The experience of stress is receiving increasing attention in the context of adolescent mental health, which is why a valid and reliable stress assessment instrument is of great importance. For this purpose, an English-language adolescent stress questionnaire was developed, which assesses the subjective stress experience of adolescents in different areas of life. However, the latest long version of the questionnaire with 56 items was found to be too extensive, so a more economical short version ASQ-S with 27 items was developed. (...) The aim of this study was to validate a German and a Greek version of the ASQ-S. In order to investigate the psychometric properties of the German and Greek ASQ-S confirmatory factor analysis, analyses of variance and correlations were applied to sample data from Switzerland, Germany, and Greece. The results yielded only poor to moderate internal reliability across all three countries and the suggested 9-dimensional factor structure could not be confirmed. Instead, a modified 6-factor structure was tested which showed acceptable model fits while demonstrating form invariance across the three countries. Furthermore, the ASQ-S scales correlated positively with depressive symptoms and anxiety and negatively with self-esteem and life satisfaction, all of which supported adequate concurrent validity. The results revealed that the utility of the ASQ-S appears to be limited when translated to other languages and should be used with caution when administered in international contexts. (shrink)

Moral licensing theory posits that individuals who initially behave morally may later display behaviors that are immoral, unethical, or otherwise problematic. While previous literature mainly focused on individual moral licensing, the influences from the social environment have barely been investigated. To address this issue, the present paper develops a conceptual framework of social moral licensing and outlines two main avenues for future research via six propositions. The first avenue entitled “the conspicuousness of moral licensing” considers moral licensing that comes into (...) play when people are observed by others. The second avenue entitled “the relativity of moral licensing” focusses on social comparisons between individuals, their ingroups and outgroups. Specific and testable social moral licensing effects are derived in both avenues. By doing so, this paper outlines promising directions for future studies in this new research stream. (shrink)

This collection of writings provides the only comprehensive introduction to the input-output model for which Leontief was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1973. The structural approach to economics developed by Leontief, and known as input-output analysis, paved the way for the transformation of economics into a truly empirical discipline that could utilize modern data processing technology. This thoroughly revised second edition includes twenty essays--twelve of which are new to this edition--that reflect the past developments and the present state of the (...) field. Beginning with an introductory chapter, the book leads the reader into an understanding of the input-output approach--not only as formal theory but also as a research strategy and powerful tool for dealing with a complex modern economy. (shrink)

This collection of writings provides the only comprehensive introduction to the input-output model for which Leontief was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1973. The structural approach to economics developed by Leontief, and known as input-output analysis, paved the way for the transformation of economics into a truly empirical discipline that could utilize modern data processing technology. This thoroughly revised second edition includes twenty essays--twelve of which are new to this edition--that reflect the past developments and the present state of the (...) field. Beginning with an introductory chapter, the book leads the reader into an understanding of the input-output approach--not only as formal theory but also as a research strategy and powerful tool for dealing with a complex modern economy. (shrink)

In this famous work by a pioneer in the movement to free art from the bonds of tradition—a work long considered essential to understanding the evolution of 20th-century art—Kandinsky explores the role of the line, point and other key elements of non-objective painting. 127 illustrations.

Media reports that a company behaves in a socially nonresponsible manner frequently result in consumer participation in a boycott. As time goes by, however, the number of consumers participating in the boycott starts dwindling. Yet, little is known on why individual participation in a boycott declines and what type of consumer is more likely to stop boycotting earlier rather than later. Integrating research on drivers of individual boycott participation with multi-stage models and the hot/cool cognition system, suggests a “heat-up” phase (...) in which boycott participation is fueled by expressive drivers, and a “cool-down” phase in which instrumental drivers become more influential. Using a diverse set of real contexts, four empirical studies provide evidence supporting a set of hypotheses on promotors and inhibitors of boycott participation over time. Study 1 provides initial evidence for the influence of expressive and instrumental drivers in a food services context. Extending the context to video streaming services, e-tailing, and peer-to-peer ridesharing, Study 2, Study 3, and Study 4 show that the reasons consumers stop/continue boycotting vary systematically across four distinct groups. Taken together, the findings help activists sustain boycott momentum and assist firms in dealing more effectively with boycotts. (shrink)

