A Concise History of Modern Painting

i've been re-reading this oldie but goody by herbert read. below are some passages i find interesting:

..what matters in art - what gives art its vitality and effect - is not some principle of composition or some ideal of perfection, but a direct expression of feeling, the form corresponding to the feeling, as spontaneous as a gesture, but as enduring as a rock.
- the aim of Der Blaue Reiter

the work of art is the outward expression of an inner need
- Kandinsky

the whole build-up, or orchestration, of form and color is purposively expressive: there is a vague, undefined internal necessity and the artist then seeks intuitively for an arrangement of colors that will express the hitherto unarticulated feeling... the work of art is a construction of concrete elements of form and color which become expressive in the process of synthesis or arrangement: the form of the work of art is in itself the content, and whatever expressiveness there is in the work of art originates with the form.
- Read on Kandinsky's method

art does not render the visible - it makes visible.
- Klee