All in the Mind

Art History: Independent Research Erica Lomberk
It’s All in the Mind: The Role of Synesthesia in the Development of Non-Objective Art
Colour is a means of exerting direct influence on the soul. Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are
the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hands which plays
touching one key or another purposively to cause vibrations in the Soul.
-Wassily Kandinsky On the Spiritual in Art, 1910
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
–Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law
One of the largest debates in the history of mankind concerns the nature of the spirit.
Does it exist? Where does it exist? What is it? At many points throughout our history, it has been
suggested that the spirit is, in fact, inseparable from the mind. Religion, philosophy, and science
all continue to debate this claim. It was around the turn of the 19th
/20th
century when art decided
to offer its two cents on the issue. A Russian artist and academic, Wasily Kandinsky began to
emphasize the necessary existence of the spiritual within the realm of art. While many of
Kandinsky’s writings and lessons focused on how one could use form to reach the spirit, he
emphasized that the most direct path art could take to the spirit would be by means of color alone
(Point and Line to Plane 524-700). Many of his works cited that the extensive relationship
between musical sounds, which could access the spirit directly through the ears and color, was
what made color the most efficient visual means through which to access the spirit (On the
Spiritual in Art). Kandinsky used what he claimed to be the two primary elements of art required
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for direct contact with the soul, color and form, to refine his artistic method to the production of
the first known non-representational artwork, with the exception of decorative patterns.
However, the specific correlations that Kandinsky made between sounds and their respective
colors have led scholars to consider that what Kandinsky was describing in his writings concerns
a neurological phenomenon known chromaesthesia, wherein an individual experiences musical
sounds as color and vice versa (McBurney). The success of his writings, along with his non-
objective works, came at a critical moment in the art world, when many artists where interested
in developing methods that would allow them a direct and unimpeded connection with their
audience.
The Quest Towards Non-Objective Art
Prior to the turn of the century, Wassily Kandinsky was well on his way in his studies
towards a career in law. (Sachs 29-35) It wasn’t until he visited a retrospective exhibition of the
French Impressionists in in Moscow in 1895, at the age of 28, that he was convinced that he had
actually found his calling within the world of art. Not even two years later, Kandinsky found
himself in Munich, throwing himself wholeheartedly into his artistic studies. It was in Munich
that he became friends with Franz Marc, who helped him discover Der Blaue Reiter group in
1910, future fellow non-objective artist, Paul Klee, and his long-term companion, Gabrielle
Munter. (Sachs 29-35) During this period, he traveled extensively, to Tunsinia, then to Paris in
1905, wherein he exhibited some earlier of his early representational works alongside the up-
and-coming Fauvists and the Post-Impressionists at the historical Salon d’Automme. Shortly
thereafter, upon his return to Munich in 1908, Kandinsky was fueled by the desire to reignite the
“spiritual” in spite of the preeminence of claims, such as those of Victor Aubertin,, that art was
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“dying of the masses and of materialism”, throughout Germany and Eastern Europe in the years
prior to World War I (Sachs 29-35). He was also shaken by the recent breakthroughs in
chemistry and physics, namely the wave-particle duality of light and the subsequent development
of quantum theory, that made him reconsider his perception of the world around him (Sachs 29-
35). There were a culmination of influences that led Kandinsky to focus upon the inherent
metaphysical and spiritual nature of art in his journey to define “the soul” (Kandinsky and
Schoenberg 144-45). After his re-immersion into the disillusioned art world in Munich during
this period, Kandinsky began to work on his first stage compositions, which included his first of
many abstract watercolor, with the goal being to discover which factors of an artwork were
necessary to “resonate with the spirit”.
Shortly thereafter, in 1910, Kandinsky penned his most seminal work, Über das Geistige
in der Kunst or Concerning the Spiritual in Art,which was the first of many academic essays,
treatises, and creative written projects, that emphasized that the direct pathway to the spirit must
take place first through color, than, secondarily, through form. Within this work, Kandinsky lays
the foundation for his theories concerning the interconnectedness between musical notes and
instrumental sounds with the “movements” of specific colors:
In the most general terms, the warmth or coldness of a color is due to its
inclination toward yellow or toward blue. This is a distinction that occurs,
so to speak, within the same plane, whereby color retains its basic tonality,
but this tonality becomes more material or more immaterial. It is a
horizontal movement, the warm colors moving in this horizontal plane in
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the direction of the spectator, striving toward him; the cold, away from him
(“On the Spiritual in Art” 179)
Because music has a means of communicating, to the spirit, emotions that would otherwise be
indescribable through form and color is inseparable from music, then color must be the means by
which an artist can reach the spirit of the viewer directly (“On the Spiritual in Art” 177-189).
That same year, Kandinsky and several other like-minded artists in Munich, formed Der Blaue
Reiter, or The Blue Rider, group with Franz Marc, to serve as an organized means through which
Kandinsky’s artistic ideals could be introduced and sustained within the academic world via
artistic exhibitions and a shared academic and spiritual set of ideals. (Kandinsky and Schoenberg
15-16) These were the years in which Kandinsky rapidly advanced his artistic style which began
as representational, progressed into deep abstraction in 1908, and, by 1910, had produced his
first known non-objective work with watercolors. (See Progression of Kandinsky’s Artistic
Style) He later claimed that a revelation came to him when he walked into his studio to find one
of his abstract paintings oriented “incorrectly” on its side to find that it “emanated” with energy
and life across the room before he realized that the piece portrayed recognizable objects.