The Online Labour Index was launched in 2016 to measure the global utilisation of online freelance work at scale. Five years after its creation, the OLI has become a point of reference for scholars and policy experts investigating the online gig economy. As the market for online freelancing work matures, a high volume of data and new analytical tools allow us to revisit half a decade of online freelance monitoring and extend the index's scope to more dimensions of the global (...) online freelancing market. While measuring the utilisation of online labour across countries and occupations by tracking the number of projects and tasks posted on major English-language platforms, the new Online Labour Index 2020 also tracks Spanish- and Russian-language platforms, reveals changes over time in the geography of labour supply and estimates female participation in the online gig economy. The rising popularity of software and tech work and the concentration of freelancers on the Indian subcontinent are examples of the insights that the OLI 2020 provides. The OLI 2020 delivers a more detailed picture of the world of online freelancing via an interactive online visualisation updated daily. It provides easy access to downloadable open data for policymakers, labour market researchers, and the general public. (shrink)

Many consumers implicitly associate sustainability with lower product strength. This so-called ethical = less strong intuition (ELSI) poses a major threat for the success of sustainable products. This article explores this pervasive lay theory and examines whether it is a key barrier for sustainable consumption patterns. Even more importantly, little is known about the underlying mechanisms that might operate differently at the implicit and explicit levels of the consumer’s decision-making. To fill this gap, three studies examine how the implicit judgments (...) that consumers activate automatically shape their consumption behaviors, in concert with their more controlled explicit beliefs about sustainable products. The Main Study investigates the ELSI’s imprint on actual shopping patterns and disentangles the implicit and explicit mechanisms of the lay theory. This paper also asks how this negative influence can be attenuated by examining whether the consumer’s interest in sustainable consumption reduces reliance on the ELSI. Two follow-up studies confirm the robustness from different methodological and practical perspectives. Implications for companies and policy makers are derived. (shrink)

With disparate rates of morbidity and mortality among minoritized communities, COVID-19 illuminated the need for equity-informed practices in public health. Pacia et al posit FQHCs as entities that addressed inequity when others failed. This commentary further situates how FQHCs address the public health crisis of institutional racism and related health inequities every day and presents a FQHC-led Ethics and Equity Framework and Workflow Checklist to guide ethical and equitable engagement with FQHCs.

Rebound effects on the consumer level occur when consumers’ realized greenhouse gas emission savings caused by behaviors that might be beneficial to the environment are lower than their potential greenhouse gas emission savings because the savings are offset by behavioral adjustments. While previous literature mainly studied the economic mechanisms of such rebound effects, research has largely neglected the moral-psychological mechanisms. A comprehensive conceptualization of rebound effects on the consumer level can help fill this void and stimulate more empirical research in (...) this relevant area. To this end, the paper introduces three focal dimensions of rebound effects on the consumer level: mechanism of rebound effects, product category, and consumption context. Based on this conceptualization, and integrating assumptions from the theory of moral licensing, the theory of categorization, and the construal level theory, this paper further refines the conceptualization of the moral component as an explanatory factor for rebound effects and highlights that the moral-psychological mechanisms of indirect rebound effects are more complex and diverse than the economic mechanisms. The paper outlines promising directions for future studies considering the different quantification and characteristics of economic and moral currencies that explain rebound effects on the consumer level and the strategic categorization of products and consumption contexts. (shrink)

A review of the recent exhibition of Wassily Kandinsky's artworks at the Guggenheim Museum, with interest in Kandinsky's career-wide separation of form from content.

Carl Schmidt e Wassily Kandinsky: a Monaco fra diritto e arte -- Carl Schmitt e la "Wissenschaft des römischen Rechts" -- Carl Schmitt e Walter Benjamin -- Sul "nomos" in Carl Schmitt.

