Wassily Kandinsky

Concerning the Spiritual in Art

I. KANDINSKY'S INTRODUCTION

II. THE MOVEMENT OF THE TRIANGLE

III. SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION

IV. THE PYRAMID

     Note: Footnotes marked M.T.H.S. were inserted by Sadler, 
     the translator.

DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF ELISABETH TICHEJEFF



PART 1: ABOUT GENERAL AESTHETIC



I. KANDINSKY'S INTRODUCTION

Every work of art is the child of its age and, in many cases, the
mother of our emotions. It follows that each period of culture
produces an art of its own which can never be repeated. Efforts
to revive the art-principles of the past will at best produce an
art that is still-born. It is impossible for us to live and feel,
as did the ancient Greeks. In the same way those who strive to
follow the Greek methods in sculpture achieve only a similarity
of form, the work remaining soulless for all time. Such imitation
is mere aping. Externally the monkey completely resembles a 
human being; he will sit holding a book in front of his nose, and 
turn over the pages with a thoughtful aspect, but his actions have 
for him no real meaning.

There is, however, in art another kind of external similarity
which is founded on a fundamental truth. When there is a
similarity of inner tendency in the whole moral and spiritual
atmosphere, a similarity of ideals, at first closely pursued but
later lost to sight, a similarity in the inner feeling of any one
period to that of another, the logical result will be a revival
of the external forms which served to express those inner
feelings in an earlier age. An example of this today is our
sympathy, our spiritual relationship, with the Primitives. Like
ourselves, these artists sought to express in their work only
internal truths, renouncing in consequence all consideration of
external form.

This all-important spark of inner life today is at present only a
spark. Our minds, which are even now only just awakening after
years of materialism, are infected with the despair of unbelief,
of lack of purpose and ideal. The nightmare of materialism, which
has turned the life of the universe into an evil, useless game,
is not yet past; it holds the awakening soul still in its grip.
Only a feeble light glimmers like a tiny star in a vast gulf of
darkness. This feeble light is but a presentiment, and the soul,
when it sees it, trembles in doubt whether the light is not a
dream, and the gulf of darkness reality. This doubt, and the
still harsh tyranny of the materialistic philosophy, divide our
soul sharply from that of the Primitives. Our soul rings cracked
when we seek to play upon it, as does a costly vase, long buried
in the earth, which is found to have a flaw when it is dug up
once more. For this reason, the Primitive phase, through which we
are now passing, with its temporary similarity of form, can only
be of short duration.

These two possible resemblances between the art forms of today
and those of the past will be at once recognized as diametrically
opposed to one another. The first, being purely external, has no
future. The second, being internal, contains the seed of the
future within itself. After the period of materialist effort,
which held the soul in check until it was shaken off as evil, the
soul is emerging, purged by trials and sufferings. Shapeless
emotions such as fear, joy, grief, etc., which belonged to this
time of effort, will no longer greatly attract the artist. He will 
endeavor to awake subtler emotions, as yet unnamed. Living
himself a complicated and comparatively subtle life, his work
will give to those observers capable of feeling them lofty
emotions beyond the reach of words.

The observer of today, however, is seldom capable of feeling 
such emotions. He seeks in a work of art a mere imitation of 
nature which can serve some definite purpose (for example a 
portrait in the ordinary sense) or a presentment of nature 
according to a certain convention ("impressionist" painting), or 
some inner feeling expressed in terms of natural form (as we 
say--a picture with Stimmung) [Footnote: Stimmung is almost 
untranslateable. It is almost "sentiment" in the best sense, and 
almost "feeling." Many of Corot's twilight landscapes are full of a 
beautiful "Stimmung." Kandinsky uses the word later on to mean 
the "essential spirit" of nature.--M.T.H.S.] All those varieties of
picture, when they are really art, fulfil their purpose and feed
the spirit. Though this applies to the first case, it applies more 
strongly to the third, where the spectator does feel a 
corresponding thrill in himself. Such harmony or even contrast of
emotion cannot be superficial or worthless; indeed the Stimmung
of a picture can deepen and purify that of the spectator. Such
works of art at least preserve the soul from coarseness; they
"key it up," so to speak, to a certain height, as a tuning-key
the strings of a musical instrument. But purification, and
extension in duration and size of this sympathy of soul, remain
one-sided, and the possibilities of the influence of art are not
exerted to their utmost.