(Aranson 135) Art does not require recognizable images to make an imprint upon the spirit—The
true path is through color.
Kandinsky’s works continued to progress into the realm of fully non-objective art, which
focused on color and often both in title and in composition. He continued to emphasize, through
his writings and teachings, the strong correlation between color, music, and the spirit (Sachs 29-
35). He is now cited as being one of the fathers if not the father of non-objective art in the 20th
c., followed by Russian artist, Kazimir Malevich, who created his first known fully non-objective
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work, in 1913, and Russian artist, Alexander Mikhailovich Rodchenko, in 1915, heading up
Constructivism and the progression of several artists, such as Piet Mondrian, towards complete
geometric abstraction in the art world. (Israel) Kandinsky went on to make several friends and
compatriots in the academic and artistic world including, but not limited to late-Romantic/early
Modernist composers Schoenberg and Scriabin, both of whom shared similar experiences
concerning the interrelationship between music and color. (Kandinsky and Schoenberg 141)
Over the course of his life, Kandinsky wrote enough essays concerning the use of color as a
means to re-ignite the spiritual in art, to fill several volumes on his own. He also dabbled heavily
in the composition of plays and poetry, which had a strong emphasis on color, such as Der
Klange, The Yellow Sound, and staged Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, which was a play
that relied entirely upon the abstract interplay between light and color-forms (Kandinsky and
Schoenberg 18). Kandinsky was also a force behind the “reforming” of art schools to reflect a
focus upon the necessity of form and color in successful art (“Point and Line on a Plane”). In his
later life, after returning to Russia upon the onset of WWI, he served as the director of the
Museum for Pictorial Culture, reorganized several of his local provincial museums, was a
member of the commissariat for mass education in the arts, founded the Academy of Arts and
Sciences in Moscow, and taught at the Academy of Art in Moscow. In 1922, he became a
professor at the Bauhaus School, which focused heavily upon the use of basic form and color in
art, until it was eventually shut down by the Nazi Party in the throes of WWII. (Kandinsky and
Schoenberg 17-18).
Optical v Intuitive Color Theory
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Kandinsky, in large part due to his persistence and the timing of his efforts, when the art world
was desperately looking for a means of “staying alive”, was able to initiate and proliferate his
theories on color theory throughout the art and academic worlds successfully. However, he was
neither the first individual to suggest the interrelationship between music and color, nor was he
the first to suggest that color has a “spiritual” impact upon the viewer (Goethe 11).
There have been two distinct sides to the “debate” concerning color theory,that were both
revived in the 19th
century. In one camp, are those hailing to Sir Isaac Newton’s scientific theory
of color, based off of prismatic observations Newton made concerning light in his work Opticks .
Among the most notable defense of the physical effects of color in layman’s terms, was a work
called Modern Chromatics with Applications to Art and Industry written in 1879, by Columbia
University Physics professor, Dr. Ogden Rood. Aristotle developed a “theory” of color based off
of his own intuitive perception of the effects of color, which was later strengthened by
philosopher Immanuel Kant (Koelnbing 176-82). This intuitive color theory later inspired
polymath Goethe to create his own color theory based primarily off of the “spiritual” or
psychological effects he experienced with color, which also correlated color with musical notes
and instruments (Koelnbing 176-182). This work, known as Goethe’s Theory of Colors, written
in 1840, challenged the “oversimplification” of color in Newton’s Opticks.
Upon facing the discovery of the wave-particle duality of light, and hence, the increased
complexity and mystery surrounding the scientific nature of color prior to 1910, Kandinsky
sought to delve deeper into Goethe’s metaphysical and spiritually resonant intuitions concerning
color. In a world that had become entirely too materialistic, Kandinsky sought to find a meaning
behind color and its influence upon the individual beyond the physical realm. Kandinsky, ever
the academic, sought out Goethe’s intuitive theories on color and the means by which color
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affected the spirit. However, it has been proposed that Kandinsky, along with his musical
counterpart, Schoenberg, were not merely fascinated by this interrelationship between music and
sound as a philosophical concept, but they had been experiencing the phenomenon, first hand,
for their entire lives (Ione 223-6).
The Romantic Interest in Synesthesia
It has been frequently cited that, had the preeminent philosophers and composers of the
Romantic era in the 19th
century, including Goethe and Scriabin, not exhibited the phenomenon
whereby which the individual perceives neurological sensory “cross-overs”, they knew one or
several individuals who did (Ione 223-6). The intimacy with the idea that an individual could
experience sounds and music or even letters and numbers as color or vice versa was the man
driving force behind visuo-musical compositions such as Scriabin’s Prometheus and several of
Franz Liszt’s pieces. This neurological phenomenon, now known as synesthesia, may have
existed within the art world, with color-driven artists such as 14th
c painter Alberti, prior to the
late 19th
/early 20th
c. Even though science has yet to deliver a definitive answer on the matter, it
has been widely purported that, just from descriptions in Kandinsky’s letters, not to mention his
entire theory of color, Kandinsky would be what we would now consider a chromaesthete, a type
of synesthete that experiences automatic sound-to-color crossover. “He [Kandinsky] recalled
hearing a strange hissing noise when mixing colours in his paintbox as a child, and later became
an accomplished cello player, which he said represented one of the deepest blues of all
instruments”. (Ward)
The list of the types of synesthesia that psychologists and neurologists have observed and
compiled in the last 100 years is already extensive and keeps growing. The most prevalent of
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these types is OLP, or Ordinal-Linguistic Personification, wherein an individual automatically
associates ordinal figures, such as months, letters, numbers, or days of the week, with unique and
distinct personalities, and is found in the vast majority of individuals who display any other
synesthesia type (Simner 558)). The other is known as grapheme-color synesthesia in which an
individual experiences specific colors with specific letters and/or numbers, and cannot be traced
back to associative learning (Simner 558). There are individuals who can feel musical tones,
known as sound-touch synesthesia, experience verbal communication in the form of a font-
specific scroll, known as “ticker-tape” synesthesia, experience distinct colors for specific
individuals, personality-color synesthesia, and those who taste or smell blueberries when they
hear a perfect D-minor chord or see the letter “L”, collective known as “olfactory” synesthesia
(Simner 558). There have been found to be 20+ types which display crossovers in any two
separate sensations including sounds, colors, words, smells, numbers, personalities, pain,
movement, temperature, and touch, among others.
