The autonomy of art that emerged through Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Mondrian, and the Russian Constructivism had seen painting develop independent of imitations or decoration, and so the content of art became much closer to that of music.

Such ideas made him [Constable] a precursor of the essentially twentieth-century view that art and life are inseparable and there is no such thing as ideal subject-matter.

Impressionism was not just a style of painting, it was a new attitude to art and life; it is this attitude that marks the beginning of modern art.

Art and life are seen to be rich and mutually enriching

The typical English painting is narrative in character. The English are a nation of diarists.

[Kandinsky] arrived, as they say, 'with snow on his boots', and it never really melted.