Imagine a building divided into many rooms. The building may be
large or small. Every wall of every room is covered with pictures
of various sizes; perhaps they number many thousands. They
represent in colour bits of nature--animals in sunlight or
shadow, drinking, standing in water, lying on the grass; near to,
a Crucifixion by a painter who does not believe in Christ;
flowers; human figures sitting, standing, walking; often they are
naked; many naked women, seen foreshortened from behind; 
apples and silver dishes; portrait of Councillor So and So; sunset; 
lady in red; flying duck; portrait of Lady X; flying geese; lady in
white; calves in shadow flecked with brilliant yellow sunlight;
portrait of Prince Y; lady in green. All this is carefully printed in a 
book--name of artist--name of picture. People with these books in 
their hands go from wall to wall, turning over pages, reading the 
names. Then they go away, neither richer nor poorer than when 
they came, and are absorbed at once in their business, which has 
nothing to do with art. Why did they come? In each picture is a 
whole lifetime imprisoned, a whole lifetime of fears, doubts, 
hopes, and joys.

Whither is this lifetime tending? What is the message of the
competent artist? "To send light into the darkness of men's
hearts--such is the duty of the artist," said Schumann. "An
artist is a man who can draw and paint everything," said Tolstoi.

Of these two definitions of the artist's activity we must choose
the second, if we think of the exhibition just described. On one
canvas is a huddle of objects painted with varying degrees of
skill, virtuosity and vigour, harshly or smoothly. To harmonize
the whole is the task of art. With cold eyes and indifferent mind
the spectators regard the work. Connoisseurs admire the "skill"
(as one admires a tightrope walker), enjoy the "quality of
painting" (as one enjoys a pasty). But hungry souls go hungry
away.

The vulgar herd stroll through the rooms and pronounce the
pictures "nice" or "splendid." Those who could speak have said
nothing, those who could hear have heard nothing. This condition
of art is called "art for art's sake." This neglect of inner meanings, 
which is the life of colours, this vain squandering of artistic power 
is called "art for art's sake."

The artist seeks for material reward for his dexterity, his power
of vision and experience. His purpose becomes the satisfaction 
of vanity and greed. In place of the steady co-operation of artists
is a scramble for good things. There are complaints of excessive
competition, of over-production. Hatred, partisanship, cliques,
jealousy, intrigues are the natural consequences of this aimless,
materialist art.

[Footnote: The few solitary exceptions do not destroy the truth
of this sad and ominous picture, and even these exceptions are
chiefly believers in the doctrine of art for art's sake. They
serve, therefore, a higher ideal, but one which is ultimately a
useless waste of their strength. External beauty is one element
of a spiritual atmosphere. But beyond this positive fact (that
what is beautiful is good) it has the weakness of a talent not
used to the full. (The word talent is employed in the biblical
sense.)]

The onlooker turns away from the artist who has higher ideals and
who cannot see his life purpose in an art without aims.

Sympathy is the education of the spectator from the point of view
of the artist. It has been said above that art is the child of
its age. Such an art can only create an artistic feeling which is
already clearly felt. This art, which has no power for the
future, which is only a child of the age and cannot become a
mother of the future, is a barren art. She is transitory and to
all intent dies the moment the atmosphere alters which nourished
her.

The other art, that which is capable of educating further,
springs equally from contemporary feeling, but is at the same
time not only echo and mirror of it, but also has a deep and
powerful prophetic strength.

The spiritual life, to which art belongs and of which she is one
of the mightiest elements, is a complicated but definite and
easily definable movement forwards and upwards. This 
movement is the movement of experience. It may take different 
forms, but it holds at bottom to the same inner thought and 
purpose.

Veiled in obscurity are the causes of this need to move ever
upwards and forwards, by sweat of the brow, through sufferings
and fears. When one stage has been accomplished, and many 
evil stones cleared from the road, some unseen and wicked hand
scatters new obstacles in the way, so that the path often seems
blocked and totally obliterated. But there never fails to come to
the rescue some human being, like ourselves in everything except
that he has in him a secret power of vision.

He sees and points the way. The power to do this he would
sometimes fain lay aside, for it is a bitter cross to bear. But
he cannot do so. Scorned and hated, he drags after him over the
stones the heavy chariot of a divided humanity, ever forwards and
upwards.

Often, many years after his body has vanished from the earth, men
try by every means to recreate this body in marble, iron, bronze,
or stone, on an enormous scale. As if there were any intrinsic
value in the bodily existence of such divine martyrs and servants
of humanity, who despised the flesh and lived only for the
spirit! But at least such setting up of marble is a proof that a
great number of men have reached the point where once the 
being they would now honour, stood alone.




II. THE MOVEMENT OF THE TRIANGLE

The life of the spirit may be fairly represented in diagram as a
large acute-angled triangle divided horizontally into unequal
parts with the narrowest segment uppermost. The lower the 
segment the greater it is in breadth, depth, and area.

The whole triangle is moving slowly, almost invisibly forwards
and upwards. Where the apex was today the second segment is
tomorrow; what today can be understood only by the apex and to
the rest of the triangle is an incomprehensible gibberish, forms
tomorrow the true thought and feeling of the second segment.

At the apex of the top segment stands often one man, and only
one. His joyful vision cloaks a vast sorrow. Even those who are
nearest to him in sympathy do not understand him. Angrily they
abuse him as charlatan or madman. So in his lifetime stood
Beethoven, solitary and insulted.

