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Materials in a Spiritual World
A Contextual Look at Kandinsky’s The Yellow Sound
Clay Gold
Introduction
Lissa Tyler Renaud
Editor, “Kandinsky Anew” series
Kandinsky wrote a number of plays, but the only one he chose to publish in complete form was The Yellow Sound.
Several productions of
it were planned during
his life, but they were
all stymied by war,
revolution, and the
accompanying scattering
of colleagues, the
disruption of theatres
and academies, and so
on. Fortunately, when
he published The Yellow Sound,
he published it along
with an essay,
“On Stage
Composition,” in
which he explained his
thinking about the
theatre—thinking
he hoped could be
directly applied to The Yellow Sound.
With such explicit
materials to work from,
it is all the more
surprising that
Kandinsky’s play, The Yellow Sound,
seems not to have had
an actual
production—that
is, not of his script,
as he wrote it, and
according to his
expressed intentions.
There have been
numerous stagings,
including some quite
well-known ones, that
have used both
Kandinsky’s name
and the name of his
play. It is easy enough
to find descriptions of
those productions, some
having photos or even
video clips. But the
stagings these sources
relate are
disconcertingly far
from both the play text
itself and the visual
world of
Kandinsky’s
paintings. There have
been light shows, dance
performances,
performance art pieces
and more, funded and
promoted as
Kandinsky’s play.
But where the people
involved perhaps meant
to honor Kandinsky by
using his name, instead
it’s hard not to
be troubled by their
disregard for, or
misunderstanding of,
what was so important
to him.
Clay Gold, this
month’s Guest
Writer for this
“Kandinsky
Anew” series, has
written an informed,
sensitive evocation of The Yellow Sound.
In his essay, he
proceeds scrupulously
through the text of the
play, making
directorial and
intuitive sense of it.
As you will see,
Gold’s sense of
the play is grounded in
his knowledge of
Kandinsky’s life,
writings and theories,
and in the work of a
range of other artists.
Gold also has the
interdisciplinary
aesthetic and
professional experience
needed to bring
Kandinsky’s play
to life for us. He said
of the very original
perspective he
elucidates in his essay:
“The Yellow Sound is a key work in Kandinsky's oeuvre, despite its not being a painting. It is suggested that the ‘play’ is rather a score for an improvised painting, and further, that the piece notates the evolutionary transition between the representational (material) and the abstract (spiritual) in art, with which Kandinsky was so concerned.”
Here follows “
Materials in a
Spiritual World: a
contextual look at
Kandinsky’s The Yellow Sound,”
by Clay Gold.
*
Scene 1
“Some indeterminate chords from the orchestra.”
“Curtain.”
The introduction to The Yellow Sound begins like a birth, or a death.
The birth we are
witness to is that of
Abstraction. The death?
Naturalism. The midwife
is Wassily
Kandinsky's
subconscious mind.
The Yellow Sound is
a pivotal statement in
the career of the
artist and he presents
it to us in the form,
not of a painting or a
theoretical essay and,
if not exactly a
libretto then certainly
in the guise of a
narrative score; a
composition that
escorts us through the
landscape of a
concept-in-progress.
Throughout, objects and
figures variously
appear and are either
discarded or flee from
the scene. Landscapes
emerge and evolve
before they are
overwhelmed by colour
or completely erased.
“Dark-blue”
Twilight becomes darker still and a “small light” becomes brighter and then “deeper”.
One evening around
dusk, at the end of the
nineteenth century (the
very beginning of his
career as a serious
artist), Kandinsky
noticed a painting in
his studio. For a
moment he was quite
unable to make sense of
it. It had colour and
shape, but nothing to
comprehend logically.
He quickly realised
that the painting had
been turned on its
side; even so, the
impact of seeing the
representational work
in this unexpected,
abstract way, in the
half-light, had a
profound effect.
Retrospectively he
wrote about the
incident: “I
could see clearly that
objects harmed my
pictures”.
“Behind the stage, a CHORUS is heard...”
Deep and high voices
using impressionist
language. Impressions
of language.
The Yellow Sound is not tethered to the logic of a plot nor to any distracting narrative arc. There are no leading characters, except for maybe five yellow giants who grow and shrink in confidence, related to the purpose of their presence. Unlike contemporaneous work by Kokoschka and the German Expressionist playwrights, the piece is not political. It does not even deal with universal issues. It does however address, and simultaneously document, a great transition in the history of visual art. And by seeking to express the inherent dialogue of that extended moment within a temporal framework, with music and with choreographed movement and lighting, The Yellow Sound invokes a system of symbolic thought which is both inside and outside of time and the physical world. Like Jack Kerouac's Visions of Cody,
a long novel which
contains all the
impressions and
memories contained in
one single, vital
instant; similar in
many ways to
Joyce's Ulysses,
which deliberately
contains more
information than can be
packed into the single
day on which it happens
to be set, The Yellow Sound supplies us with an artist's topography of process; a dilemma or tension coupled with emotional or spiritual responses to the creation of five paintings that emerge on stage in three dimensions, before our senses.