While a smaller portion of individuals display more vivid bouts, if not chronic,
synesthesia, neurological and psychological specialists have discovered that low-level
synesthetic phenomena is displayed in the vast majority of individuals (Simner 558-9). A study
online challenged listeners to associate three colors from a large panel that best correlated to the
piece of music they were experiencing. Overwhelmingly, the majority of the general population
displayed a strong correlation between three specific colors, or similar colors, in response to a
specific piece of music. (Palmer Nautilus) Interestingly enough, many of these color-sound
associations are almost uncanny to Kandinsky’s correlations in Concerning the Spiritual in Art.
In addition to the correlation between sound and color that Kandinsky emphasized, and
fascinated Romantic Era philosophers and artists, was the “spiritual”, psychological, effects of
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color upon the viewer. Also within the last 100 years, color psychology has become a study in
itself and is utilized in marketing, art therapy, and even human factors engineers for use in the
space and aeronautical sectors. A large portion of what makes up color psychology today was
derived from Goethe, Kandinsky, the Bauhaus School, and perpetuated even further by artists
and art theorists behind the Color Field Theory and Movement, including Mark Rothko and
Barnett Newman. However, it was Kandinsky who correlated the trifecta of color, music, and
psychological influence, in large part, inspired by his own chromaesthetic inclinations and
confirmed by Goethe, and took advantage of the art world’s push against empty materialism. The
art world wanted a means to express via a means that was no longer anchored and inhibited by
the representation of objects that already existed within the material world. Therefore, when
Kandinsky began to push for a spiritual connection through art in the form of color, eventually to
the negation of the object, he provided a means whereby which artists could shrug off the
objective, physical world, and pick up the metaphysical and spiritual world as a means for
artistic expression . His artistic and academic persistence was only given more steam by artists
and individuals desiring to escape the materialistic disillusionment of the world in lieu of the
First and Second World Wars. It became all the more necessary for the art world to find a means
to communicate directly to the soul of an individual, without the inhibitions of the material
object, and Kandinsky had a plan.
The inspiration provided by a new approach to art via color and form was picked up by
several schools and movements following the onset of WWI, including, but not limited to,
Geometric Abstraction, De Stijl, several American Abstract Expressionists, including Jackson
Pollock, Constructivism, Color Field Theory, and the Bauhaus School, at which Kandinsky
would later teach. (Kandinsky and Schoenberg 18) As we have observed, even in the more recent
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years, color alone can incite a visceral response from the viewer that is often more profound than
the object itself. Take, for instance, the abnormally high frequency at which the non-objective
Color Field works of Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, such as the Who’s Afraid of Red, Blue,
and Yellow series, have been vandalized by viewers over the works of any other contemporary
artists, non-objective or otherwise. (“Art Attack”)
Why is it that the color yellow feels manic and excitable and blue, calm and focused?
Why does Fantasia make so much sense? Why does everyone relate to the idea of “seeing” red?
These answers may be found collectively in the psychology of color. However, if you
trace the line back to the source, you will find a man who spent his entire life attempting to share
the phenomenon the inseparable relationship between color, music, and emotion, that he had
experienced since he was a child (Ione 223-6). Kandinsky was, arguably, the first artist to
communicate directly to his audience using color, form, and his personal experience alone,
through non-objective painting.
The Efficacy of Color Psychology and its Roots in Kandinsky-an Color Theory
There are skeptics of color theory who cite that the variability in the cultural and
historical interpretations of color doesn’t support the idea of a universal psychology of color.
(Byrne) However, neurological studies have shown similar responses to the same color stimulus
across cultures. (Byrne) Likewise, while grapheme-color and ordinal-color synesthesia display
quite a bit of variation from individual to individual, with the exception of vowels, for instance,
“B” could be chartreuse to one individual and a deep forest green to another, there is little to no
variation in the sound-color correlations made in both chromaesthetes and the general
population. (Palmer) The experience is much more vivid and consistent over time for a
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chromaesthete, like Kandinsky, than it is for an individual without diagnosable synesthesia.
Kandinsky’s color intuitions happen to also, inadvertently, mesh extremely well with the optics
of the eye.
