descends wholly from Gauguin. The best known representative is
Maurice Denis. But he has become a slave to sentimentality, and
has been left behind. Matisse is the most prominent French artist
who has followed Gauguin with curves. In Germany a group of young
men, who form the Neue Kunstlevereinigung in Munich, work almost
entirely in sweeping curves, and have reduced natural objects
purely to flowing, decorative units.

But while they have followed Gauguin's lead in abandoning
representation both of these two groups of advance are lacking in
spiritual meaning. Their aim becomes more and more decorative,
with an undercurrent of suggestion of simplified form. Anyone who
has studied Gauguin will be aware of the intense spiritual value
of his work. The man is a preacher and a psychologist, universal
by his very unorthodoxy, fundamental because he goes deeper than
civilization. In his disciples this great element is wanting.
Kandinsky has supplied the need. He is not only on the track of
an art more purely spiritual than was conceived even by Gauguin,
but he has achieved the final abandonment of all representative
intention. In this way he combines in himself the spiritual and
technical tendencies of one great branch of Post-Impressionism.

The question most generally asked about Kandinsky's art is: "What
is he trying to do?" It is to be hoped that this book will do
something towards answering the question. But it will not do
everything. This--partly because it is impossible to put into
words the whole of Kandinsky's ideal, partly because in his
anxiety to state his case, to court criticism, the author has
been tempted to formulate more than is wise. His analysis of
colours and their effects on the spectator is not the real basis