An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental
view of man and of existence. In forming a view of man’s nature, a fundamental
question one must answer is whether man possesses the faculty of
volition—because one’s conclusions and evaluations in regard to all the
characteristics, requirements and actions of man depend on the answer.
Their opposite answers to this question constitute the respective basic
premises of two broad categories of art: Romanticism, which recognizes the
existence of man’s volition—and Naturalism, which denies it.