Scriabin's attempt to intensify musical tone by corresponding use
of colour is necessarily tentative. In the perfected stage-
composition the two elements are increased by the third, and
endless possibilities of combination and individual use are
opened up. Further, the external can be combined with the
internal harmony, as Schonberg has attempted in his quartettes.
It is impossible here to go further into the developments of this
idea. The reader must apply the principles of painting already
stated to the problem of stage-composition, and outline for
himself the possibilities of the theatre of the future, founded
on the immovable principle of the inner need.

From what has been said of the combination of colour and form,
the way to the new art can be traced. This way lies today between
two dangers. On the one hand is the totally arbitrary application
of colour to geometrical form--pure patterning. On the other hand
is the more naturalistic use of colour in bodily form--pure
phantasy. Either of these alternatives may in their turn be
exaggerated. Everything is at the artist's disposal, and the
freedom of today has at once its dangers and its possibilities.
We may be present at the conception of a new great epoch, or we
may see the opportunity squandered in aimless extravagance.

[Footnote: On this question see my article "Uber die Formfrage"--
in "Der Blaue Reiter" (Piper-Verlag, 1912). Taking the work of
Henri Rousseau as a starting point, I go on to prove that the new
naturalism will not only be equivalent to but even identical with
abstraction.]

That art is above nature is no new discovery. [Footnote: Cf.