When I imaginedthat on seeing his pictures I should get a clue to the understanding of hisstrange character I was mistaken. They merely increased the astonishment withwhich he filled me. I was more at sea than ever. The only thing that seemedclear to me -- and perhaps even this was fanciful -- was that he waspassionately striving for liberation from some power that held him. But whatthe power was and what line the liberation would take remained obscure. Eachone of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and cancommunicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value,so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey toothers the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them,and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellowsand unknown by them. We are like people living in a country whose language theyknow so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say,they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain isseething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of thegardener's aunt is in the house.

The finalimpression I received was of a prodigious effort to express some state of thesoul, and in this effort, I fancied, must be sought the explanation of what soutterly perplexed me. It was evident that colours and forms had a significancefor Strickland that was peculiar to himself. He was under an intolerablenecessity to convey something that he felt, and he created them with thatintention alone. He did not hesitate to simplify or to distort if he could getnearer to that unknown thing he sought. Facts were nothing to him, for beneaththe mass of irrelevant incidents he looked for something significant tohimself. It was as though he had become aware of the soul of the universe andwere compelled to express it.

我曾经幻想，看过他的图画以后，我也许多少能够了解一些他的奇怪的性格，现在我知道我的想法错了。他的画只不过更增加了他已经在我心中引起的惊诧。我比没看画以前更加迷惘了。只有一件事我觉得我是清楚的——也许连这件事也是我的幻想——，那就是，他正竭尽全力想挣脱掉某种束缚着他的力量。但是这究竟是怎样一种力量，他又将如何寻求解脱，我一直弄不清楚。我们每个人生在世界上都是孤独的。每个人都被囚禁在一座铁塔里，只能靠一些符号同别人传达自己的思想；而这些符号并没有共同的价值，因此它们的意义是模糊的、不确定的。我们非常可怜地想把自己心中的财富传送给别人，但是他们却没有接受这些财富的能力。因此我们只能孤独地行走，尽管身体互相依傍却并不在一起，既不了解别的人也不能为别人所了解。我们好象住在异国的人。对于这个国家的语言懂得非常少，虽然我们有各种美妙的、深奥的事情要说，却只能局限于会话手册上那几句陈腐、平庸的话。我们的脑子里充满了各种思想，而我们能说的只不过是象“园丁的姑母有一把伞在屋子里”这类话。

他的这些画给我的最后一个印象是他为了表现某一精神境界所作的惊人的努力。我认为，要想解释他的作品为什么使我这样惶惑莫解，也必须从这一角度去寻找答案。对于思特里克兰德，色彩和形式显然具有一种独特的意义。他几乎无法忍受地感到必须把自己的某种感受传达给别人；这是他进行创作的唯一意图。只要他觉得能够接近他追寻的事物，采用简单的线条也好，画得歪七扭八也好，他一点儿也不在乎。他根本不考虑真实情况，因为他要在一堆互不相关的偶然的现象下面寻找他自己感到意义重大的事物。他好象已经抓到了宇宙的灵魂，一定要把它表现出来不可。