All methods are sacred if they are internally necessary. All methods are sins if they are not justified by internal necessity.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that the value of artistic methods depends on their necessity and intent.
Wassily Kandinsky emphasizes that the legitimacy of an artistic method is determined by its internal necessity. If a method is essential to the artist's expression or purpose, it is deemed sacred; conversely, methods that lack this justification are seen as misguided or inappropriate. This idea encourages artists to pursue authenticity in their work and to ensure that their chosen techniques resonate with their inner intentions.
In practice
An art critic discussing the validity of different artistic styles at a gallery opening.
The true work of art is born from the 'artist': a mysterious, enigmatic, and mystical creation. It detaches itself from him, it acquires an autonomous life, becomes a personality, an independent subject, animated with a spiritual breath, the living subject of a real existence of being.
The artist must have something to say, for mastery over form is not his goal but rather the adapting of form to its inner meaning.
With cold eyes and indifferent mind the spectators regard the work. Connoissers admire the "skill" (as one admires a tightrope walker), enjoy the "quality of painting" (as one enjoys a pasty). But hungry souls go hungry away. The vulgar herd stroll through the rooms and pronounce the pictures "nice" or "splendid." Those who could speak have said nothing, those who could hear have heard nothing.
The sound of colors is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would express bright yellow with bass notes or dark lake with treble.
The more abstract is form, the more clear and direct its appeal.
Every man who steeps himself in the spiritual possibilities of his heart is a valuable helper in the building of the spiritual pyramid which will someday reach to heaven.
Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me the music tells me what to talk about.
Why does man create? Is it man's purpose on earth to express himself, to bring form to thought, and to discover meaning in experience? Or is it just something to do when he's bored?
I am trying to make art that relates to the deepest and most mythic concerns of human kind and I believe that, at this moment of history, feminism is humanism.
If I've done my work well, I vanish completely from the scene. I believe it is invasive of the work when you know too much about the writer.
If your educe sculpture to the flat plane of the temporal experience of the work. (...) the experience of the work is inseparable from the place in which the work resides. Apart from that condition, any experience of the work is a deception.
I don't write songs, songs write me. ... Writing a song can be agony or ecstasy. It can take half an hour or half a year. ... The popular song is America's greatest ambassador.
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