There are differing accounts as to how "Caligari" was first received by audiences and critics immediately after its release. Stephen Brockmann, Anton Kaes and film theorist Kristin Thompson say it was popular with both the general public and well-respected by critics. Robinson wrote, "The German critics, almost without exception, ranged from favourable to ecstatic". Kracauer said critics were "unanimous in praising "Caligari" as the first work of art on the screen", but also said it was "too high-brow to become popular in Germany". Barlow said it was often the subject of critical disapproval, which he believes is because early film reviewers attempted to assign fixed definitions to the young art of cinema, and thus had trouble accepting the bizarre and unusual elements of "Caligari". Some critics felt it imitated a stage production too closely. Other commentators, like critic Herbert Ihering and novelist Blaise Cendrars, objected to the presentation of the story as a madman's delusion because they felt it belittled Expressionism as an artform. Theatre critic Helmut Grosse condemned the film's visual design as clichéd and derivative, calling it a "cartoon and reproduction of designs rather than from what actually took place on stage". Several reviewers, like Kurt Tucholsky and Blaise Cendrars, criticized the use of real actors in front of artificially-painted sets, saying it created an inconsistent level of stylization. Critic Herbert Ihering echoed this point in a 1920 review: "If actors are acting without energy and are playing within landscapes and rooms which are formally 'excessive', the continuity of the principle is missing".