Según Philippe Sers, Wassily Kandinsky y George Berkeley coincidieron al contemplar el mundo como un lenguaje que nos habla de lo espiritual que hay en el fondo del alma humana. Sin embargo, en el presente artículo me propongo mostrar que esta afirmación de Sers es confusa e incluso equívoca. Concretamente, mostraré que la visión del mundo como lenguaje tiene cabida en la concepción del lenguaje divino de Berkeley pero no en la noción que Kandinsky tenía del lenguaje cósmico, mientras que (...) la afirmación de que dicho lenguaje habla de lo espiritual que hay en el fondo del alma humana es atribuible en mucha mayor medida a Kandinsky —si bien el lenguaje cósmico no sería un “lenguaje” rigurosamente hablando— que a Berkeley. (shrink)

O presente texto tem por objetivo compreender a pintura de Wassily Kandinsky a partir da metafísica do belo de Arthur Schopenhauer, especialmente a partir da relação entre pintura e música estabelecida pelo pintor.

Cognition and Temporality argues that both verbal grammar and figural grammar have their cognitive basis in twelve characteristic forms of judgment, distributed among individuals in human populations throughout history. These twelve logical forms are context-free and language-free foundations in our attentional awareness, and shape all verbal and figural statements. Moreover, these types of historical judgment are psychogenetic inheritances in a population, and each serves a distinct problem-solving function in the human species. Through analysis of verbal and figural statements, the author (...) contends, the researcher can find evidence of these forms of judgment, and in turn analyze how the event to which those statements attend is formally constructed by that judgment. This construction guides how the event is assessed, approached, and engaged in the process of problem-solving. Artists and aestheticians in the early twentieth century--including Wassily Kandinsky, Stephen C. Pepper, and Andrew Paul Ushenko--have all posited an inherited attentional perspective in individuals, manifested in the logical correspondence between their distinctive verbal and figural grammars. Cognition and Temporality elaborates these claims, arguing that while the styles of well-known artists and writers are conditioned by the public styles of a particular time period, variations in personal style manifest one's inherited form of judgment, and the characteristic grammars that express that form. Through rigorous visual and stylistic analysis, the author demonstrates the expression of these forms among notable writers and artists across history. The result is a wide-ranging and provocative contribution to phenomenology, aesthetic philosophy, and cultural history. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Enchantment of Art: Abstraction and Empathy from German Romanticism to ExpressionismDavid MorganA familiar tradition since the eighteenth century has invested art with the power to heal a decadent human condition. Inheriting this ability from religion—the romantic enthusiast Wilhelm Wackenroder considered artistic inspiration to originate in “divine inspiration” in the case of his hero, Raphael 1 —art eventually replaced institutionalized belief in an evolutionary schedule of cultural development determined (...) by German idealism. Hegel, for instance, theorized the evolution of spirit from religion to art as a qualitative advancement over time. Rejecting the metaphysics of German idealism, Friedrich Nietzsche nevertheless contended that “Art raises its head where religions decline.” By assuming the “feelings and moods” of religion which had been dismantled by enlightenment, Nietzsche claimed that art gave new form to the life of feeling and imbued human endeavors with a “loftier, darker coloration.” 2 In the early twentieth century Wassily Kandinsky believed that the “spiritual in art” was the historical manifestation of an “inner necessity” that was in itself timeless and universal. Kandinsky portrayed the “life of the spirit” as “a large acute-angled triangle divided horizontally into unequal parts.” In a kind of “trickle down” aesthetic, the compartments of the triangle move slowly upward toward the apex, which is inhabited by the solitary genius of an age whose vision gradually elevates all those who occupy the lower stages. 3 [End Page 317]The point for proponents of the spiritual in art from romanticism to expressionism (and beyond) was to find in works of art what can best be described as an enchantment. 4 As the negotiation of the gaps or disjunctures separating human beings from complete power over their lives, enchantment conjoins the plane of immediate human experience to a desirable state of affairs through the mediation of such symbolic devices as rituals, incantations, or charms. Thus, evil can be warded off by the use of an apotropaic amulet, and fertility can be enhanced by the recitation of a suitable prayer or the performance of a certain ritual. In a modern analogy a sense of impotence is often alleviated by a trip to the mall where the bored therapeutically lose themselves in symbolic acts of self-renewing consumption. In the traditions of philosophy and science, systems of representation such as astrology, the microcosm, the harmony of the spheres, the great chain of being, the celestial hierarchies, or the mechanisms of theurgy and divination situate humanity within a cosmos that follows a particular order accessible to and in some degree manipulable by human beings. Enchantment consists of an apparatus of belief whose form of representation or enactment is thought to exert influence over the realities it configures.But enchantment is not limited to the spells and magic of premodern metaphysics (or modern consumerism). By means of religion, morality, and aesthetics, Nietzsche once averred, “man likes to believe that... he is touching the heart of the world.” 5 This study will focus on the manner in which art as constructed within the idealist tradition of German art theory functioned as an enchantment. Specifically, it will explore what the history of ideas about abstraction and empathy has to tell us about the spiritualization or enchantment of art. After identifying the philosophical and aesthetic wherewithal of enchantment in nineteenth-century Germany, attention focusses on Franz Marc’s early twentieth-century theorization of abstraction. It is certainly more customary to study Kandinsky, whose writings and early efforts at abstraction are much better known, but Marc’s ideas offer more immediate connections to German intellectual history and clarify the aims of his abstract art as a strategy of enchantment. Moreover, Marc was unusually articulate and wrote often, exploring ideas and artistic efforts with great insight. Focusing on Marc therefore offers a corrective to the historiography that has favored Kandinsky’s writings. Finally, Marc differed from his Russian friend over the cause of the war. Manifesting a difference that is portentous for this study, Kandinsky left Germany for Russia in 1914, while Marc enthusiastically took up arms for the fatherland. Given these circumstances and the unfortunate tendency of art historians to valorize expressionist art rather than situate it in the ideological context of... (shrink)

