The essence of art can never change. I'm convinced you can't talk about art. At best, you will have a translation, a poetic paraphrase, and as for that I'll leave that to the poets. - Karl Schmidt-Rotluff

One year after the "bridge" dissolved, Karl Schmidt-Rotluff revealed his conviction in the art magazine "Art and Artists". He replied to the survey on the "New Art Program":

" I do not know any" art program". I also absolutely do not know what that could be. If one could speak of something like this as an "art program," that is in my opinion ancient and eternally the same. Only that art manifests itself again and again in new forms, because there are always new personalities - their nature can, I believe, never change. It's possible that I'm wrong. But I know that I have no program, only the inexplicable longing to grasp what I see and feel and find the purest expression for it. In quiet and quite private I am even of the opinion that nothing can be said about art at all.

(Karl Schmidt Rottluff in "Art and Artists", March 1914)