There may slight variations in color symbolism across cultures throughout time,
including availability of dye, geographically and economically. However, there are consistent
cultural perceptions of certain colors that are synchronous with the ease at which we receive
them optically (Byrne). Kandinsky and Goethe take this idea a step further. Kandinsky naturally
associates the ease with which we process these colors with the ease with which we process their
corresponding notes and instruments on an auditory level. (Palmer) The “movement” of a color
strikes a chord in the viewer in the same fashion as the instrument and the note correlated with it
does when it hits an individual’s ear. The resulting effect is what Kandinsky would refer to as a
“vibration” within the soul, or an emotional or psychological response. (“On the Spiritual In
Art”) The process through which most individuals without chromaesthesia can relate to this
concept is linked through the commonality between the psychological or emotional response
from a given color and its corresponding sound. An individual with chromaesthesia, such as
Kandinsky, however, has the automatic ability to link a sound to a color without necessarily
processing it on an emotional level. Regardless of the mechanism, most individuals end up
making similar correlations between sounds and colors. Chromaesthesia may allow an individual
to “skip” a step in the processing of the sensory input. Because the vast majority of people are
able to translate both a sound and a color to a similar psychological or emotional response, the
theory has been posited that a human’s ability to associate certain colors and tones with an
emotional impulse was, at some point over the course of our evolution, necessary or, at the very
least, not detrimental to our survival (Simner 558-60) Along these same lines, there are theories
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in evolutionary biology that suggest that chromaesthesia is the result of slight alterations in the
brain, namely the corpus callosum, from this preexisting feedback pathway that have increased
in incidence for as long as mankind has been producing art for aesthetic purposes. This
accidental alteration or “evolution” that resulted in the phenomenon of synesthesia has shown
itself to be increasingly more prolific in individuals in the arts and theoretical sciences,
chromaesthesia, in the case of several modern composers and musicians including Pharrell
Williams and British composer, Nick Ryan. (Williams) It is also the mechanism through which
Kandinsky determined he had discovered a direct “route” to the spirit without having to call
upon the portrayal of recognizable objects and symbols to do so.
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How and Why Kandinsky’s Colors Can Do What They Do: An In-Depth Analysis of “On the
Spiritual in Art”
Table I-Movement of Colors On the Spiritual in Art (178)
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Table II- Movement of Color On the Spiritual in Art (184)
A large part of what made Color Field Theory successful in its attempts to discover the
“sublime” was its ability to use the relationships between colors, including their proximity to one
another as well as their size, shape, and definition. The second part of Kandinsky’s color theory
focused on the interrelationship between colors and forms, being that attention to form was a
necessary means of transport that could make or break a color. (“On the Spiritual in Art” 161-
195) It is necessary to acknowledge the importance that form carries in this theory before
endeavoring to elucidate upon how each color affects the “spirit” of an individual within itself.
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Kandinsky describes colors as having a specific type of movement. Therefore, the
blending of one color with another adds or takes away from the movement, and, thus, the
psychological effect of a given color. For instance, black blended into an “eccentric” color
movement makes the color “sick”, “tired”, or “subdued”. (“On the Spiritual in Art” 181)
Likewise, relation of size and colors to one another can vary the message that a piece sends. For
instance, a large black canvas with a small bright red square in the middle is going to have a
profoundly different impact upon the viewer than is a large, bright red canvas with a small black
square in the middle. Rarely is a color displayed alone. Therefore, upon description of each
color, it is important recognize the means by which it interacts through form relative to another
color or set of colors within a comprehensive piece.
Red
Kandinsky describes red as “limitless, characteristically warm color”. He refers to it as
having a type of internal strength full of “masculine maturity” (“On the Spiritual in Art 186). It is
lively and turbulent “dissipating” in all directions, yet vibrating within itself. Because of this
ability, red is able to maintain “more or less the same basic tone, while appearing at the same
time as characteristically warm or cold”. (187) He breaks down red into a set of different tones,
each of which has its own corresponding energy, intensity, personality, musical tone, and
corresponding instrument. Warm red, or red with a tinge of mid-yellow, is representative of joy,
energy, and triumph. “It reminds one again of the sound of a fanfare, in which a tuba can also be
heard” (187). Mid-tones such as vermilion are indicative of constant passion and relentless self-
confidence and also sounds like the mid-tones of a tuba or a loud drum beat (187-8). When
“darkened” with blue, red becomes cold and “corporeal” and embodies the notes of the “middle
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and lower registers of the cello” even further and it is comparable to the “high, clear singing
notes of the violin” (188).
The cones in the retina of the eye are attuned to catch and translate variations of three
different colors, red being one of them (Lamb 179-185). This is perhaps why Kandinsky
attributes it with the ability to “vibrate internally”. Pure red can be immediately and easily
received by the eye and has the longest wavelength of all visible colors on the spectrum. It
lingers in both a physical and psychological sense.
Both Vir Heroicus Sublimis, a non-objective Color Field painting by Barnett Newman
and The Dessert: Harmony in Red, a Post-Impressionist figurative painting by Henri Matisse,
display a bright, mid-tone red (See attached “Red” comparison). Upon first glance, both pieces
resonate with the joy and passion of the viewer. However, upon continued reflection, the
figurative portions of the Matisse, although beautiful and relatable, break up the field of red that
serves to make an impact upon the viewer. Newman’s work is a vast sea of constant red broken
up by the occasional zip, but otherwise tempting the viewer to become absorbed in and
invigorated by the red. In this case, the color red, as predicted by Kandinsky, weighs upon the
viewer much more heavily and reaches them much more intensely.