[Footnote: Weber, composer of Der Freischutz, said of 
Beethoven's Seventh Symphony: "The extravagances of genius 
have reached the limit; Beethoven is now ripe for an asylum." Of 
the opening phrase, on a reiterated "e," the Abbe Stadler said to 
his neighbour, when first he heard it: "Always that miserable 'e'; he
seems to be deaf to it himself, the idiot!"]

How many years will it be before a greater segment of the
triangle reaches the spot where he once stood alone? Despite
memorials and statues, are they really many who have risen to his
level? [Footnote 2: Are not many monuments in themselves 
answers to that question?]

In every segment of the triangle are artists. Each one of them
who can see beyond the limits of his segment is a prophet to
those about him, and helps the advance of the obstinate whole.
But those who are blind, or those who retard the movement of the
triangle for baser reasons, are fully understood by their fellows
and acclaimed for their genius. The greater the segment (which is
the same as saying the lower it lies in the triangle) so the
greater the number who understand the words of the artist. Every
segment hungers consciously or, much more often, unconsciously
for their corresponding spiritual food. This food is offered by
the artists, and for this food the segment immediately below will
tomorrow be stretching out eager hands.

This simile of the triangle cannot be said to express every
aspect of the spiritual life. For instance, there is never an
absolute shadow-side to the picture, never a piece of unrelieved
gloom. Even too often it happens that one level of spiritual food
suffices for the nourishment of those who are already in a higher
segment. But for them this food is poison; in small quantities it
depresses their souls gradually into a lower segment; in large
quantities it hurls them suddenly into the depths ever lower and
lower. Sienkiewicz, in one of his novels, compares the spiritual
life to swimming; for the man who does not strive tirelessly, who
does not fight continually against sinking, will mentally and
morally go under. In this strait a man's talent (again in the
biblical sense) becomes a curse--and not only the talent of the
artist, but also of those who eat this poisoned food. The artist
uses his strength to flatter his lower needs; in an ostensibly
artistic form he presents what is impure, draws the weaker
elements to him, mixes them with evil, betrays men and helps 
them to betray themselves, while they convince themselves and 
others that they are spiritually thirsty, and that from this pure spring
they may quench their thirst. Such art does not help the forward
movement, but hinders it, dragging back those who are striving to
press onward, and spreading pestilence abroad.

Such periods, during which art has no noble champion, during
which the true spiritual food is wanting, are periods of
retrogression in the spiritual world. Ceaselessly souls fall from
the higher to the lower segments of the triangle, and the whole
seems motionless, or even to move down and backwards. Men
attribute to these blind and dumb periods a special value, for
they judge them by outward results, thinking only of material
well-being. They hail some technical advance, which can help
nothing but the body, as a great achievement. Real spiritual
gains are at best under-valued, at worst entirely ignored.

The solitary visionaries are despised or regarded as abnormal 
and eccentric. Those who are not wrapped in lethargy and who 
feel vague longings for spiritual life and knowledge and progress, 
cry in harsh chorus, without any to comfort them. The night of the
spirit falls more and more darkly. Deeper becomes the misery of
these blind and terrified guides, and their followers, tormented
and unnerved by fear and doubt, prefer to this gradual darkening
the final sudden leap into the blackness.

At such a time art ministers to lower needs, and is used for
material ends. She seeks her substance in hard realities because
she knows of nothing nobler. Objects, the reproduction of which
is considered her sole aim, remain monotonously the same. The
question "what?" disappears from art; only the question "how?"
remains. By what method are these material objects to be
reproduced? The word becomes a creed. Art has lost her soul.
In the search for method the artist goes still further. Art becomes 
so specialized as to be comprehensible only to artists, and they 
complain bitterly of public indifference to their work. For since the 
artist in such times has no need to say much, but only to be 
notorious for some small originality and consequently lauded by a 
small group of patrons and connoisseurs (which incidentally is 
also a very profitable business for him), there arise a crowd of 
gifted and skilful painters, so easy does the conquest of art 
appear. In each artistic circle are thousands of such artists, of 
whom the majority seek only for some new technical manner, and 
who produce millions of works of art without enthusiasm, with cold 
hearts and souls asleep.

Competition arises. The wild battle for success becomes more 
and more material. Small groups who have fought their way to the 
top of the chaotic world of art and picture-making entrench
themselves in the territory they have won. The public, left far 
behind, looks on bewildered, loses interest and turns away.

But despite all this confusion, this chaos, this wild hunt for
notoriety, the spiritual triangle, slowly but surely, with irresistible 
strength, moves onwards and upwards.

The invisible Moses descends from the mountain and sees the  
dance round the golden calf. But he brings with him fresh stores of
wisdom to man.

