of the mightiest elements, is a complicated but definite and easily definable movement forwards and upwards. This movement is the movement of experience’ (Kandinsky, 1977). This life is represented by a triangle divided into segments, the greater the segment (which is the same as saying the lower it lies in the triangle) so the greater the number who understand the words of the artist’ (Ibid). Kandinsky goes on to speak of Theosophy, which, according to E. P. Blavatsky, approaches the problem of the spirit by way of the inner knowledge; theosophy is synonymous with eternal truth or the inner need. It is only through literature, music and art, that a pure spiritual experience can be reached in an age dominated by religious doubt and unsteady scientific and political structures (Kandinsky, 2004).
Kandinsky then goes on to imply that there is a connection between music, colour and the inner soul. Kandinsky felt that colour and feeling were inextricable: sense experience was spiritual experience and spiritual experience took sensuous form. The external visible phenomenon of colour seemed to be a spontaneous manifestation of the internal, invisible phenomenon of feeling. He felt that certain colours, feelings, and emotions went together ‘everyone knows that yellow, orange, and red suggest ideas of joy and plenty’ (Ibid).Merleau-Ponty writes that psychologists discovered that different colours produced different changes in the arm movements of patients suffering with disorders. The patients could be unaware of the effects that such colours had on their behaviour as contrasting colours produced the same motor movements, consciousness not involved. Thus colour is not constructed in the mind or purely a physical phenomenon; rather, colour is ‘a certain manner of being-in-the-world which implies the actual presence of a particular atmosphere’ (Langer. 1989. P.73). Kandinsky also speaks of chromo therapy, where coloured light can exercise very distinct influences on the whole body, ‘they have shown that red light stimulates and excites the heart, while blue light can cause temporary paralysis… lemon-yellow hurts the eye in time as a prolonged and shrill trumpet-note the ear,’ although this cannot be proven in plants and animals (Kandinsky. 2004). Kandinsky tries to show that certain colours can stir the emotions in the same way that music can, the relationship between music and painting were at the core of his thoughts, ‘colour is a power which directly influences the soul. Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, and the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand which plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.’(Ibid) Deeply moved by the music of Wagner, Kandinsky viewed music as a pure, free form which could communicate emotion without words or imitating sounds from the real world. He felt there was no reason why this freedom of expression should apply only to music, he said ‘painting can develop just as much power as music possesses’ (Gordon. P.82). As well as producing and affect in the listener and rousing emotions in response to the rhythms and tones, ‘Sound produces form as well as colour…every piece of music leaves behind it an impression of this nature… and is clearly visible and intelligible to those who

have eyes to see.’(Gordon. P.82) While initially an object or colour gives a purely physical impression, it’s familiarity known so well leads to no effect on the soul. But to a more sensitive soul the ‘psychic effect’ of colours is deeper and intensely moving. A spiritual vibration is produced. He also speaks of the phenomenon of synaesthesia whereby different senses are connected within the brain so that when they see colours, some people experience taste, touch, sound and smell ‘many colours have been described as rough or sticky, others as smooth and uniform, so that one feels inclined to stroke them (e.g., dark ultramarine, chromic oxide green, and rose madder.  Equally the distinction between warm and cold colours belongs to this connection) therefore, it was evident that colour harmonies relating to the body and soul rested only on a ‘corresponding vibration in the human soul and that this was one of the guiding principles of the inner need’ ‘. This evidence gathered gave more weight to the relationship he found between sound and music, so upon his approach to abstract painting he found as a painter he could explore the emotions of objects as freely in the same way a musician could.
As mentioned before Kandinsky was influenced by Gestalt perception. At the end of the nineteenth century Gestalt psychologists were invited to lecture at the Bauhaus on perception theory, it is these lectures that Kandinsky attended. His theory of art seems to have been influenced by the psychologist Theodore Lipp’s visual-psychological analyses of abstract forms. Both men wished to manufacture a science of art (Kunstwissenschaft) that investigated the creative forces of human consciousness by means of perceptual experiments using visual configurations of simple forms. Kandinsky’s thinking agreed with Werttheimer’s gestalt psychology, that aesthetic experiences are the product of visual balances, and the configurations that arise from those given fields cannot be reduced to their to their elements, a typical feature of Gestalt theory (van Campen, 1997, pp.133-135).These perceptual applications resulted in the Composition pieces. Within the canvas Kandinsky created a visual space where he could express his inner life through basic psychological relations found within colours and forms. Of Composition VII pictured below Kandinsky said it was the most difficult and complex thing he ever painted.  