Human factors engineers have designed stop signs, fire alarms and extinguishers red
because of the immediate impact they have upon the eye. The ability to display the need for
immediacy, especially in an emergency, without inciting panic is a distinct quality of the color
red. It has energy, but it’s self-contained and passionate energy. It is universally associated with
love, passion, blood, anger, and smoldering, constant intense but contained emotion, similar to
the deep, slow sound waves of a tuba or the contained immediacy provoked by a steady drum
beat.
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Orange
Kandinsky initially has very little to say on the subject of orange except that it is an
internally serious and balanced red made more “outward streaming” by yellow. It is passion (red)
made more earthly by yellow. Although he claims that the balance of red and yellow within
orange make it feel as though one was “walking a tightrope” between balance and imbalance, he
claims that it also “resembles a man [earthly yellow] convinced by his own powers [passionate
red” (188-9). He claims that there is a healthy feeling associated with orange, which Reiki
practitioners also surprisingly believe to be the chakra associated with a balance of earthly
indulgence with an internal, grounded sense of identity, or the “center of health and comfort”
within the bod. (“Understanding Chakras”) Kandinsky associates orange with the largo of a
viola, a medium-toned church bell, or a strong contralto voice in a choir (188).
Both the non-objective Color Field piece by Mark Rothko, Orange, Red, Yellow, and Van
Gogh’s Willows at Sunset both present the viewer with an immediate feeling of vitality, much
like a vibrant viola or a church bell (See Orange—comparison). The viewer gets caught up
immediately in the warmth and earthiness of both pieces. While the definitive brushstrokes add
life to Van Gogh’s piece, one can attribute that liveliness to the object in the scene depicted:
willow trees enduring through the sunset. While the viewer must also take into consideration the
scene being depicted in Van Gogh’s work, they are offered no distraction or object to shift the
liveliness to within the span of Mark Rothko’s piece. It holds all the power of willows during a
sunset, but gives none of it to either the trees or the sun. The viewer must take in the full force of
the color directly, in the manner that Kandinsky had urged—directly through the psyche, or the
spirit.
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Paralleling Kandinsky’s description of orange being held in a delicate balance, it is
commonly held to be symbolic of the sun during its rise or fall over the horizon. In the United
States and abroad, we use it in uniforms for individuals we need to keep track of, but who we’d
also like to remain mentally balanced, such as prisoners and astronauts. Ironically, in the same
fashion as Kandinsky’s description, we use orange uniforms to mark individuals who are mortal,
yet convinced of their own power. Whether or not that that power is justifiable is, like orange
itself, caught in a perpetual state of balance and unbalance.
Yellow
Of all of the colors Kandinsky describes, the three that he spends the most time upon are
those that most physical color theory would consider the primary colors: blue first, then yellow,
then red. Of these three, Kandinsky seems to have a distaste for the color yellow. He describes its
movement as being more “eccentric” or “outer-seeking” than red but, more “concentric” or
inner-seeking than orange in his tables, but his description of the color gives the reader the
impression that, while orange has its poeticism, yellow exists almost as an assault to the eyes and
the spirit (181/184). This description falls in line with the unusual position yellow takes by
existing as a primary color in the physical world, but having no cones in the human eye
designated for it. (Lamb 176-181) Of the seven colors on the physical spectrum highlighted here,
it has a wavelength that is shorter than orange, but quicker than green. However, unlike green,
which Kandinsky describes as a color existing in perfect balance, yellow can be said to “hit” the
eye of the average viewer more quickly than the eye or mind can process it on a physical and
biological level.
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“Yellow,” Kandinsky explains, “resemble[s] the properties of any material force that
exerts itself unthinkingly upon the object and pours forth aimlessly in every direction.” (180) He
describes yellow as being impudent—if applied to a state of the mind, “mania, blind madness, or
frenzy—like a lunatic who attacks people, destroying everything, dissipating his physical
strength in every direction, expending it without plan and without limit until it is utterly
exhausted.” (181) Kandinsky also claims that yellow has a raw, earthly and wild power, much
like reckless abandon, has all of the energy and motion, but none of the depth (181). Yellow,
according to Kandinsky, has the intensity of a trumpet which, with increasing intensity, becomes
louder and increasingly shrill—about as difficult for the ears to process as the color is for the
eyes and the mind to process.
Again, we are presented with both a non-objective work by Mark Rothko, known as
Saffron, and Salvador Dali’s Surrealistic Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man.
One could just as easily choose one of Van Gogh’s several bright yellow works, such as
Sunflowers, or one of Dali’s earlier works, which create a vibrant, energetic, yet, unsettling
feeling in the viewer. While the image contained in Dali’s work is mildly unsettling, the sickly
yellow prevalent throughout the piece intensifies this unease. Rothko’s piece seems initially and
unabashedly energetic and overwhelming to the senses before the viewer realizes they can’t
attribute their unease to any discernable object within the piece. Once again, the viewer takes the
piece at full force and, while Dali presents a disconcerting image, Rothko makes the viewer
absorb the entirety of the madness and abandon of yellow directly to the “spirit” and the psyche,
as Kandinsky would have predicted.
We see it serving as warnings of caution in human factors research, jarring, intended to
keep individuals not familiar with the object or area in question, out. It is the color universally
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associated with the sun which spreads out unabashedly in every direction on earth, whenever it
can, as pure energy to be converted into useful products by living creatures down the line. Like a
trumpet, yellow invades the senses without asking for permission, in a fashion that, like
Kandinsky describes, borders on madness.