First by the artist is heard his voice, the voice that is inaudible to 
the crowd. Almost unknowingly the artist follows the call. Already in 
that very question "how?" lies a hidden seed of renaissance. For 
when this "how?" remains without any fruitful answer, there is 
always a possibility that the same "something" (which we call 
personality today) may be able to see in the objects about it not 
only what is purely material but also something less solid;  
something less "bodily" than was seen in the period of realism, 
when the universal aim was to reproduce anything "as it really is" 
and without fantastic imagination.

[Footnote: Frequent use is made here of the terms "material" and
"non-material," and of the intermediate phrases "more" or "less
material." Is everything material? or is EVERYTHING spiritual?
Can the distinctions we make between matter and spirit be 
nothing but relative modifications of one or the other? Thought 
which, although a product of the spirit, can be defined with 
positive science, is matter, but of fine and not coarse substance. 
Is whatever cannot be touched with the hand, spiritual? The
discussion lies beyond the scope of this little book; all that matters 
here is that the boundaries drawn should not be too definite.]

If the emotional power of the artist can overwhelm the "how?" and
can give free scope to his finer feelings, then art is on the crest of 
the road by which she will not fail later on to find the "what" she 
has lost, the "what" which will show the way to the spiritual food of 
the newly awakened spiritual life. This "what?" will no longer be 
the material, objective "what" of the former period, but the internal 
truth of art, the soul without which the body (i.e. the "how") can 
never be healthy, whether in an individual or in a whole people.

THIS "WHAT" IS THE INTERNAL TRUTH WHICH ONLY  ART 
CAN DIVINE, WHICH ONLY ART CAN EXPRESS BY  THOSE 
MEANS OF EXPRESSION WHICH ARE HERS ALONE.





III. SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION

The spiritual triangle moves slowly onwards and upwards. Today
one of the largest of the lower segments has reached the point of
using the first battle cry of the materialist creed. The dwellers in 
this segment group themselves round various banners in  religion. 
They call themselves Jews, Catholics, Protestants, etc. But they 
are really atheists, and this a few either of the boldest or  the 
narrowest openly avow. "Heaven is empty," "God is dead." In 
politics these people are democrats and republicans. The fear, 
horror and hatred which yesterday they felt for these political  
creeds they now direct against anarchism, of which they know 
nothing but its much dreaded name.


In economics these people are Socialists. They make sharp the 
sword of justice with which to slay the hydra of capitalism and to 
hew off the head of evil.

Because the inhabitants of this great segment of the triangle have 
never solved any problem independently, but are dragged as it 
were in a cart by those the noblest of their fellowmen who have 
sacrificed themselves, they know nothing of the vital impulse of life 
which they regard always vaguely from a great distance. They rate 
this impulse lightly, putting their trust in purposeless theory and in 
the working of some logical method.

The men of the segment next below are dragged slowly higher,
blindly, by those just described. But they cling to their old position, 
full of dread of the unknown and of betrayal. The higher segments 
are not only blind atheists but can justify their godlessness with 
strange words; for example, those of Virchow--so unworthy of a 
learned man--"I have dissected many corpses, but never yet 
discovered a soul in any of them."

In politics they are generally republican, with a knowledge of 
different parliamentary procedures; they read the political leading 
articles in the newspapers. In economics they are socialists of 
various grades, and can support their "principles" with numerous 
quotations, passing from Schweitzer's EMMA via Lasalle's IRON 
LAW OF WAGES, to Marx's CAPITAL, and  still  further.

In these loftier segments other categories of ideas, absent in 
these just described, begin gradually to appear--science and art,
to which last belong also literature and music.

In science these men are positivists, only recognizing those things 
that can be weighed and measured. Anything beyond that they 
consider as rather discreditable nonsense, that same nonsense 
about which they held yesterday the theories that today are 
proven.

In art they are naturalists, which means that they recognize and 
value the personality, individuality and temperament of the artist 
up to a certain definite point. This point has been fixed by others, 
and in it they believe unflinchingly.

But despite their patent and well-ordered security, despite their
infallible principles, there lurks in these higher segments a hidden 
fear, a nervous trembling, a sense of insecurity. And this is due to 
their upbringing. They know that the sages, statesmen and artists 
whom today they revere, were yesterday spurned as swindlers 
and charlatans. And the higher the segment in the triangle, the 
better defined is this fear, this modern sense of insecurity. Here 
and there are people with eyes which can see, minds which can 
correlate. They say to themselves: "If the science of the day before 
yesterday is rejected by the people of yesterday, and that of 
yesterday by us of today, is it not possible that what we call 
science now will be rejected by the men of tomorrow?" And the 
bravest of them answer, "It is possible."

