Part I. Artistic Milieu: the training of the artist: The first teacher: Anton Ažbè -- Munich's secession movement -- Jugendstil: the arts and crafts movement -- Prophets of abstraction -- The second teacher: Franz Stuck -- part II. The impulse to artistic activism: The Phalanx society -- The critic and exhibitor -- part III. The symbolist Milieu: search for inner significance: The Stefan George circle -- The Munich artists' theater -- part IV. Emergence to abstraction: The craftsman -- Graphic act: from ornament to abstract.