Green
The movement of green, according to Kandinsky, is in a state of equilibrium quite similar
to that of orange except that it is composed of a balance between one extremely “concentric”
color, blue, and one extremely “eccentric” color, yellow. (184) While Kandinsky was not the
biggest fan of yellow, he describes his experience with green as being calm, sublime, but full of
potential life. Blue holds yellow in and yellow holds blue out in a state of perpetual stasis. Both
have the ability to move with force when the other is removed, which reminds Kandinsky that
there is potential energy contained in a state of equilibrium within green. The words he uses to
describe this effect are that green is both an “infinitely strong wall stretching off into infinity
[yellow] and an endless, bottomless pit [blue].” (180) Kandinsky continues to make the claim
that “green is the most peaceful color there is”. (183) This parallels both the biological
processing of green along with its physical identity: By definition, it is the “middle” wavelength
of the colors highlighted here, that is received by an eye that has the “green” receptor cones that
allow for it to be processed easily. (Lamb 176-181) Kandinsky associates pure green with
passivity, self-satisfaction, and complacency. (183). When it tends to the yellow end of the
spectrum, it is given a feeling of “joy and youth”. When it tends to the blue end, it becomes
serious and pensive. (183) Also being some of the easiest notes for the ear to process, Kandinsky
characterizes pure green to be “the quiet, expansive middle register of the violin”. (183)
Lomberk 20

Again, the non-objective example of green given here is a piece of Mark Rothko’s, Blue
Green Blue. The representational scene to which it’s compared, Cezanne’s Houses in the
Greenery, mirrors the effective colors of Rothko’s work (See Green—A Comparison). Both
place the viewer in a state of serenity that intensifies with duration. Again, because Rothko
attributes none of the peace or the serenity of his piece to existing within or being contained by
an object, the entire psychological effect contained within the piece is distributed directly into
the “spirit” of the viewer. While Cezanne’s forest is, in itself, a relaxing idea, it represents a
specific physical state of being as opposed to a spiritual or psychological state of general and
peaceful well-being and equilibrium.
Green, because it is the color of the vast majority of living beings on the planet—plants,
is also universally considered to be the color that represents life and the balance required to
sustain life. The idea of being green can refer to envy, wherein one individual perceives the loss
of potential livelihood to another. It can also apply to one “being green” or new, full of youth in
a given trade or skill. All of these ideas are markedly similar to Kandinsky’s description of green
being the color of peace, livelihood, equilibrium, and enduring youthfulness.
Light Blue and Dark Blue
As evidenced by the chosen name for Der Blaue Reiter Group, along with his extensive
writings just considering the color blue, one can draw the conclusion that Kandinsky’s
chromaesthte mind was specially tuned to the color blue. He even begins his section on the color,
in Concerning the Spiritual in Art by stating that “blue is the typically heavenly color”. (182)
Pure blue has the shortest physical wavelength of the three that possess designated processing
cones within the eye. It reaches and is processed by the viewer so quickly that it has the opposite
Lomberk 21

dilemma to that of yellow: there doesn’t ever seem to be enough of it to tax the eyes at all. This
could explain why Kandinsky refers to blue not only as having all of the depth that yellow lacks
and none of its flippancy, but also as being “concentric” or perpetually “moving in” upon itself.
(184) As blue becomes lighter, it becomes more and more impersonal and increasingly more
unimposing, serene, and silent. These lighter shades, he correlates to the flute, which is light and
almost ethereal to the ear. (182) As it tends towards its deeper and darker shades, it comes to
represent “tranquility” and “assumes overtones of superhuman sorrow”. Even darker, and it
becomes the color of “infinite self-absorption into that profound sense of seriousness which has,
and can have, no end.” (182) As blue becomes deeper and darker, the instruments and tones
Kandinsky associates with it are, respectively, the cello, then the double bass, and, at its darkest,
the deep notes of an organ. (182)
The non-objective pieces chosen to represent the lighter and darker blues are Rothko’s
Blue Divided by Blue and Blue, Green, and Brown, respectively. The representational pieces
chosen for these colors are Claude Monet’s Le Grand Canal and Van Gogh’s Starry Night over
the Rhone, respectively. (See Light Blue and Dark Blue—A Comparison) As in previous
comparisons, while all of these pieces make use of the psychological and spiritual effects of
color in a profound manner, Rothko’s pieces deliver the full force of the colors directly to the
viewer, profound serenity followed by profound sorrow, without being dismissed or displaced
due to their association with a physical place or object. As a footnote here, one can also observe
the high incidence of both bright yellow, the color of mania, and deep, dark blue representative
of sorrow within many of Van Gogh’s works, both of which he struggled with in his lifetime. On
the other hand, a large set of Monet’s works focus on the lighter, serene end of the blue spectrum
Lomberk 22

and he is perceived, accordingly, as being more at peace and tranquil in his lifetime, especially in
comparison to Van Gogh.
Light blue is associated with, in Reiki practice, the chakra concerning the throat, darker
blue with the head or the mind. It, likewise, has a common association with both the sky, lighter
in the daytime, deeper as it approaches the night, and water, which is lighter for shallow water
and light rain, deeper for oceans and rainstorms. In correlation to Kandinsky’s variations of blue,
puddles and sunny skies are tranquil and have as much weight upon the eye as a flute does upon
the ear. As the night approaches and shallow waters become seemingly endless oceans, the
weight upon the eye, the mind, and the spirit becomes much more like that of the low, heavy
notes of the organ.
