Blurb:

Are all interpretations equal? Chapter Three demonstrates how important it is to identify appropriate frames of reference when theorising about an artist. For abstract artists, biographical information and expressed artistic intent provide essential clues to understanding an artwork’s meaning. Kandinsky, it is shown, has often been mistaken for a Theosophist, his ideas mistranslated and misrepresented, much to the detriment of our understanding of abstraction. Looking at related artists, such as Georgina Houghton and Hilma Af Klint, whose religious views were quite different to Kandinsky’s, points of similarity and difference are outlined.