Composition VII

John Berger notes in his book Ways of Seeing that when an image is presented as a work of art, the way people look at it is affected by a whole series of predetermined assumptions of what it should look like. These assumptions involve ideas of genius, form, beauty, taste, and status to name a few. But importantly Berger points out that none of these ideas correspond with the world-as-it-is, (this includes consciousness) instead just serving to mystify instead of clarify (Berger 1973, pp.7-17).  This so, it can be said that the philosophy of art owes a great deal to the theories and artistic applications that Monet, Cezanne and Kandinsky nurtured in their tireless efforts to try to reach beyond the aesthetic expectations of viewers and perceptual hypothesis’s in order to paint and interpret the world and nature as it truly appears to man. These ‘true’ appearances for the most part seemed confusing and chaotic, but none the less as we have learned through various philosophies and sciences things are not always as they seem. Kandinsky could hardly recognise Monet’s haystacks, and a still life by Cezanne appears via a sort of queer depth and perspective. But on closer examination, and with the application of the ideas of phenomenological and psychological ideas that have been touched upon  in previous paragraphs, one comes to realise that there was method in Cezanne’s apparent madness. Gestalt and synaesthesia theories  back up Kandinsky’s journey to completely dissolve the nature of the subject of a painting; in an effort to show the viewer the deep relationship the soul has with the phenomena of colour and music. Merleau-Ponty felt that art was an attempt to capture the individual’s perception, through art an understanding of the profundity and depth of the phenomena could truly be reached. All three artists nurtured different techniques and drew influences from far ranging fields, but the goal always remained the same. This goal, which finds its roots in phenomenology, was to develop an authentic observation of the seen world by the most accurate method of representing it with paint and a paintbrush.

Bibliography

R.R. Behrens, “Art, Design and Gestalt Theory”, http://leonardo-onlineartdesignandgestalttheory.htm, accessed 15/03/2008.

J. Berger, Ways of Seeing, London, Penguin Books, 1973.

J. Brodsky, “A Paradigm Case for Merleau-Ponty: the Ambiguity of Perception and the paintings of Paul Cezanne”, Artibus et Histoire, vol.2, no.4, 1981, pp.125-134.

C. von Campen, “Early Abstract Art and Experimental Gestalt Psychology”, Leonardo, vol.30, no.2, 1997, pp.133-136.

S. Feagin, & p. Maynard, Aesthetics, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997.

D. E.Gordon, Expressionism, Art and Idea, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1987.

A. Gurwitsch, Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology, Evanston, North Western University Press, 1966.

C. Harrison and P. Wood, Art in Theory 1900-1990, Oxford, Blackwell, 1996)

W. Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, T. H. Sadler, ed, Project Gutenberg, 2004.

W. Kandinsky, “On the Problem of Form”, Der Blaue Reiter,  Project Gutenberg 2003.

M. M. Langer, Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception: A Guide and Commentary, London, Palgrave Macmillian, 1989.

E.L. Lankford, “A Phenomenological Methodology for Art Criticism”, Studies in Art Education, vol.25, no.3, Spring, 1984, pp.151-158.

Ponty Reader in Cultural Theory, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1994.

M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1996.

M. Merleau-Ponty, Sense and Non-Sense, Illinois, Northwestern University Press, 1964.

T. Middleton, Modernism, Critical concepts in Literature and Cultural Studies Vol 1, London Routledge, 2003.

D. Morgan and T. Mooney, The Phenomenology Reader, London, Routledge, 2002.

D. Olkwski, Giles Deleuze and the Ruin of Representation, London, University of California Press, 1999.

J. Sallis, Merleau-Ponty: Perception, Structure, Language, Atlantic Highlands, Humanities Press, 1981.

J. Sallis, Shades of Painting at the Limit, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1964.

W. Seitz, “Monet and Abstract Painting”, College Art Journal, vol16, no.1, Autumn, 1956, pp.34-46.

A. Shepard, Aesthetics: An Introduction to Philosophy of Art, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1987.

R. Shiff, Cezanne and the End of Impressionism, London, University of Chicago Press, 1984

R. Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000.

F. Williams, “Cezanne and French Phenomenology”, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol.12, no.4, 1954.