“The stage must be as deep as possible.”
“...the
background becomes dark
blue (in time with the
music) and assumes
broad black edges (like
a picture)”.
For Kandinsky, the
purpose of art is to
communicate a resonance
of the soul, creating
“a virtually identical vibration in the receiving soul”.
He is however, acutely
aware of the potential
for other, inevitable
forces which interfere
with that process.
These differences
within the souls of the
“receiving subjects”, the audience of observers, paradoxically result in the correct understanding of the artist's intention, at a level which is appropriate for each individual.
By allusion... by not speaking directly... by not being didactic or cerebral... meaning is able to bubble to the surface of the soul, to simmer... this is the dot, the crash,
the beat... the moment
of subconscious or
soulful resonance which
is not necessarily
translatable into (or
communicable with)
language, but is,
according to Kandinsky, transferable with art.
Sympathy and the
communication of ideas
and emotion happen
spiritually and not
through any process of
logical conclusion or
consideration; they are
rather instantaneous,
immediate. Felt.
Drama, opera and ballet, all being what Kandinsky calls substantive forms, originate from external, considered human experience, and are therefore limited or “impoverished”.
“...no movement, no sound. Then darkness.”
“Five bright yellow GIANTS.”
“...strange, yellow faces which are indistinct.”
Impressions of humanity, of the figure, for the newborn.
The giants are perhaps
symbolic of the great
urge, present in
Kandinsky's
thinking from very
early on, to
communicate his theory
of “the
spiritual in art”. They are the elephants in the room of Kandinsky's subconscious. In The Yellow Sound he is exploring a new way of bringing them into the material world. Into consciousness.
Yellow is defined as
shrill, stimulating and
earthly in
Kandinsky's theory
of colour, 1911. Earthly warmth and shrill seem at odds with each other. And why not? Why should any colour, tone, or chord be singular or specific in its meaning to a human being? Meanings, if any, are relative to one another and to all that occurs around them. Similarly, the resonance within a work of art is only present in relation to the previously acquired knowledge and information which is present in the mind of the observer.
“The music becomes more definite.”
Clarity. Momentarily.
And a repetition from earlier, “...the same wooden chorus
becomes audible.”
Scene 2
“The blue mist recedes gradually before the light...”
Consider this, for
instance, as an example
of describing the
production of an
improvised painting:
“At
this point the
background suddenly
turns a dirty brown.
The hill becomes dirty
green. And right in the
middle of the hill
forms an indefinite
black patch, which appears now distinct, now blurred.”
Kandinsky is painting, eyes closed.
“On
the left side of the
hill a big yellow
flower suddenly becomes
visible.”“Later,
in complete silence, the flower begins to sway very slowly...”
From On the Spiritual in Art:
“A totally dead silence... a silence with no possibilities, has the inner harmony of black.”
A thin “B” tone accompanies the sway whilst a deep “A”
represents a leaf.
Music is the spiritual
resonance Kandinsky
hopes to transmit to
the observer through
his imagery. These
notes are the
frequencies which he is
experiencing and
reproducing for the
audience. The music is
almost unnecessary as
it represents something
occurring within the
artist and should
therefore re-occur
within any sympathetic
soul, like the keyboard
and strings he
describes in On the Spiritual in Art... an
inner music, sensation.
The Yellow Sound is an opportunity for Kandinsky to present, in its purest form, his theory of “the spiritual in art”,
the resonance
represented by music
and the eventual use of
synaesthetic language.
With the libretto,
Kandinsky is free of
theoretical constraint
and is able to be an
artist again, painting
with words for the soul
without the
interference of the
psyche.
“Many PEOPLE come on from the left in long, garish,
shapeless garments...”
They sing:
“Close your eyes! Close your eyes!”
The voices are “hoarse”,“possessed” and “nasal”,
individually defective
or distorted. The
figurative is now
breaking apart in
Kandinsky's output;
the Abstract,
symbolism, is growing
stronger, with greater
resonance.
“Gradually, the orchestra strikes up and drowns the voices.”
Spirituality is apparently overcoming representation.
“The PEOPLE walk slowly... and separate more from one another.”
Materialism is fragmenting.
“It turns suddenly dark.”
