"The title of Kandinsky's first great theoretical work, On the Spiritual in Art and in Painting in particular (1912) which had a huge influence, thus has a rigorous meaning. It bears a twofold judgment, both on this epoch whose distress is perceived by Kandinsky and on the true reality of things. Our time is a distressed time because it is forgetful of reality and has abandoned itself to the increasing objectivism promoted by science. The ideological fulfillment of this type of thought which is given over to the External and thus deprived of what is essential is naturalism, to which the stiff and empty art from the nineteenth century provides overwhelming testimony. Its practical consequence is the materialism that spreads the negation of life's true essence across all the spheres of life, thereby offering itself as a sort of concrete nihilism whose true name is death. Faced with this situation, On the Spiritual in Art and in Painting in particular offers a programme of revitalization."
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Michel Henry, Seeing the invisible: On Kandinsky, translated by Scott Davidson, Continuum, 2009, p. 19
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Michel Henry
Michel Henry (10 January 1922 – 3 July 2002) was a French philosopher, phenomenologist and novelist. He wrote five novels and numerous philosophical works. He also lectured at universities in France, Belgium, the United States, and Japan.
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