Then people appear who can distinguish those problems that the
science of today has not yet explained. And they ask themselves:
"Will science, if it continues on the road it has followed for so
long, ever attain to the solution of these problems? And if it does 
so attain, will men be able to rely on its solution?" In these   
segments are also professional men of learning who can 
remember the time when facts now recognized by the Academies 
as firmly established, were scorned by those same Academies. 
There are also philosophers of aesthetic who write profound 
books about an art which was yesterday condemned as   
nonsense. In writing these books they remove the barriers over 
which art has most recently stepped and set up new ones which 
are to remain for ever in the places they have chosen. They do not 
notice that they are busy erecting barriers, not in front of art, but 
behind it. And if they do notice this, on the morrow they merely 
write fresh books and hastily set their barriers a little further on. 
This performance will go on unaltered until it is realized that the
most extreme principle of aesthetic can never be of value to the
future, but only to the past. No such theory of principle can be
laid down for those things which lie beyond, in the realm of the
immaterial. That which has no material existence cannot be
subjected to a material classification. That which belongs to the
spirit of the future can only be realized in feeling, and to this
feeling the talent of the artist is the only road. Theory is the lamp 
which sheds light on the petrified ideas of yesterday and of the 
more distant past. [Footnote: Cf. Chapter VII.] And as we rise 
higher in the triangle we find that the uneasiness increases, as a 
city built on the most correct architectural plan may be shaken 
suddenly by the uncontrollable force of nature. Humanity is living in 
such a spiritual city, subject to these sudden disturbances for 
which neither architects nor mathematicians have made 
allowance. In one place lies a great wall crumbled to pieces like a 
card house, in another are the ruins of a huge tower which once 
stretched to heaven, built on many presumably immortal spiritual 
pillars. The abandoned churchyard quakes and forgotten graves 
open and from them rise forgotten ghosts. Spots appear on the 
sun and the sun grows dark, and what theory can fight with 
darkness? And in this city live also men deafened by false 
wisdom who hear no crash, and blinded by false wisdom, so that 
they say "our sun will shine more brightly than ever and soon the 
last spots will disappear." But sometime even these men will hear 
and see.

But when we get still higher there is no longer this bewilderment. 
There work is going on which boldly attacks those pillars which 
men have set up. There we find other professional men of learning 
who test matter again and again, who tremble before no problem, 
and who finally cast doubt on that very matter which was yesterday 
the foundation of everything, so that the whole universe is shaken. 
Every day another scientific theory finds bold discoverers who 
overstep the boundaries of prophecy and, forgetful of themselves, 
join the other soldiers in the conquest of some new summit and in 
the hopeless attack on some stubborn fortress. But "there is no 
fortress that man cannot overcome."

On the one hand, FACTS are being established which the  
science of yesterday dubbed swindles. Even newspapers, which 
are for the most part the most obsequious servants of worldly 
success and of the mob, and which trim their sails to every wind, 
find themselves compelled to modify their ironical judgements on 
the "marvels" of  science and even to abandon them altogether. 
Various learned men,  among them ultra-materialists, dedicate 
their strength to the scientific  research of doubtful problems, 
which can no longer be lied about or passed over in silence. 
[FOOTNOTE: Zoller, Wagner, Butleroff (St. Petersburg), Crookes 
(London), etc.; later on, C. H. Richet, C. Flammarion. The 
Parisian  paper Le Matin, published about two years ago the 
discoveries of  the two last named under the title "Je le constate, 
mais je ne l'explique pas." Finally there are C. Lombroso, the 
inventor of the anthropological method of diagnosing crime, and 
Eusapio Palladino.]

On the other hand, the number is increasing of those men who put
no trust in the methods of materialistic science when it deals with 
those questions which have to do with "non-matter," or matter  
which is not accessible to our minds. Just as art is looking for help 
from the primitives, so these men are turning to half-forgotten 
times in order to get help from their half-forgotten methods. 
However, these very methods are still alive and in use among 
nations whom we, from the height of our knowledge, have been 
accustomed to regard with pity and scorn. To such nations belong 
the Indians, who from time to time confront those learned in our 
civilization with problems which we have either passed by 
unnoticed or brushed aside with superficial words and  
explanations. [FOOTNOTE: Frequently in such cases use is  
made of the word hypnotism; that same hypnotism which, in its
earlier form of mesmerism, was disdainfully put aside by various
learned bodies.] Mme. Blavatsky was the first person, after a life 
of many years in India, to see a connection between these  
"savages" and our "civilization." From that moment there began a
tremendous spiritual movement which today includes a large 
number of people and has even assumed a material form in the
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. This society consists of groups who
seek to approach the problem of the spirit by way of the INNER 
knowledge.

