Concerning the Spiritual in Art

how the course of constructive effort in pa

according to an obvious and simple form.

a principal form. Probably the principal form may be hard to grasp outwardly, and for tha

ich the melodic principle predominates. The history o

the main, forms a triangle. The upright figures lean proportionately to the triangle. The outstretched arm and door-curtain are the "fermate."] Each form which goes to make up the composition has a simple inner value, which has in its turn a melody. For this reason I call the composition melodic. By the agency of Cezanne and later of Hodler [Footnote: English readers may roughly parallel Hodler with Augustus John for purposes of the argument.-M.T.H.S.] this kind of composition won new life, and earned the name of "r

mposition, with a s

numerous pictures an

the work of old Ge

anese, the Russian i

plies to many of H

ly there is a composition founded on rest and balance. The mind thinks at once of choral compositions, of Mozart and Beeth

melodic element plays a subordinate part, and that only rar

ee different sourc

nature, expressed in purely artisti

ression of inner character, the non-materi

." In this, reason, consciousness, purpose, play an overwhelming part. But of the calculation nothing appears, only the feeling.

rk constructive. This will be in contrast to the claim of the Impressionists that they could explain nothing, that their art came upon them by inspiration. We have b