Here's a short, hand-written essay by Kurt which appears to have been drafted while in attendance at or not long after his graduation from Princeton University. As such, it's as an early gesture in his direction of art criticism, an activity which would occupy his talents as an art historian in various publications for the rest of the decade. His theme anticipates the thrust of his later, more sophisticated, articles-- he writes, "...in approaching the 20th century, it becomes increasingly difficult to single out works of art as “masterpieces”...New standards of selection should be introduced which enable us to consider the complete oeuvre of a painter as an entity." No typewritten version of this essay has been found in his archives.