Violet
“Violet”, according to Kandinsky, “is a cooled-down red in both a physical and
psychological sense”. (189) Like green and orange, it stands at an equilibrium between two
colors with opposing “movements”. In this case, however, it is a culmination of a color that
moves within itself, red, and a color that moves in upon itself, blue, and excludes any incidence
of an “eccentric” or outward-seeking movement. (184) As such, Kandinsky describes violet as a
“sad” color, wherein the passion of red retracts and secludes itself from the viewer, and deeply
spiritual, like the revelation one has looking back upon a passion after it begins to fade. (189)
Kandinsky associates the sounds of the cor-anglais, an oboe with a deep and sullen register, or
another lower-pitched woodwind, like a bassoon, with the deep, reflective, and mourning stature
of the color violet. (189)
Lomberk 23

The non-objective painting chosen for this color is, yet, another Rothko, this one being
one of his Untitled works from 1960. The representational piece that is being compared to is one
by Egon Schiele, Young Man in Purple Robe with Hands Clasped. (See Violet—A Comparison)
Both pieces express a kind of spiritual sadness, or mourning, alongside the remains of something
once whimsical and full of life. The form in Schiele’s work is dramatically thin and appears to be
mourning, sleeping, praying, dead, or a combination of these traits. The figure is also young,
which emphasizes the force with which violet expresses a new-found sadness that has recently
displaced whimsy and/or passion and vibrancy. The Rothko, again, however, is pure color. With
the Schiele, the viewer can relate the sadness they are feeling spiritually and psychologically to
the figure in the painting. With Rothko’s piece, however, one is impelled to absorb the full force
of the mourning, sadness, and lost passion inherent within the shades of violet.
Kandinsky claims that violet is the color worn by the Chinese in times of mourning. Reiki
specialists associate it with the chakra that transcends just beyond our physical body, just
removing itself from the whimsy of physical pleasures and indulgences. It is the color of the sky
right before dusk and a color that vibrates at a speed just slow enough that we have the ability to
perceive it optically. (Lamb 176-181) The pervasive theme of violet existing is a place that is full
of mourning, with loss still vivid in the memory, exists in both Kandinsky’s color theory and
across cultures, to the exception of its association with royalty due to the high supply and low
demand of the dye for a portion of human history.
Lomberk 24

The Shades- From White to Black
In contrast to optical color theory, Kandinsky makes the claim that white, instead of
being all colors is, in fact, representative of “noncolor” which resonates with the philosophical
claim that a white object absorbs no color and then, therefore can only exist as a noncolor. (185)
The world of “white”, Kandinsky claims, “is so far above us that no sound can reach our ears”
and it hits our psyche like a “great silence that, represented in material terms, appears to us like
an insurmountable, cold indestructible wall, stretching away to infinity.” (185) In contrast to
black, which Kandinsky associates with the silence after the end of all things, he associates white
with “a nothingness having the character of youth” or a silence before the beginning of all things.
(185) “Black”, Kandinsky indicates, “has an inner sound of nothingness bereft of possibilities, a
dead nothingness as if the sun had become extinct, an eternal silence without future, without
hope.” (185) Gray exists between these two forces and is “toneless and immobile” in a manner
drastically different than that of green, which is full of potential life as opposed to an absolutely
“disconsolate lack of motion”. (186) The more black the gray becomes, the more it becomes
suffocating, the closer to white it becomes, the more it takes on the likelihood of concealed hope
and possibility. (185)
The works chosen to represent the black, gray, and white non-objective pieces include
two Rothkos, Untitled Black and White (1963) and Untitled Gray Painting (1969) and
Suprematist painter, Kazimir Malevich’s White on White respectively. The works chosen to
represent the black, gray, and white representational pieces include An Allegory (Fàbula) by El
Greco, Carl Eduard Ferdinand Blechen’s Stormy Weather over the Roman Campagna, and
Monet’s Frost at Giverny. (See Black/Gray/White—A Comparison) Each one of the
Lomberk 25

representational pieces embody the weight of the shades represented within them—beginning
with the doom and gloom of impending darkness, proceeding into the ominous standstill of grays
in a stormy sky, into the hopefulness of a white, snow-laden world that will renew itself in due
time. However, each one of the non-objective pieces is more affective, both at initial glance and
increasing almost exponentially over time, than any one of their representational counterparts.
The hopelessness of black, the stillness and immobility of gray, and the potential inherent in
white immediately impact the viewer heavily, in each case. This could be attributed to the
profound impact that silence has upon a viewer in a lively, noisy, and mobile world, or the
alarming universality of these shades upon both the psyche and the historical world.
Black is attributed to night, death, the period after loss when the immediacy of the
memory has faded. Black is attributed to the shadows and the fear of the unknown or sheer
emptiness that exists within them. Without light, life would cease to exist and the darkness
would prevail. We attribute gray with the place at the middle of the road, apathy, rocks
representing stagnancy, and storms that have neither passed nor have begun to rain. Gray is the
absolute state of ambivalence or apathy, and a lack of emotion. White is attributed with purity,
virginity, the snows before the spring, the clouds, and light. The states of being and silence that
Kandinsky associates with each of these respective shades are among the most universally
relatable description within his Concerning the Spiritual in Art.
