Kandinsky: Incarnating Beauty

Alexandre Kojève

Kojève, a teacher to Jacques Lacan, André Breton, and Albert Camus, defined art as the act of extracting beauty from objective reality. In his poetic text, “The Concrete Paintings of Kandinsky,” he endorses nonrepresentational art as uniquely manifesting beauty. The text delves into the utility and necessity of beauty in life, and includes personal letters between Kandinsky and Kojève, along with an introduction by Boris Groys that provides a contextualization of Kojève’s life and writings.