Ever since 1913 when we were all startled by the pictures shown at the Armory Exhibition arranged by the late Arthur B. Davies and John Quinn I have given my entire time to try to understand and put into words why this new approach in art came about.

This winter when ask to give two courses on what we term for lack of a better word - Modern Art - a new illumination came to me through the reading of Spengler's Decline of the West.

What is of supreme interest is that though he personally rejects all contribution in the field of art - yet he illumined for those of us who see the new vision why it has made it appearance.

All that he writes about Time and Space - is very illuminating and I would like to quote just a few sentences of what he says on this subject.

"Space is a conception - but Time is a word. To indicate something "inconceivable - a sound-symbol. Where heretofore we beleived XMMX "Time and Space to be related - we realize now that Time is only an "arbitrary conception - created by our thinking. A conception which "does not exist in reality."

This separation of Time and Space has created an entirely new outlook upon art - espacially with those who are living in the now.

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In consequence art to many minds today belongs to - Space Consciousness
With this new approach to Space and this new need for expressing art in
relation to space - old forms of art had to give way.

Art never has to give way - but forms do, for they become the empty
symbol of the past.

The creative artists must leave his own tracks on the sands of time.

He cannot carefully follow in the foot-prints of those who preceded
him. And thus when a whole new conception enters life - it illumines him.

Thus in the realm of the dance three new concepts came into existence,
Space—Experience, Space-Consciousness, Space-Creating.

The result was that it did away with the ballet.

In the realm of music it has done away with melody and emphasized
counter-point and harmony.

In the realm of painting it has done away with realism and emphasized
the abstract. That is why the abstract is emotional - and not as many
people believe - merely intellectual. It is the fusion of the emotions
and the intellect as has always been found in great art.

This power to create visions out of ones inner experience is not
yet universal, and some very beautiful minds cannot follow.

Take for instance that incident which Herman Bahr relates in his valuable

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little book - Expressinismuss - where he relates the incident which
Johannes Mueller,the pupil of Goethe,and the teacher of Virchow and
Heckel tells of, when Goethe and Schiller leaving a meeting of the
Society of Natural History entered into a conversation on the meta-
morphosis of plants and where Goethe created a symbolic plant.
Johannes

That is what happened when Abstract Art came into existence.

They are experiences - not ideas. That is why I cannot emphasize sufficiently often - when people call this art too intellectual or too cerebral - that they cannot follow - just as Schiller could not follow Goethe when he experienced these plants forms.

In the realm of architecture this new conception of - Space-Consciousness - has done away with ornamentation. Where it still exists, except in great simple forms which unite with the whole XXXXXXXX concept of Forms in Light - which Space-Consciousness creates - it shows that

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other forces were influencing him and not conscious conceptions - other-wise there would not be these enomolies we see so consently in or on our American buildings - when our gorgeous sky-scrapers are ornamented with heroic renaissance statues.

And in closing it were well to remember that great art is the THOUGHT Power or THOUGHT CULTURE prevalent at the time of its birth.

This is our responsibility as artists - whether painters, sculptors or architects. We leave our impress on our times - for future generations to pass judgement on - whether we belonged to those with vision or whether we were blind to the great changing forces about us.