The article examines an experimental survey that was conducted by Wassily Kandinsky and his students of the wall painting workshop at the Bauhaus Weimar in 1923. In his theoretical writings on art, Kandinsky had assumed there to be direct correspondences between basic colors (yellow, red, blue) and forms (triangle, square, circle), and he operationalized this assumption in the survey. The recent discovery of twenty-six completed questionnaires offers new insights into the scope of Kandinsky’s doctrine of color-form correspondence, and forces us (...) to reevaluate his position regarding scientific research. Against the background of perceptual sensitization as a Bauhaus teaching method, and through a qualitative analysis of the answers that participants gave in the survey, we show that Kandinsky’s empirical investigation of color-form correspondences was an analytical tool in his attempt to foster an artistic sensibility as regards the aesthetic effects of basic artistic means. (shrink)

Die Arbeiten der Künstler Paul Cézanne, Paul Klee und Wassily Kandinsky werden in diesem Band phänomenologisch betrachtet. Auf je eigene Weise vollzieht jeder von ihnen eine Wendung im Kunstverständnis. Bezeichnend dafür ist Klees berühmter Satz von 1920: »Die Kunst gibt nicht das Sichtbare wieder, sondern macht sichtbar.« Klaus Kienzler untersucht an exemplarischen Werken, auf welche Weise sich die drei Maler mit philosophischen Grundthemen wie Zeit und Bewegung auseinandergesetzt haben. Zugleich geht es ihm darum auszuloten, inwieweit phänomenologische Ansätze (Heidegger, Welte, Fink, (...) Rombach, Merleau-Ponty) Malerei der klassischen Moderne zu erhellen vermögen. (shrink)

