[343] 24) Braque-- 25) Braque^a--[The slide] was upside down... it is not much different!--Now what does a still life since 1900 mean? This is a tremendously metaphysical^b question, and I must answer it at the end of this hour metaphysically, because we want to go on there, then, next Tuesday. When I was in Paris two years ago, there was an exhibition of still lives from the 16th century on. And the nearer one comes to the 20th century, the more the importance of still lives increases. Today, when you go through exhibitions with abstract non-representative... art, you can

call almost everything "Still Life." Now that means the artistic vision is gone--following the industrial analysis of our world--to the elements. But in doing so, in showing the cubes and forms which are the elements of natural reality, in [contrast] to the organic forms, it gives to these elements a depth-dimension which they have neither in reality nor even before in art. The cubistic tendency, which is of course expressed most fully in the so-called cubistic style, but which is much larger than a special style, means going down to the elements of reality, to the non-organic elements of reality, and to find there the power of being. They become cosmic representatives. They are not simply pieces of stones or planes or cubes, as you can see them in [the]

mathematical [realm], but they are expressions of ultimate reality in going below the surface of things and then finding in the deeper levels representatives of the ultimate reality in the non-organic realm. That is the meaning of cubism^c, and I will speak more about it. We must stop now. So I can promise you we will use the whole hour on Tuesday, but then we will be through.