Lomberk 26

In Sum
Kandinsky grew into the art world when the art world began to search for a means of
expression that could be removed as far away from materialism and the disillusionment of an
upcoming World War as was humanly possible. Not only was Kandinsky a deeply curious
academic and scholar with interests spanning from mythology to philosophy, to science, history,
and law, he had a unique perspective to offer to the art world at a time in which it was ready to
receive it. Kandinsky had an interesting neurological condition, known as chromaesthesia, in
which he experienced sounds and instruments as colors and vice versa. His condition was
acknowledged and preceded by a number of Romantic scholars, philosophers, composers, and
artists who instilled with him, a sense of purpose, to use his unique perspective to change the
winds of a “dying” art world. Kandinsky applied his perspective both in the form of several
writings, musical compositions, teaching posts, and, most notably, in the development of the first
known non-objective work. Using his desire to emphasize that the path to the spirit of the viewer
took place first through color, second, through form, to the exclusion of relatable object
references, Kandinsky was able to reflect his ideals within his works and challenged the artistic
world to do the same. Shortly thereafter, the art world exploded with forms of artistic expression
that relied upon only color and form to make their point and access the “soul” of the viewer
directly. Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art was one of the first and most seminal
works upon which color psychology has been derived. Kandinsky was able to reveal to the world
that a connection between music, color, and emotion existed strongly within the psyche. Even in
more recent years, there is a strong correlation between pieces of music and their corresponding
colors across the world. Whether or not Kandinsky referred to the phenomenon he was
experiencing as spiritual or psychological is a nonpoint. One of the greatest shifts in the art world
Lomberk 27

came about when artists realized that they didn’t need to portray an object to express themselves.
At the core of art, of painting, exist two means through which an artist can directly invoke a
visceral response from their viewer: color and the form it takes. Kandinsky, compelled by his
ability to see colors in music and music in colors, and driven by his persistent curiosity, gave the
world this nugget of knowledge, this slight alteration of perspective, and changed the art world
forever.
Lomberk 28

Works Cited
“Art Attack: Famous Works Vandalised”. BBC News: Entertainment and Arts. Revised 8
October 2012. <http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-19869154>
Arnason, H.H. History of Modern Art. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2004. Print.
Byrne, Alex and David R. Hilbert. “Color Realism and Color Science”. Behavioral and Brain
Sciences. Cambridge University Press. 26. (2003). Web.
<http://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/ColorRealism.html>
Goethe. Goethe’s Theory of Colours. London: John Murray, Arlebemarle Street, 1840. Print.
Ione, Amy and Christopher Tyler. “Neurohistory and the Arts: Was Kandinsky a Synesthete?”.
Journal of the History of the Neurosciences. 12(2). (2003):223-226. Print.
Israel, Matthew. “The Birth of Non-Objective Painting”. Artsy. Revised 6 Feb 2014. Web.
<https://www.artsy.net/article/matthew-the-birth-of-non-objective-painting>
Kandinsky, Wassily and Arnold Schoenberg. Ed. Jelena Hall. Trans. John C. Crawford. Letters,
Pictures and Documents. London: Faber and Faber, 1984. Print.
Kandinsky, Wassily. Ed. Robert Motherwell and Jack D. Flam. “On the Spiritual in Art”.
Complete Writings on Art: Volume 1. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co, 1982. 114-220.
Print.
Kandinsky, Wassily. Ed. Robert Motherwell and Jack D. Flam. “Point and Line to Plane”.
Complete Writings on Art: Volume 2. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co, 1982. 524-700.
Print.
Lomberk 29

Lamb, T.D. “Cambridge Ophthalmological Symposium: Why Rods and Cones?”. Eye. 30.
(February 2016): 179-185. Print.
McBurney, Gerard. “Wassily Kandinsky: The Painter of Sound and Vision”. The Guardian.
Revised 24 June 2006. Web Article.
<http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/jun/24/art.art>
“The Musicality of Franz Liszt”. Cell. 147(3). (2011): 481-483. Print.
Newtown, Sir Isaac. Opticks or, a Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours
of Light. London: Royal Society of Printers, 1782. PDF.
Palmer, Dr. Stephen E. “What Color is This Song?”. Nautilus. University of California Berkeley.
Revised 16 Jul 2015. <http://nautil.us/issue/26/color/what-color-is-this-song>
Rood, Ogden N. Modern Chromatics with Applications to Art and Industry. New York: D.
Appleton and Co, 1879. Print.
Sachs II, Sam. "Wassily Kandinsky and the Origins of Non-Objective Painting." The
Minneapolis Institute of Arts Bulletin. 56 (1967): 29-35. Print.
Simner, Julia. “Why are there different types of synesthete?”. Frontiers in Psychology. 4. (2013):
558-60. Print.
“Understanding Chakras”. Reno Tahoe Reiki LLC. Revised 2016. Web.
Ward, Ossian. “The Man Who Heard His Paintbox Hiss”. The Telegraph. Revised 10 Jun 2006.
Web. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3653012/The-man-who-heard-his-
paintbox-hiss.html>
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Williams, Holly. “How Synaesthesia Inspires Artists”. BBC: Culture. Revised 21 Oct 2014.
Web. <http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140904-i-see-songs-in-colour>
Lomberk 31

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