So it is not surprising that he stands in close relation to the young Russian composers, the chief of whom is Scriabin.  The experience of the hearer is frequently the same during the performance of the works of these two musicians.  He is often snatched quite suddenly from a series of modern discords into the charm of more or less conventional beauty.  He feels himself often insulted, tossed about like a tennis ball over the net between the two parties of the outer and the inner beauty.  To those who are not accustomed to it the inner beauty appears as ugliness because humanity in general inclines to the outer and knows nothing of the inner.  Almost alone in severing himself from conventional beauty is the Austrian composer, Arnold Schonberg.  He says in his Harmonielehre:  “Every combination of notes, every advance is possible, but I am beginning to feel that there are also definite rules and conditions which incline me to the use of this or that dissonance.” [Footnote:  “Die Musik,” p. 104, from the Harmonielehre (Verlag der Universal Edition).] This means that Schonberg realizes that the greatest freedom of all, the freedom of an unfettered art, can never be absolute.  Every age achieves a certain measure of this freedom, but beyond the boundaries of its freedom the mightiest genius can never go.  But the measure of freedom of each age must be constantly enlarged.  Schonberg is endeavouring to make complete use of his freedom and has already discovered gold mines of new beauty in his search for spiritual harmony.  His music leads us into a realm where musical experience is a matter not of the ear but of the soul alone—­and from this point begins the music of the future.

A parallel course has been followed by the Impressionist movement in painting.  It is seen in its dogmatic and most naturalistic form in so-called Neo-Impressionism.  The theory of this is to put on the canvas the whole glitter and brilliance of nature, and not only an isolated aspect of her.

It is interesting to notice three practically contemporary and totally different groups in painting.  They are (1) Rossetti and his pupil Burne-Jones, with their followers; (2) Bocklin and his school; (3) Segantini, with his unworthy following of photographic artists.  I have chosen these three groups to illustrate the search for the abstract in art.  Rossetti sought to revive the non-materialism of the pre-Raphaelites.  Bocklin busied himself with the mythological scenes, but was in contrast to Rossetti in that he gave strongly material form to his legendary figures.  Segantini, outwardly the most material of the three, selected the most ordinary objects (hills, stones, cattle, etc.) often painting them with the minutest realism, but he never failed to create a spiritual as well as a material value, so that really he is the most non-material of the trio.

These men sought for the “inner” by way of the “outer.”

By another road, and one more purely artistic, the great seeker after a new sense of form approached the same problem.  Cezanne made a living thing out of a teacup, or rather in a teacup he realized the existence of something alive.  He raised still life to such a point that it ceased to be inanimate.