This book offers a philosophical exploration of lines in art and culture, and traces their history from Antiquity onwards. Lines can be physical phenomena, cognitive responses to observed processes, or both at the same time. Based on this assumption, the book describes the “philosophy of lines” in art, architecture, and science. The book compares Western and Eastern traditions. It examines lines in the works of Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Henri Michaux, as well as in Chinese and Japanese art and (...) calligraphy. Lines are not merely a matter of aesthetics but also reflect the psychological states of entire cultures. In the nineteenth century, non-Euclidean geometry sparked the phenomenon of the “self-negating line,” which influenced modern art; it also prepared the ground for virtual reality. Straight lines, distorted lines, blurred lines, hot and cold lines, dynamic lines, lines of force, virtual lines, and on and on, lines narrate the development of human civilization. (shrink)

This paper utilises Deleuze's Logic of Sensation to critique the concept ‘Figure’ that he raises to formulate this theory in his monograph of Francis Bacon. Deleuze engages with Bacon's paintings to demonstrate how sensations from Figural artworks rupture through representation and disrupt binary logic. However, in his argument Deleuze seems to use the same kind of thinking that he intends the Figure to disrupt, since he prioritises and secludes art deemed Figural over and above abstraction. Such problematic categorisation is challenged (...) here, by juxtaposing Figural and abstract paintings by Francis Bacon and Wassily Kandinsky. Both Figural and abstract works resound with The Logic of Sensation, which thereby spills over those boundaries posited by Deleuze's Figure. (shrink)

This book examines the art and writings of Wassily Kandinsky, who is widely regarded as one of the first artists to produce non-representational paintings. Crucial to an understanding of Kandinsky's intentions is _On the Spiritual in Art_, the celebrated essay he published in 1911. Where most scholars have taken its repeated references to "spirit" as signaling quasi-religious or mystical concerns, Florman argues instead that Kandinsky's primary frame of reference was G.W.F. Hegel's _Aesthetics_, in which art had similarly been presented as (...) a vehicle for the developing self-consciousness of spirit. In addition to close readings of Kandinsky's writings, the book also includes a discussion of a 1936 essay on the artist's paintings written by his own nephew, philosopher Alexandre Kojève, the foremost Hegel scholar in France at that time. It also provides detailed analyses of individual paintings by Kandinsky, demonstrating how the development of his oeuvre challenges Hegel's views on modern art, yet operates in much the same manner as does Hegel's philosophical system. Through the work of a single, crucial artist, Florman presents a radical new account of why painting turned to abstraction in the early years of the twentieth century. (shrink)

In this second article, I look at the history of the creation of the “Encyclopedia of Artistic Terminology” within the State Academy of the Artistic Sciences. I analyze various versions of the encyclopedia’s conception proposed by Wassily Kandinsky and Gustav Shpet and also at the theoretical bases for these conceptions. I then show how the work on the Encyclopedia was connected with the institutional transformations in the Academy. A key factor in the work on the Encyclopedia was the extensive discussions (...) of the fundamental aesthetic terms that took place in the Philosophy Department and in sections of GAKhN. As the dynamics of the discussions also determined changes in the conception of the Encyclopedia, so work on it shifted more and more from a project for creating a new system of aesthetic concepts to a reconstruction of the “history of concepts.” Such a transition marked the main vector of the development of European discussions about aesthetic concepts—from the creation of systems of aesthetic categories to historical reflection on the semantic transformations of categories. In conclusion, I investigate the cessation of work on the Encyclopedia in 1929 in response to the outside ideological pressure and the elimination of the possibility for autonomous theoretical work within the walls of the Academy. (shrink)

This book introduces a new way for thinking about, creating, and viewing art. Rudolf Steiner saw his task as the renewal of the lost unity of science, the arts, and religion; thus, he created a new, cognitive scientific and religious art in anthroposophy. The implications of his act --recognized by such diverse artists as Wassily Kandinsky and Joseph Beuys --are only now coming fully to light. In his thorough introduction of more than a hundred pages, Michael Howard takes readers through (...) these thought-provoking chapters: Is Art Dead? To Muse or Amuse Artistic Activity As Spiritual Activity The Representative of Humanity Beauty, Creativity, and Metamorphosis New Directions in Art Lectures include: The Aesthetics of Goethe's Worldview The Spiritual Being of Art Buildings Will Speak The Sense Organs and Aesthetic Experience The Two Sources of Art The Building at Dornach The Supersensible Origin of the Arts Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Christ, Ahriman, and Lucifer Plus a bibliography and index. (shrink)

