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arts. The first Neo-plastic pictures were painted in 1917 and 1918. We first 
saw reproductions of the work of Mondrian, Doesburg, Vantongerloo in 
Zurich around 1920. 
Our very first concrete works made a final break with change, the flow of 
all things, to which man too is subjected, hence with nature, the visual world, 
which is after all only a part of reality. 
Holy silence 
Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned away from si 
lence. Every day he invents machines and gadgets that multiply noise and 
distract man from essential life, from reflection, from spiritual immersion. 
Motor-car, airplane, radio, atom bomb are the latest great victories of progress. 
Man today has nothing essential to do, but he wants to do this nothing with 
speed and superhuman noise. He wants to be distracted, and fails to suspect 
that the robot who now holds the reins is driving him to the meaningless. In 
the midst of all the horn-blowing, howling, screeching, thundering, crashing, 
whistling, gnashing and chirping, he feels confident. His anxiety is calmed. 
His inhuman emptiness grows like a monstrous gray plant. 
Dreamers 
Today only a few dreamers continue to sacrifice their lives for the sake of 
clarity. They eat badly and sleep on hard beds. They suffer heat and cold. 
But when the wings of light flutter round them all the misery of their lives 
falls off, and in their bare cells they sing and proclaim the real suns, the real 
life. 
Dada was more than a kettle-drum, a big noise and a joke. Dada protested 
against the stupidity and vanity of mankind. Among the Dadaists there were 
martyrs and believers, who sacrificed their lives in the search for life and 
beauty. Ball was one of these great dreamers. He dreamed and believed in 
poetry and the image. In Flucht aus der Zeit (“Flight from the Times”), Hugo 
Ball writes: “The word and the image are one. Painters and poets belong 
together. Christ is image and word. The word and the image have been cruci 
fied.” Malevitch painted the crucified image, and for this he was crucified by 
the Russians. The dreamers are still living in the catacombs within the image, 
the word, and music.