The very first requirement for the artistic creation is therefore the elimination of the indifferent, the selection of those features of the complex offering of nature or social life which tell the real story, which express the true emotional values and which suggest the interest for everything which is involved in this particular episode of the world.

But this leads on to the natural consequence, that the artist must not only select the important traits, but must artificially heighten their power and increase their strength.

We spoke of the landscape with the tree on the rock and the roaring surf, and we saw how the scientist studies its smallest elements, the cells of the tree, the molecules of the seawater and of the rock.

How differently does the artist proceed! He does not care even for the single leaves which the photographer might reproduce.

If a painter renders such a landscape with his masterly brush, he gives us only the leading movements of those branches which the storm tears, and the great swing in the curve of the wave.