In this article, I limn the remarkable ascent of Albert Einstein and Wassily Kandinsky into our cultural pantheon. I depict how both figures mastered and transcended their respective fields, and how they called into question long-established disciplinary assumptions and practices. I also demonstrate how the creative works of Einstein and Kandinsky constructed, and were constructed by, the reality we now call "modern.".

In 1958 William L. Langer, in a well-known presidential address to the American Historical Association, declared the informed use of psychoanalytic depth psychology as "the next assignment" for professional historians. _Psychoanalysis and History_, volume 31 of _The Annual of Psychoanalysis_, examines the degree to which Langer's directive has been realized in the intervening 45 years. Section I makes the case for psychobiography in the lives of historical figures and exemplifies this perspective with analytically informed studies of the art of Wassily (...) Kandinsky; the films of Stanley Kubrick; and the anti-Semitism of Adolf Hitler. Section II reviews Freud's own psychohistorical contributions and then considers the relevance to historical inquiry of the more recent perspectives of Winnicott, Kernberg, and Kohut. Section III explores an intriguing tributary of psychobiographical inquiry: the impact of the biographer's own subjectivity on his or her work. Section IV turns to a topic of perennial interest: the psychobiographical study of American presidents. Section V turns to the special challenges of applying psychoanalysis to topics of religious history and includes topical studies of religious figures as disparate as the 15th century Asian Drukpa Kunley and Osama bin Laden. Section VI focuses on the recent extension of psychohistorical inquiry to groups of people and to cultural phenomena more generally: an investigation of the youth movement in pre-Nazi Germany; consideration of how societies, no less than individuals, reenact and work through traumas over time; and an outline of the role of analysis in constructing a depth-psychological "social psychology" of use to historians. These papers, no less than those that precede them, are compelling testimony to the claim with which editors James William Anderson and Jerome A. Winer begin the volume, to wit, that "Psychoanalysis would seem to be a resource indispensable to the study of history.". (shrink)

This trilogy deals with an epistemology of economics, arguing for a radical overturning of conventional analysis and providing an alternative to political economy and social sciences, based not on positivism, but on a normative and programming paradigm. Volume II builds on the work presented in Volume I to explore oppositions to the traditional and conventional teaching of economics, and presents testimonies that are favourable to a trend towards a programming approach, thereby giving substance to the epistemological 'overturning' of conventional analysis. (...) Such oppositions studied include the work of Ludvig von Mises and his theory of praxeology; Ian Tinbergen and Wassily Leontif's preference for 'planning' over 'forecasting science'; Bruno de Finetti and Daniel Bell's support for the base of 'utopia' in economics; the trend from the 'theory of planning' towards the 'methodology of planning, by Andreas Faludi; neoclassic curiosity about the 'multi-purposes approach' and 'non-economic commodities' as investigated by Walter Isard, as well as theories expressed by Herbert Simon, Robert Lucas, George Soros and Mark Blaug. Volume III takes studies further and presents a concrete and practical example of how to build a Planning Accounting Framework, as associated with Frisch's 'plan-frame', to demonstrate the extent to which decisions and negotiations can be routed in the social sciences. (shrink)

Alongside with ethics and religion, art occupies a prominent place in Michel Henry’s phenomenology of life. His opposition to Husserl and Heidegger, and his analyses of Wassily Kandinsky’s paintings and theoretical works, led Henry to the conclusion that the content of art is the ‘invisible life’. As a consequence, art – itself invisible though at the same time revealing the Life – becomes a means of achieving a non-intentional experience (pathos) of Life in its transcendental affectivity. The radical immanence of (...) experiencing art stands in sharp contrast to the visible external world, thus opening new directions in phenomenological study of both aesthetic and religious experience. In this article, I point out the ontological, epistemological and axiological limitations of Henry’s and Kandinsky’s art theory. (shrink)

