While Kandinsky had been developing the intellectual scaffolding for his plunge into abstraction since 1909, it was only after a 1911 concert of the music of Arnold Schoenberg that he began working in earnest in that direction. Producing some sketches of the concert immediately afterward, he went on to dramatically simplify and abstract their shapes and contours, eventually producing the final painting and staking out the beginnings of a world-shaking artistic movement.

Taking its title from a translation of the visionary modernist artist Wassily Kandinsky’s revolutionary 1911 essay Concerning the Spiritual in Art, the Festival’s seventy-sixth season will explore many strands of spiritual thought and practice through their connection to music. Also produced in 1911, Impression III (Konzert) illustrates both technically and conceptually that artistic theme. The Russian-born painter and Theosophist who lived between Munich and Paris forged the idea that abstract painting could inspire a durational and consciousness-shifting experience that was akin to music. Kandinsky’s view of spirituality as accessible through artistic material was central to Bauhaus School thought, and to the artistic development of the architect and Aspenite Herbert Bayer, who designed the Aspen Meadows and much of our built environment in the West End.

Past Season's Posters

2023 Season Poster = Stanford Columns by Beverly Pepper

Including the 2023 season artwork, this poster is a great addition to a collection of AMFS season posters. Poster is 22" wide x 28" tall