I’m familiar with the kind of founding that takes place on the basis of a real need. You’ll see what I mean. Not so long ago, three painters came together by chance in an old city. The three painters of course did not talk about art. At least that’s the way it seemed. They spent the evening in the back room of an old inn telling each other about their travel adventures and experiences of various kinds. Their stories became ever shorter and more literal, until finally they were left with just a few jokes that they kept tossing back and forth.

To prevent any misunderstanding, I must also say right away that these were real artists, the kind that nature, as it were, intends to be such and not artists by chance. This unfruitful evening in the back room can take nothing away from this; indeed you will soon find out how this evening proceeded.

Other people, ordinary profane beings, came to the inn; the artists felt intruded upon and left. From the moment they stepped out the door, they became different people. They walked in the middle of the street, somewhat separated from each other. It is true that traces of laughter remained on their faces, this odd disordering of the features, but their eyes had already become serious and watchful. Suddenly the one in the middle nudged the one on the right. The latter understood him at once. There before them was a street, a narrow one filled with warm, diaphanous shadows. This ran slightly uphill so that one had a very good perspective on it, and there was something extraordinarily mysterious about it, but at the same time familiar. The three artists let this one moment soak into them. They said nothing, for they knew that this could not be expressed in words. After all, they had become painters because there is much that cannot be spoken. Suddenly the moon rose somewhere, tracing a single gable in silver, and a song was heard rising from a courtyard. “Cheap effects,” grumbled the middle one, and they continued walking.