Most traditional art forms around the planet are an expression of the spiritual dimension of a culture’s cosmology and the spiritual experiences of individuals. Religious art and iconography often reveal the hidden aspects of spirit as glimpsed through the filter of cultural significance. Moreover, traditional art, although often highly abstract, may actually describe sensory experiences derived in alternative states of consciousness . This article analyzes the often fuzzy concepts of “art” and “spirit” and then operationalizes them in a way that (...) makes them useful for cross-cultural transpersonal research. The fact of the universally abstract nature of traditional art is analyzed and used as a clue to the function of art in expressing and penetrating to the spiritual domain. A “continuum of representational-associational abstraction” model is introduced and described. These concepts are then applied to the author’s experiences with Navajo art and the relation between art and the important Navajo philosophical concept of hozho . A perspective on art and spirit is developed that essentially supports Wassily Kandinsky’s contention that abstract art is the expression of an “inner necessity” of spirit. The article argues for a greater sensitivity among researchers and theorists for the sublime nature of spiritual art.be induced by very different means, including contemplative practices and chemical substances, and yet have different after-effects. Taken together, these ideas lead to the cautious conclusion that some psychedelics can induce genuine mystical experiences sometimes in some people, and that the current tendency to label these chemicals as entheogens may be appropriate. (shrink)

The aim of the following paper is to show that it is not possible to penetrate into the depths of Nikolay Raynov's universe and to comprehend its wholeness, without posing and investigating the question about the origin or the foundation of his various creative occupations, i.e his novels, philosophic and theosophic writings, art history and critique, paintings, decorative design etc. This question is far too complex to be answered briefly without being simplified, and therefore two main directions will be articulated: (...) the recption of Orphism developed in Plotinus' and Porphyry's Neoplatonism – which is the basis of modern Theosophy –, and the synthetic understanding of art, which puts Raynov's views in close proximity to Wassily Kandinsky and Nicholas Roerich. (shrink)

In the treatise On the Spiritual in Art, Wassily Kandinsky divided the creation of art into three categories, the ultimate one of which is called Composition. In this article, I argue that Kandinsky’s classification is similar and comparable to the principle of semi-abstract Chinese freehand brushwork summarized by Zheng Xie in the Inscriptions on Painting - Bamboo. In an attempt to clarify the core of Kandinsky’s strategy of abstraction, i.e. the transformation from painting to writing, I then connect it with (...) the evolution of Chinese characters and the aesthetic theory of Chinese calligraphy, which is also in accord with Kandinsky’s idea of internal necessity and the spirit in art. Through this aesthetic dialogue across time and space, this article aims to bring a new dimension to the understanding of Western abstractionism from the perspective of the oriental philosophy of art. (shrink)

The French phenomenologist Michel Henry sees a similarity between the primordial experience of what he calls ‘Life’ and the aesthetic experience occasioned by Wassily Kandinsky’s abstract art. The triple aim of this essay is to explain and assess how Henry interprets Kandinsky’s abstract art and theory; what the consequences of his interpretation mean for the theory of the experience of abstract art; and what doubts and questions emerge from Henry’s interpretations of Kandinsky’s theory and practice. Despite its containing many interesting (...) ideas, Henry’s phenomenological approach is insufficient to describe the aesthetic experience of Kandinsky’s abstract art. For Henry, aesthetic experience is corporeal, primordial, non-intentional, and independent of knowledge and culture.By contrast, I believe that it is possible and more suitable to connect the direct, corporeal, and affective character of the aesthetic experience of abstract art with intentionality and embeddedness in culture and knowledge. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Economic Prosperity and Innovation The Information Age The Nanotechnology Age Conclusion References and Further Reading.