The theory of Theosophy which serves as the basis to this 
movement was set out by Blavatsky in the form of a catechism in
which the pupil receives definite answers to his questions from
the theosophical point of view. [FOOTNOTE: E. P. Blavatsky, The
Key of Theosophy, London, 1889.] Theosophy, according to
Blavatsky, is synonymous with ETERNAL TRUTH. "The new 
torchbearer of truth will find the minds of men prepared for his 
message, a language ready for him in which to clothe the new 
truths he brings, an organization awaiting his arrival, which will 
remove the merely mechanical, material obstacles and difficulties 
from his path." And then Blavatsky continues: "The earth will be a
heaven in the twenty-first century in comparison with what it is 
now," and with these words ends her book.

When religion, science and morality are shaken, the two last by
the strong hand of Nietzsche, and when the outer supports
threaten to fall, man turns his gaze from externals in on to
himself. Literature, music and art are the first and most sensitive 
spheres in which this spiritual revolution makes itself felt. They 
reflect the dark picture of the present time and show the 
importance of what at first was only a little point of light noticed by 
few and for the great majority non-existent. Perhaps they even 
grow dark in their turn, but on the other hand they turn away from 
the soulless life of the present towards those substances and 
ideas which give free scope to the non-material strivings of the 
soul.

A poet of this kind in the realm of literature is Maeterlinck. He
takes us into a world which, rightly or wrongly, we term
supernatural. La Princesse Maleine, Les Sept Princesses, Les
Aveugles, etc., are not people of past times as are the heroes in
Shakespeare. They are merely souls lost in the clouds, threatened
by them with death, eternally menaced by some invisible and
sombre power.

Spiritual darkness, the insecurity of ignorance and fear pervade
the world in which they move. Maeterlinck is perhaps one of the
first prophets, one of the first artistic reformers and seers to
herald the end of the decadence just described. The gloom of the
spiritual atmosphere, the terrible, but all-guiding hand, the sense 
of utter fear, the feeling of having strayed from the path, the 
confusion among the guides, all these are clearly felt in his works.

[Footnote: To the front rank of such seers of the decadence
belongs also Alfred Kubin. With irresistible force both Kubin's
drawings and also his novel "Die Andere Seite" [The Other Side] 
seem to engulf us in the terrible atmosphere of empty desolation.]

This atmosphere Maeterlinck creates principally by purely
artistic means. His material machinery (gloomy mountains,
moonlight, marshes, wind, the cries of owls, etc.) plays really a
symbolic role and helps to give the inner note. [Footnote: When
one of Maeterlinck's plays was produced in St. Petersburg under
his own guidance, he himself at one of the rehearsals had a tower
represented by a plain piece of hanging linen. It was of no
importance to him to have elaborate scenery prepared. He did as
children, the greatest imaginers of all time, always do in their
games; for they use a stick for a horse or create entire regiments 
of cavalry out of chalks. And in the same way a chalk with a notch 
in it is changed from a knight into a horse. On similar lines the
imagination of the spectator plays in the modern theatre, and 
especially in that of Russia, an important part. And this is a 
notable element in the transition from the material to the spiritual 
in the theatre of the future.]  Maeterlinck's principal technical 
weapon is his use of words. The word may express an inner 
harmony. This inner harmony springs partly, perhaps principally, 
from the object which it names. But if the object is not itself seen, 
but only its name heard, the mind of the hearer receives an 
abstract impression only, that is to say as of the object  
dematerialized, and a corresponding vibration is immediately set 
up in the HEART.

The apt use of a word (in its poetical meaning), repetition of
this word, twice, three times or even more frequently, according
to the need of the poem, will not only tend to intensify the inner 
harmony but also bring to light unsuspected spiritual properties of 
the word itself. Further than that, frequent repetition of a word 
(again a favourite game of children, which is forgotten in after life) 
deprives the word of its original external meaning. Similarly, in 
drawing, the abstract message of the object drawn tends to be 
forgotten and its meaning lost. Sometimes perhaps we 
unconsciously hear this real harmony sounding together with the 
material or later on with the non- material sense of the object. But 
in the latter case the true harmony exercises a direct impression 
on the soul. The soul undergoes an emotion which has no relation 
to any definite object, an emotion more complicated, I might say 
more super-sensuous than the emotion caused by the sound of a 
bell or of a stringed instrument. This line of development offers 
great possibilities to the literature of the future. In an embryonic
form this word-power has already been used in SERRES 
CHAUDES. 
[Footnote: Serres Chuades, Suivies de Quinze Chansons, par 
Maurice Maeterlinck. Brussels. Lacomblez.] 
As Maeterlinck uses them, words which seem at first to create 
only a neutral impression have really a more subtle value. Even a 
familiar word like "hair," if used in a certain way can intensify an 
atmosphere of sorrow or despair. And this is Maeterlinck's  
method. He shows that thunder, lightning and a moon behind 
driving clouds, in themselves material means, can be used in the 
theatre to create a greater sense of terror than they do in nature.

The true inner forces do not lose their strength and effect so
easily. [Footnote: A comparison between the work of Poe and
Maeterlinck shows the course of artistic transition from the
material to the abstract.] An the word which has two meanings,
the first direct, the second indirect, is the pure material of poetry 
and of literature, the material which these arts alone can 
manipulate and through which they speak to the spirit.

