Wassily Kandinsky : Point and Line to Plane

A facsimile edition of the Russian abstractionist’s legendary text on form and its emotional effects on the viewer

In 1911, Russian painter and theorist Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) published his seminal treatise Concerning the Spiritual in Art; over a decade later, in 1926, he debuted the text’s de facto sequel, Point and Line to Plane. In the latter volume, Kandinsky further develops the ideas that would come to inform not only the Bauhaus School but many other artistic movements: he theorizes that different constellations of point, line and surface have different emotional effects on the viewer. With the singular point as the most minimal graphic form, Kandinsky understands all painterly efforts as an extrapolation of forces and counterforces. This focus on contrasts and the effects of form can easily be seen as contemporary today.
As part of the publisher’s ongoing Bauhausbücher series, Lars Müller has released a facsimile edition of Kandinsky’s text translated into English with the original design and typography.