On plasticity in aesthetics. Klänge by Wassily Kandinsky

Abstract

The article aims to contribute to the exploration of the logics of the sensitive through a reflection on plasticity in aesthetics. Wassily Kandinsky’s work of art Klänge leads us to observe how matter is continuously shaped in aesthesia, supporting and accompanying the emergence of forms and figures,
the creation of atmospheric effects, but also underpinning the return to properly material values and appeals. This collection of poems and engravings, occasionally triggering resonances between the visual and the verbal, is mainly a
work of art that exploits what the artist calls sonority, a concept he elaborates from the poetic use of the word and extends to colour and pictorial elements,
beyond any referential anchoring. The book, which is coeval with, and perhaps even a driving force behind, the transition to a so-called abstract art, is also a
pivotal work of art for assessing the aesthetic turn envisaged by the artist in his theoretical writings. It prompts a reflection on plasticity that, disregarding the delimitation of the latter to certain materials or genres, also goes beyond the opposition between the abstract and the figurative, or between the plastic and the iconic. Plasticity then turns to be a key concept for the understanding of morphological dynamics and allows to note how, in aesthetic apprehension, matter is informed at various degrees of figurability.