This series covers individual titles from the 14-volume Bauhausbücher collection from Lars Müller Publishers. More information on the books discussed and overall project can be found at the end of the article.
Wassily Kandinsky was already an internationally renowned artist and thinker by the time he joined the Bauhaus in 1922, having written Über das Geistige in der Kunst (On the Spiritual in Art) a decade prior and exhibited his work throughout Europe yet longer. While he claimed to have written the majority of Point and Line to Plane prior to 1914, it was not published until 1926, when it would become the ninth book in the Bauhausbücher series.
As with Bauhaus director and Bauhausbücher editor Walter Gropius, Kandinsky’s focus was on modernity and the 20th century. However, as he makes clear early on, modernity does not automatically bring insight and clarity; on the contrary, it is often held back by fears of over-analyzing and “dissection”. He argues that, more than ever, painting needs systems of analysis and classification:
It can be safely assumed that in this respect painting was not always as helpless as it is today, that certain theoretical knowledge formerly existed, not merely covering purely technical matters, that the beginner could be taught certain principles of composition, and that, in particular, facts concerning the elements, their nature and application were common knowledge to artists.
We should instead, Kandinsky suggests, strive to create systems of analysis and classification equal in fastidiousness to those of previous eras, free from fear of “killing” the art under the microscope: “For if ‘dead’ precepts lie so deeply buried in living works that they can only be brought to light with great difficulty, then their “harmful” effects are nothing other than the fear that arises from ignorance.”
The book’s first section, “Point”, serves as both the foundation of his system and an introduction to his impressively wide-ranging (and frequently playful) argument. The simple point travels through roles ranging from the typographical to the musical, becoming “the union of silence and speech,” the strike of the snare drum in a symphony, the meeting place of multiple surfaces in architecture, and the cell-like building-block of living compositions: “Here it begins its life as an independent being and its subordination transforms itself into an inner purposeful one.”
The temporal and musical comparisons continue in the second section, “Line”, where the point traces linear paths that are more akin to bowed instruments, the “melodies” played over and alongside percussive points: “The pitch of the various instruments corresponds to the width of the line: a very fine line represents the sound produced by the violin, flute, piccolo; a somewhat thicker line represents the tone of the viola, clarinet…”.
Alongside actual instruments, Kandinsky brings up musical notation at several points, suggesting that painting should seek to achieve its own system of notation similar to music or architecture, while also taking some delight in the fact that musical notation itself is made up of points and lines. Implicit in his argument is the idea that paintings, when observed by viewers with sufficient training, can in fact be “heard” like symphonies.
The synesthetic tendencies implicit in his argument become explicit by the beginning of the final section, “Plane”, where he attributes not just sound, but color and temperature to lines and angles: vertical and acute are warm and white-yellow; horizontal and obtuse are cool and blue-black; right angles are neutral in temperature and correspond to red. From these primal elements emerge the shapes forever associated with the Bauhaus: the yellow triangle, red square, and blue circle.
Eventually, even the left and right side of a canvas possess different temperatures and tensions, and diagonal stripes have differing messages depending on their origins and endings. If Kandinsky’s system occasionally becomes a bit too all-encompassing, his enthusiasm is nonetheless contagious, and by the time readers reach the final collection of illustrations, they may find themselves hearing and feeling as well as seeing.
Point and Line to Plane
Wassily Kandinsky
Lars Müller Publishers
Hardcover, 208 pages / 109 illustrations, CHF 45.00
About the series:
The Bauhausbücher (Bauhaus Books) from Lars Müller Publishers are modern editions of books originally published from 1925-1930 by Walter Gropius and László Moholy-Nagy, which served as both documentation and platform for the ideas behind the Bauhaus school. Originally planned as an ambitious 54-book collection, the series faced financial challenges, and after the editors’ departure from the Bauhaus, it was discontinued. Despite its reduced scope, the 14 volumes that were published stand as major works of design, architecture, and art theory by artists and thinkers whose work would define the following century, including Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Piet Mondrian. The modern editions recreate the design, typography, and images of the originals with English translations, while correcting typographical and printing errors.