Scene 3
“...the GIANTS... whisper in pairs; sometimes all their heads
come together.”
“Their bodies remain motionless.”
“Everything remains motionless... Suddenly all colours vanish.”
“...the music grows deeper.”
“...nothing but light is to be seen on the stage: no objects.
The brightest level of
light is reached.”
We arrive at complete abstraction.
“...behind the stage a shrill tenor voice, filled with fear...”
This voice is the sound of bright yellow in Kandinsky's colour theory.
“...shouting entirely indistinguishable words very quickly...”
In the artistic lexicon of Kandinsky, the words sound and colour are interchangeable. He uses the word “sound” to describe the spiritual quality of any art. This is perhaps a way of creating the type of meaning which speaks to the soul as opposed to the mind. Or it could be that his synaesthetic disposition sees no distinction between the two words.
It is however possible for us to identify this “shrill tenor voice” as being the very “yellow sound” of the title. It occurs twice more at important junctures in the piece, and is specifically heard emanating from a human being; it is therefore not unreasonable to think of it as the last cry of naturalism in art, especially when considered at this particular crossroads in the work of the artist. Although it was to be more than ten years before Kandinsky eradicated broadly recognisable figures from his painting, The
Yellow Sound may be read as a tortuous psychological wrestle with that very issue. The constant tension between the outer and the inner world is consistent with Kandinsky's character. It is well documented that he came late to art, having first studied law and economics, a judicious attempt, perhaps, to keep one foot in the material world before indulging in the spiritual endeavours of painting and theorising art and colour.
“Pause. For a moment it becomes dark.”
Scene 4
Out of nowhere (darkness), a figurative painting is presented to us:
A simple religious building, with a turret and a “cracked bell.”
A small child, gazing out at the audience is ringing the bell by:
“pulling slowly and rhythmically at the lower end of the rope...”
A fat, white man, dressed in black, demands
“Silence!”
of the child, who obeys.
Is the child
interfering in some way
with the proceedings?
Does the man in black
represent some
authority calling for
an end to this
adventure in
abstraction? The stern
man may be read as some
kind of outside
interference;
Kandinsky's
conscience pricking him
maybe, or a symbol of
the suppression of the
individual's
spirituality by the
authority of organised
religion: a metaphor
for the resistance of
culture toward the
expression of nature in
art.
Maybe the figure is the
lawyer that Kandinsky
rejected in order to
become an artist. I
think this is highly
likely.
The broken bell
represents the
imperfect, though
vital, transmission of
spiritual resonance.
“The child drops the rope.”
This is the only scene
of true or traditional
drama in the piece and
I believe it is
strongly resonant for
Kandinsky.
Scene 5
“The
stage is gradually
saturated with a cold
red light, which slowly
grows stronger and
equally slowly turns
yellow.”
Kandinsky, in the book Uber das Geistige in der Kunst (1911), says this:
“The
element of red, which
plays a great part in
orange... is like a
human being aware of
his own power and
emanating happiness and
health. The appeal,
exercised by this
colour is like a
medium-sized church
bell reminding one of a
strong alto voice or
the singing of alto
violins.”
With this in mind, we
gain some insight into
the previous scene. The
colour emerges from the
bell and represents the
actions of the child
resonating still from
the outer world (of the
bell) to the inner
world (of colour).
Sound bleeds into light.
Backstage, the fearful
(yellow) cry is heard
again very briefly. A
white, shadowless light
is growing and,
simultaneously, the
giants become “feeble”.
They are reduced to a
motionlessness, staring
out at the audience,
before they suddenly “spasm”.
“The music gradually becomes shriller”,
which is the same as
saying the music
becomes yellow.
The stage becomes
flooded with people,
some dressed in black
and white or grey;
others in bright
colours. They behave
differently too, in
groups, before they
become displaced, alone
or in smaller groups,
looking in different
directions. One of the
white figures performs
a “kind of dance” with rapid movements, drawing the attention of the others until they are all looking at the white figure. The dance ends with a ritualistic movement and there is a spiritual tension between colour, choreography and music at this point.
“In the orchestra, individual colours begin to stand out.”
The people, “overcome by exhaustion”,begin
to stand and the groups
disperse:
“Many
PEOPLE run in haste
from the stage, looking
behind them. In the
process, all the BLACK,
GREY and WHITE PEOPLE
disappear...”
“In the orchestra – confusion.”
The
giants tremble as the
yellow shriek from
backstage is heard once
more.
A rapid, chaotic, ensemble dance ensues and, at the moment of “greatest
confusion” in the music and in the lights,
“it suddenly becomes dark and silent.”
The yellow giants remain as the last visible objects before they then too become erased.