Something similar may be noticed in the music of Wagner. His
famous leitmotiv is an attempt to give personality to his characters 
by something beyond theatrical expedients and light effect. His 
method of using a definite motiv is a purely musical method. It 
creates a spiritual atmosphere by means of a musical phrase 
which precedes the hero, which he seems to radiate forth from 
any distance. [Footnote: Frequent attempts have shown that
such a spiritual atmosphere can belong not only to heroes but to 
any human being. Sensitives cannot, for example, remain in a 
room in which a person has been who is spiritually antagonistic to
them, even though they know nothing of his existence.] The most
modern musicians like Debussy create a spiritual impression,
often taken from nature, but embodied in purely musical form. For
this reason Debussy is often classed with the Impressionist
painters on the ground that he resembles these painters in using
natural phenomena for the purposes of his art. Whatever truth
there may be in this comparison merely accentuates the fact that
the various arts of today learn from each other and often resemble 
each other. But it would be rash to say that this definition is an 
exhaustive statement of Debussy's significance. Despite his 
similarity with the Impressionists this musician is deeply 
concerned with spiritual harmony, for in his works onem hears the 
suffering and tortured nerves of the present time. And further 
Debussy never uses the wholly material note so characteristic of 
programme music, but trusts mainly in the creation of a more 
abstract impression. Debussy has been greatly influenced by 
Russian music, notably by Mussorgsky. So it is not surprising that 
he stands in close relation to the young Russian composers, the 
chief of whom is Scriabin. The experience of the hearer is 
frequently the same during the performance of the works
of these two musicians. He is often snatched quite suddenly from
a series of modern discords into the charm of more or less
conventional beauty. He feels himself often insulted, tossed about 
like a tennis ball over the net between the two parties of the outer 
and the inner beauty. To those who are not accustomed to it the 
inner beauty appears as ugliness because humanity in general 
inclines to the outer and knows nothing of the inner.  Almost 
alone in severing himself from conventional beauty is the Austrian 
composer, Arnold Schonberg. He says in his Harmonielehre: 
"Every combination of notes, every advance is possible, but I am 
beginning to feel that there are also definite rules and conditions 
which incline me to the use of this or that dissonance." 
[Footnote: "Die Musik," p. 104, from the Harmonielehre (Verlag 
der Universal Edition).] 
This means that Schonberg realizes that the greatest freedom of 
all, the freedom of an unfettered art, can never be absolute. Every 
age achieves a certain measure of this freedom, but beyond the 
boundaries of its freedom the mightiest genius can never go. But 
the measure of freedom of each age must be constantly enlarged. 
Schonberg is endeavouring to make complete use of his freedom 
and has already discovered gold mines of new beauty in his 
search for spiritual harmony. His music leads us into a realm 
where musical experience is a matter not of the ear but of the soul 
alone--and from this point begins the music of the future.

A parallel course has been followed by the Impressionist  
movement in painting. It is seen in its dogmatic and most 
naturalistic form in so-called Neo-Impressionism. The theory of 
this is to put on the canvas the whole glitter and brilliance of 
nature, and not only an isolated aspect of her.

It is interesting to notice three practically contemporary and
totally different groups in painting. They are (1) Rossetti and
his pupil Burne-Jones, with their followers; (2) Bocklin and his
school; (3) Segantini, with his unworthy following of photographic 
artists. I have chosen these three groups to illustrate the search for 
the abstract in art. Rossetti sought to revive the non-materialism of 
the pre-Raphaelites. Bocklin busied himself with the mythological  
scenes, but was in contrast to Rossetti in that he gave strongly 
material form to his legendary figures. Segantini, outwardly the 
most material of the three, selected the most ordinary objects 
(hills, stones, cattle, etc.) often painting them with the minutest 
realism, but he never failed to create a spiritual as well as a 
material value, so that really he is the most non-material of the trio.

These men sought for the "inner" by way of the "outer."

By another road, and one more purely artistic, the great seeker
after a new sense of form approached the same problem. 
Cezanne made a living thing out of a teacup, or rather in a teacup 
he realized the existence of something alive. He raised still life
to such a point that it ceased to be inanimate.

He painted these things as he painted human brings, because he
was endowed with the gift of divining the inner life in everything. 
His colour and form are alike suitable to the spiritual harmony. A 
man, a tree, an apple, all were used by Cezanne in the creation of 
something that is called a "picture," and which is a piece of true 
inward and artistic harmony. The same intention actuates the work 
of one of the greatest of the young Frenchmen, Henri Matisse. He 
paints "pictures," and in these "pictures" endeavours to reproduce 
the divine.  [Footnote: Cf. his article in KUNST UND KUNSTLER, 
1909, No.  8.]  To attain this end he requires as a starting point 
nothing but  the object to be painted (human being or whatever it 
may be), and  then the methods that belong to painting alone, 
colour and form.

