This is the first complete collection of the writings of the visonary French conceptual artist Yves Klein (1928-1962) to be published in English translation. Klein was an artist with a keen philosophical mind, yet deeply spiritual. Inspired by his study of the Japanese Kata (the abstract movements in Judo), Rosicrucian cosmogony, alchemy, and the phenomenological and psychological philosophies that emerged during his lifetime (particularly the writings of Gaston Bachelard), he constructed his vision of a future art that would purify the soul and society from the ashes of painting.