…It seemed that a subject, a model, be it a person or a group of objects, is both highest criterion and highest goal. The essence of the whole affair is to express oneself, no, no, not exactly oneself but one’s attitude towards that which is observed, with the greatest possible precision and clarity… And how is this to be done? This is where the headaches began: the history of art offered up a multitude of every imaginable sort of means, systems, approaches, manners and, finally, laws and canons. And it set them one against the other with a pitiless subject that seemed so close and was ever so elusive. It sometimes happens in dreams that you are trying to get somewhere, but it, that is, the thing you are striving towards, silently moves away from you, as if dissipating. It’s much simpler to create this subject, to become its maker, its master, and then all doubt falls away “of its own accord.” This is how things progressed…