By personal inclination, because he is French and because he is
specially gifted as a colourist, Matisse is apt to lay too much 
stress on the colour. Like Debussy, he cannot always refrain from
conventional beauty; Impressionism is in his blood. One sees
pictures of Matisse which are full of great inward vitality, produced 
by the stress of the inner need, and also pictures which possess 
only outer charm, because they were painted on an outer impulse. 
(How often one is reminded of Manet in this.) His work seems to 
be typical French painting, with its dainty sense of melody,  raised 
from time to time to the summit of a great hill above the clouds.

But in the work of another great artist in Paris, the Spaniard
Pablo Picasso, there is never any suspicion of this conventional
beauty. Tossed hither and thither by the need for self-expression, 
Picasso hurries from one manner to another. At times a great gulf 
appears between consecutive manners, because  Picasso leaps 
boldly and is found continually by his bewildered  crowd of 
followers standing at a point very different from that  at which they 
saw him last. No sooner do they think that they have reached him 
again than he has changed once more. In this way there arose 
Cubism, the latest of the French movements, which is treated  in 
detail in Part II. Picasso is trying to arrive at constructiveness 
by way of proportion. In his latest works (1911) he  has achieved 
the logical destruction of matter, not, however, by dissolution but 
rather by a kind of a parcelling out of its various divisions and a 
constructive scattering of these divisions about the canvas. But he 
seems in this most recent work distinctly desirous of keeping an 
appearance of matter. He shrinks from no innovation, and if colour 
seems likely to balk him in his search for a pure artistic form, he 
throws it overboard and paints a picture in brown and white; and 
the problem of purely artistic form is the real problem of his life.

In their pursuit of the same supreme end Matisse and Picasso
stand side by side, Matisse representing colour and Picasso 
form.

IV. THE PYRAMID

And so at different points along the road are the different arts,
saying what they are best able to say, and in the language which
is peculiarly their own. Despite, or perhaps thanks to, the 
differences between them, there has never been a time when the 
arts approached each other more nearly than they do today, in this 
later phase of spiritual development.

In each manifestation is the seed of a striving towards the
abstract, the non-material. Consciously or unconsciously they are
obeying Socrates' command--Know thyself. Consciously or
unconsciously artists are studying and proving their material,
setting in the balance the spiritual value of those elements, with 
which it is their several privilege to work.

And the natural result of this striving is that the various arts are 
drawing together. They are finding in Music the best teacher. With 
few exceptions music has been for some centuries the art which 
has devoted itself not to the reproduction of natural phenomena, 
but rather to the expression of the artist's soul, in musical sound.

A painter, who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, 
however artistic, in his longing to express his inner life, cannot but 
envy the ease with which music, the most non-material of the arts 
today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply the methods 
of music to his own art. And from this results that modern desire 
for rhythm in painting, for mathematical, abstract construction, for 
repeated notes of colour, for setting colour in motion.

This borrowing of method by one art from another, can only be
truly successful when the application of the borrowed methods is
not superficial but fundamental. One art must learn first how 
another uses its methods, so that the methods may afterwards be
applied to the borrower's art from the beginning, and suitably.
The artist must not forget that in him lies the power of true 
application of every method, but that that power must be 
developed.

In manipulation of form music can achieve results which are
beyond the reach of painting. On the other hand, painting is
ahead of music in several particulars. Music, for example, has at
its disposal duration of time; while painting can present to the
spectator the whole content of its message at one moment.
[Footnote: These statements of difference are, of course,
relative; for music can on occasions dispense with extension of
time, and painting make use of it.] Music, which is outwardly
unfettered by nature, needs no definite form for its expression.

[Footnote: How miserably music fails when attempting to express
material appearances is proved by the affected absurdity of
programme music. Quite lately such experiments have been 
made. The imitation in sound of croaking frogs, of farmyard  
noises, of household duties, makes an excellent music hall turn 
and is amusing enough. But in serious music such attempts are 
merely warnings against any imitation of nature. Nature has her 
own language, and a powerful one; this language cannot be 
imitated. The sound of a farmyard in music is never successfully
reproduced, and is unnecessary waste of time. The Stimmung of
nature can be imparted by every art, not, however, by imitation,
but by the artistic divination of its inner spirit.]

Painting today is almost exclusively concerned with the 
reproduction  of natural forms and phenomena. Her business is 
now to test her strength and methods, to know herself as music 
has  done for a long time, and then to use her powers to a truly 
artistic end.

And so the arts are encroaching one upon another, and from a
proper use of this encroachment will rise the art that is truly
monumental. Every man who steeps himself in the spiritual
possibilities of his art is a valuable helper in the building of
the spiritual pyramid which will some day reach to heaven.

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