A teacher to Jacques Lacan André Breton and Albert Camus Kojève defined art as the act of
extracting the beautiful from objective reality. His poetic text The Concrete Paintings of
Kandinsky ? endorses nonrepresentational art as uniquely manifesting beauty. Taking the
paintings of his renowned uncle Wassily Kandinsky as his inspiration Kojève suggests that in
creating (rather than replicating) beauty the paintings are themselves complete universes as
concrete as the natural world. Kojève's text considers the utility and necessity of beauty in
life and ultimately poses the involuted question: What is beauty? Including personal letters
between Kandinsky and his nephew this book further elaborates the unique relationship between
artist and philosopher. An introduction by Boris Groys contextualizes Kojève's life and
writings.