*
Wassily Kandinsky's mindset at the creation of The Yellow Sound is likely that which is present at the creation of any other “composition” or “improvisation” upon which he worked, any of which could be plays or paintings or symphonies. But here, instead of a brush, he has a pen or a typewriter. And instead of an abstraction, we have here the entire thought process, in plain language, plainer than he has used before or since. And instead of a painting, we have the score for a painting. A score which allows for ideas to be overwritten with new ideas.
Kandinsky's“spirituality” is synonymous with the “unconscious mind”,
an expression still new
in the parlance of the
time. Its use was
popularized by the
writing of Sigmund
Freud after 1900 and
spread even further
once his work was
translated into other
languages, from about
1912. Prior to Freud,
the psyche was a
mystery, explored by
occultists,
theosophists and
thinkers of the era in
broadly imaginative
ways which owed more to
poetry and religious
unravelling than it did
to scientific analysis.
Until The Yellow
Sound, Kandinsky
perhaps lacked the
language of
clarification for his
philosophy. The
framework of a
theatrical play
eventually freed him to
speak using the
metaphors presenting
themselves to his
synaesthete thought
processes. The
deliberate, conscious
construction of similar
work, the Gesamkunstwerk of Richard Wagner for example, opposes the instinctive or intuitive methods of Kandinsky. Wagner's use of tropes and specific cultural symbols - the “well-known label” on a bottle, were the Wagner branding. He used narrative text to express his own ideas, a method antithetical to Kandinsky's own beliefs. “Wagner
diminished the inner
sense” with his ignorance of colour, as Kandinsky put it; not to mention the practice of subordinating one art-form to another, and the “obstinate recurrence” of
musical phrases in his
method of
characterization.
Wagner was a composer
typical of the “external”,
the superficial style
to which Kandinsky was
opposed.
This is poignant and pivotal because The Yellow Sound came as Kandinsky was crossing the threshold into pure abstraction; as we know from his early artistic career, he never made a move in the field impulsively. That's not to say that he never intended the piece to be a theatrical performance. I'm sure he did. But in the spiritual unconscious of his artistic drive he somehow unlocked the symbols which represented the greatest leap of his life. And he wrote them into The Yellow Sound.
J.L. Styan describes August Strindberg's contemporaneous Ghost Sonata as
not being “a
play... perceived with
the logical mind, [but]
one to be savoured with
the senses”. This strategy might also be applied to The
Yellow Sound.
Kandinsky's work is
not, however, a dream
play, but rather one
exploring the tensions
between the conscious
and the subconscious,
the material and the
spiritual worlds within
the mind of an artist
who has reached a vital
fork in the
metaphorical path of
his development. He
truly wished to
transmit the interior,
soulful experience of a
spiritual artist to the
observer, through the
ears as well as the
eyes. His apparent
desire was the ability
to tap into a resonant
frequency, to make a
true connection with
other people. I think
he admired the ability
of religion to connect
with the devout in this
way. Religion, using
artistic tropes:
symbol, metaphor,
architecture and
acoustic design, is
able to envelop, not to
mention humble and
overwhelm the dedicated
attendee. In many ways
religion is the supreme
art form, as followers
carry their experience
into the external world
of objects. The chapels
of Rothko in Texas and
Matisse in Vence
testify to this,
representing endeavours
to enter into this kind
of communion.
It's my conjecture
that Kandinsky may just
as well have expressed
his theory as The Unconscious in Art, rather than the Spiritual,
given the broad
exploration and
discovery taking place
in the realms of
psychology and
psychoanalysis at the
same time. Regardless,
his most important
dramatic work, The Yellow Sound,
can be read as the
score for a synaesthete
theatre of the mind.
There is something like twenty-five years between The Yellow Sound and the extraordinary, object-free work of the Bauhaus-era paintings; work which is precise, geometric and finally stripped of all representation. Within that period there exists a transition, recorded in The Yellow Sound libretto, which triggers in my mind the image of the bone in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey,
tossed into the air by
a prehistoric ape, the
bone dissolves into a
revolving, futuristic
space station in a
matter of seconds.
Within the work of
Wassily Kandinsky there
exists the great
evolutionary stretch
between representation
and abstraction in the
arts, which had further
resonance in all other
fields. He did not act
alone in the process,
but the birth trauma,
the journey and the
questions, the tension
and the guilt are all
expressed in his
oeuvre. It needed,
perhaps, a synaesthete
to sense it and create
a theatrical, rather
than theoretical,
record of the
transition.
Clay Gold 2018/19
Note:
This essay was
originally developed at
the invitation of Lissa
Tyler Renaud for Dramaturgias journal, Brazil.
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