“Inner-necessity”
‘In painting it means casting aside the illusion that to see a painting is to see what it is a painting of. If anything is empty of content, it is the image that serves only to represent an external object but that lacks any life of its own. Such an image depends for its existence on the world of objects. But painting, properly speaking, does not. Nor does music. Together, they open the mind to inner truths that are ontologically prior to the outward forms of things. By a principle that Kandinsky called ‘inner necessity’ (ibid.: 160), these truths – the ‘abstract content’ of the work of art – directly touch the soul and set it in motion.
This “inner-necessity” is a close counterpoint to the objective of Zen brushwork whereby the spirit of the maker is revealed through the lines, rather than an attempt to reproduce nature perfectly. Although this video doesn’t give an example of “inner-necessity”, it draws Kandincky to the theme of the trace.
(Ingold, Being Alive. p. 206)