Green Self-Portrait

“In reality, the development of an artist consists not in the external development (a search for form for the unchangeable state of the soul), but rather in the inner development (the reflection of spiritually attained wishes in the form of painting). The content of the soul of the artist enlarges, it becomes more precise, and increases in inner dimensions, upward, downward and in all directions. At that moment at which a certain inner level is reached, the outward form lends itself to being at the disposal of the inner value of this level. And on the other hand, at the very moment when inner growth comes to a standstill, and immediately falls prey to the decline of the inner dimensions, the ‘already achieved form’ slips away from the artist. Thus we often see this dying of the form, which is the dying of the inner wish. Thus an artist loses mastery over his own form, which becomes fatigued, weak, poor. And so is explained the miracle that an artist suddenly, for example, no longer can paint, or that his earlier, living color lies on the canvas as a pale, mere illusion, as an artistic carcass. The decadence of form is the decadence of the soul, that is, of meaning. And the increase of form is the growth of content, that is, of the soul. When we apply these standards to the paintings of Schönberg, we see immediately that we are dealing here with painting, whether or not this painting may lie ‘apart’ from the great ‘movements of today.’ We see that in every painting of Schönberg, the inner wish of the artist speaks in the form that best befits it. Just as with his music, (inasmuch as I a layman may affirm), Schönberg also in his painting renounces the superfluous, (therefore the harmful) and proceeds along a direct path to the essential, (therefore to the necessary). He leaves alone, unnoticed, all ‘embellishments’ and artistic detail.” (Wassily Kandinsky, The Paintings, in Arnold Schönberg. Mit Beiträgen von Alban Berg et al. Munich 1912)