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Highways and Byways, 1929. Oil on canvas, original frame: 83.7 × 67.5 cm. Walraf-Richard Museum and Ludwig Museum, Cologne.

3.6.1902. My Italian trip now lies a month behind me. A strict review of my situation as a creative artist doesn’t yield very encouraging results; I don’t know why, but I continue nonetheless to be hopeful. Perhaps from the realisation that at the root of my devastating self-criticism there is, after all, some spiritual development.

Actually, the main thing now is not to paint precociously but to be, or at least to become, an individual. The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions. Not only to master life in practice, but to shape it meaningfully within me and to achieve as mature an attitude before it as possible. Obviously this isn’t accomplished with a few general precepts but grows like Nature. Besides, I wouldn’t know how to find any such precepts. A Weltanschauung will come of itself; the will alone doesn’t determine which direction will yield the clearest path: this is partly settled in the maternal womb and is ordained by fate.

As a beginner in this profession I shall not be able to please people; they will ask things of me that any clever young person with talent might easily come up with. My consolation is that the sincerity of my intention will always be more of a check to me than my lack of skill. Starting from an awareness of the prevalence of law, to broaden out until the horizon of thought once again becomes organised, and complexities, automatically falling into order, become simple again.

Fearfully sober things, these: the canvas, the painting surface, the base. Not much more exciting: the tracing of lines, the treatment of forms. Over it all, light, the creation of space through light. Any content is prohibited for the time being. The purely pictorial style. How far away the true experience of these things still is! For the time being, the notion of the art of living is more fascinating. No convention such as “the profession”. Thoughts about broadening the horizon: chat, by all means!

Hilterfingen am Thunersee. 4.6.1902. I sit on the same spot I did a year and two years ago. Some sixty feet above the sea, between the church and a young grove. An idyll! Everything that once seemed distant to me, intimately closer. “Ulysse a vu la mer”, it said in our guide book. That large body of water… but it’s small; you can hear the river Kander rushing into it on the other side. The Stockhorn over yonder is no trifle, of course, but there are lords of more consequence who covered themselves up in order not to disturb us. This is the essential thing about these mountains.

What a change within me. I have seen a piece of living history. The Forum and the Vatican spoke to me. Humanism jumps at my throat; it is more than an invention of high-school teachers to torture their students. I must go along with it, if only for a little way. Farewell, elves, moon fairy, star dust. My lucky star is not rising, not for a long time yet. Rejoice, barbarian! if you can think clearly. “Ulysse a vu la mer” and I, Rome. Enough of magic! Here is neo-classical Europe! Satire must not be a kind of superfluous ill will, but ill will from a higher point of view. Ridiculous man, divine God. Or else, hatred against the bogged-down vileness of average men as against the possible heights that humanity might attain.

Sunset, 1930. Oil on canvas, 46.1 × 70.5 cm. Gift of Mary and Leigh Block, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.

In earlier days (even as a child), the beauty of landscapes was quite clear to me. A background for the soul’s moods. Now dangerous moments occur when Nature tries to devour me; at such times I am annihilated, but at peace. This would be fine for old people, but I…, I am my life’s debtor, for I have given promises. To whom? To me, to her (loudly and firmly), to my friends (silently, but no less firmly).

Frightened, I jump up from the bank, the struggle begins anew. Bitterness has returned. I am not Pan in the reeds, I am merely a human being and want to climb a few steps, but really climb them. Affect the world, but not as part of a multiplicity like bacteria, but as an entity, down here, with connections to what is up there. To be anchored in the cosmos, a stranger here, but strong. This, I suppose, will probably be the final goal. But how to reach it? To grow, for the time being, simply to grow.

As exercise: To set up goals that do not hold for the multitude – a kind of playing of études. Higher things will then follow more smoothly, more easily. Peace doesn’t exist, the peaceful man devoured himself (one evening, in the Bächimatt, near Thun). O individual, you who serve no-one, you useless one! Create aims for yourself: play, delude yourself and others, be an artist. Now, so many substitute aims lie about that the choice is painful. The wanderers on the path of art damnedly resemble the vagabonds on the road. Schiller’s Fiesco, good subject, and Poems. Gorki, The Vagabond.

22.6.1902. Everything that used to be foreign to me, all the rational procedures in my profession, I now begin to resort to after all from necessity, at least as a matter of experiment. Apparently I am becoming perfectly sober and small, perfectly unpoetic and unenthusiastic. I imagine a very small formal motif and try to execute it economically, not in several stages of course, but in a single act, armed with a pencil. At least it is genuine activity, and repeated small acts will yield more in the end than poetic enthusiasm without form or arrangement.

I am continually occupied with the nude body, which is well adapted to this kind of work. I project on the surface; that is, the essence of the subject must always become visible, even if this is impossible in nature, which is not adapted to this relief style. The absence of foreshortening also plays a crucial part in the process. It is small and tight work, but at least it has become a real activity.

I am starting to learn all over again: I begin to execute forms as if I knew nothing about painting. For I have discovered a very small, undisputed, personal possession: a particular sort of three-dimensional representation on the flat surface. And when night comes I can lie down with the consciousness that work has been accomplished. And that also means something. A flying man! I force the third dimension into the flat plane. Disposition of the arms, paired legs, absence of foreshortening. I even dream about it. I dream of myself. I dream that I become my model. Projected self. Upon awakening, I realise the truth of it. I lie in a complicated position, but flat, attached to the linen surface. I am my style.