A painter, who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, however artistic, in his longing to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non-material of the arts today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply the methods of music to his own art. And from this results that modern desire for rhythm in painting, for mathematical, abstract construction, for repeated notes of colour, for setting colour in motion. Wassily Kandinsky
About This Quote

Vincent Van Gogh, a Dutch painter, is known for his intense and emotional paintings. He was a very troubled man and struggled to find purpose in life. But, in his work he seems to express everything he felt in his heart. Despite the agony and pain he must have experienced, the way in which he expressed himself through art gives hope and glows in beauty.

This quote clearly shows that in order for an art form to be truly expressive, it must contain elements of the non-material world. Music is often considered to be non-material but Van Gogh was clearly fascinated by it. This quote illustrates that when an artist is not fully satisfied with their work they naturally turn to other mediums that may or may not be material.

Source: Concerning The Spiritual In Art

Some Similar Quotes
  1. Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something. - Rainbow Rowell
  2. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done. - Vincent Van Gogh
  3. Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep. - Clive Barker
  4. Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you. - Chuck Klosterman
  5. There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. - Vincent Van Gogh
More Quotes By Wassily Kandinsky
  1. Colour is a power which directly influences the soul.
  2. Those [things] that we encounter for the first time immediately have a spiritual effect upon us. A child, for whom every object is new, experiences the world in this way: it sees light, is attracted by it, wants to grasp it, burns its finger in...
  3. Color directly influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul.
  4. (...) an inner feeling called "Stimmung" by the germans and best translated as sentiment (it is to be regreted that this word, sentiment, which is meant to describe the poetical efforts of an artist living soul, has been misused and finally, ridiculed. Was there ever...
  5. A painter, who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, however artistic, in his longing to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non-material of the arts today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply the methods of...
Related Topics