And in conclusion he asserts, it is not of vital importance whether the _form_ is personal, national, according to prevailing mode, or whether it is related to “schools,” “movements,” etc., etc., or is isolated. “_The important question is whether the form has grown out of the inner, spiritual necessity._” * * * * * In art, especially in painting, we have today striking richness of form which shows the immense striving that is going on. To adhere stubbornly to one form is to travel a lane that has no outlet. Many call the present state of painting “anarchy,” and so they say of music, but this appearance of anarchy, of lawlessness, is due to the workings of spiritual forces that cannot be expressed in old forms, but demand new manifestations. It is one thing to reproduce on canvas an accurate representation of an object, but such a representation is no more than the outer shell; to find out whether the picture has any real, any spiritual value one must get rid of this outer shell. Step by step the “objective,” the photographic elements are eliminated until in the end there may be no trace of any object, and with this elimination the spiritual content becomes plainer and plainer. The steps are: Realism--abstraction-- Abstraction--_reality_. * * * * * Objects need not necessarily be eliminated from a picture, but they should be used _not_ for the sake of forcing their photographic likenesses upon the observer, but solely to more perfectly express the inner, the spiritual significance of the work. If a painter introduces a suggestion of a landscape or a bit of still life it should be for the purpose of making _his_ meaning, _his_ inner feeling plainer to the beholder, and not for the purpose of making a colored photograph of a field or flowers. Therefore it does not matter whether _actual_ or _abstract_ forms are used by the artist, so long as both are used to express _spiritual values_. The sole question regarding form the artist should put to himself is, “Which form, or combination of forms, shall I use in this case to express most fully and plainly my spiritual mood?” * * * * * The _ideal art critic_ is not the critic who tries to discover mistakes, ignorance, imitations in the form, but he who tries to _feel_ and _understand_ how the form _expresses_ the _inner feeling_ of the artist and who tries to make the public understand. A painter may use new and strange forms for the sake of the forms, just for the sake of painting new and strange pictures, but the result will be lifeless. It is only when new and strange forms are used _because_ they are necessary to express a spiritual content that the result is a _living_ work of art. “_The world reverberates; it is a cosmos of spiritually working human beings. Thus matter is living spirit._” * * * * * Rather a fine philosophy, is it not?