Art as Seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Within the Mystery cultures of ancient history, art, science and religion formed a unity that offered direction and spiritual nourishment to the broader society. Today, art, science and religion can again be reunited. However, as Marie Steiner indicates in her introduction to these lectures, these aspects of our culture need rejuvenation through fresh spiritual understanding and knowledge. Art cannot be renewed through compromise, but only by returning to the spiritual foundations of life. As she says: "The remedy lies in unlocking the wisdom of the Mysteries and presenting it to humanity in a form adapted to contemporary needs." In these wide-ranging lectures, Rudolf Steiner offers spiritual insight for the modern day into a revitalised world of the arts. His themes include: the relation of art to technology, the moral experience of the worlds of colour and music, the legendary Norwegian Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson, and the relationship between the various arts of architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry, eurythmy and the human being.

Leseprobe

RUDOLF STEINER (1861–1925) called his spiritual philosophy ‘anthroposophy’, meaning ‘wisdom of the human being’. As a highly developed seer, he based his work on direct knowledge and perception of spiritual dimensions. He initiated a modern and universal ‘science of spirit’, accessible to anyone willing to exercise clear and unprejudiced thinking.

From his spiritual investigations Steiner provided suggestions for the renewal of many activities, including education (both general and special), agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, philosophy, religion and the arts. Today there are thousands of schools, clinics, farms and other organizations involved in practical work based on his principles. His many published works feature his research into the spiritual nature of the human being, the evolution of the world and humanity, and methods of personal development. Steiner wrote some 30 books and delivered over 6000 lectures across Europe. In 1924 he founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world.

ART AS SEEN IN THE LIGHT OF MYSTERY WISDOM

Eight lectures given in Dornach between 28 December 1914 and 4 January 1915

RUDOLF STEINER

with an Introduction by Marie Steiner

Translated by P. Wehrle and J. Collis

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

Translation by P. Wehrle (lectures 1, 4–8) and J. Collis (lectures 2 and 3) Translation revised by J. Collis

Rudolf Steiner Press Hillside House, The Square Forest Row, East Sussex RH18 5ES

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2012

Originally published in German under the title Kunst im Lichte der Mysterienweisheit (volume 275 in the Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. This authorized translation published by kind permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

Translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 1996

The moral right of the translator has been asserted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 85584 312 7

Cover by Andrew Morgan Typeset by DP Photosetting, Aylesbury, Bucks.

Contents

Synopsis

Foreword

Introduction by Marie Steiner

LECTURE 1Technology and Art Dornach, 28 December 1914

LECTURE 2Impulses of Transformation in the Evolution of Art—I Dornach, 29 December 1914

LECTURE 3Impulses of Transformation in the Evolution of Art—II Dornach, 30 December 1914

LECTURE 4Cosmic New Year—The Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson Dornach, 31 December 1914

LECTURE 5Moral Experience of Colour and Music Dornach, 1 January 1915

LECTURE 6Working with Sculptural Architecture—I Dornach, 2 January 1915

LECTURE 7The Future Jupiter Evolution and its Beings Dornach, 3 January 1915

LECTURE 8Working with Sculptural Architecture—II Dornach, 4 January 1915

Notes and References

Publisher’s Note Regarding Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures

Synopsis

Lecture 1, Technology and Art

Dornach, 28 December 1914

Spiritual science helps to strengthen people against the damaging influences of modern life. The influence of technology on feeling and will. Two stages of development of technology: destruction leading to expulsion of nature spirits, and creation of new connections in accordance with natural laws leading to adoption of ahrimanic laws. To withdraw from modern life is spiritual cowardice. Active participation in the ideas of spiritual science means facing up to Ahriman. Art and technology as a pendulum swing between Lucifer and Ahriman. The spirituality of language before the fifteenth century. The need for a renewal in art: the Goetheanum as a beginning. How sculpture and painting relate to music.

Lecture 2, Impulses of Transformation in the Evolution of Art—I

Dornach, 29 December 1914

How the arts relate to the being of man. The Angeloi help in sending the ego’s capacity to form mental images into the astral body. Architecture: the laws of the physical body placed into external space. Sculpture: the laws of the etheric body become physical. Painting: the laws of the astral body become etheric. Music: the ego submerging in the astral body. Poetry: spirit-self lowered into the ego. Eurythmy: life-spirit lowered into spirit-self. The astral body as an example of the sevenfold structure of the different members of the human being. How the seven principles of the astral body relate to the intervals in music. The astral human being as a musical instrument. Earthly music as an imitation of heavenly music. Medieval names of the notes. Experiencing the ego through music and poetry. The ideas of spiritual science must be brought to life.

Lecture 3, Impulses of Transformation in the Evolution of Art—II

Dornach, 30 December 1914

The two aspects of spiritual science: description of cosmic matters and of a specific range of soul experiences on the path of initiation. Returning to earlier evolutionary stages of the earth through creating and enjoying art: architecture—Saturn evolution; sculpture—Sun evolution; painting—Moon evolution. Earth evolution. The two aspects of the initiation path: objective spiritual experience and subjective soul situations. Music as an external image of the initiation experience; its connection with the initiation experience; its connection with the earth’s Jupiter evolution. Ancient Greeks as Sun people. The Venus of Milo shows the essence of Greek sculpture. The Goetheanum as an example of how to deal with ahrimanic influences in architecture. The boiler house as an architectural structure of ahrimanic civilization. Overcoming Ahriman by making him visible. The description of the path of initiation inspires music and poetry. The need to transform personal feeling and will into something impersonal in spiritual science.

Lecture 4, Cosmic New Year—The Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson

Dornach, 31 December 1914

The Norwegian legend of Olaf Åsteson: by living with the spirit of the earth during the days of Christmas the human being as a microcosm becomes absorbed in the macrocosm. The text of the Song. Recovering lost ancient wisdom through the outlook of spiritual science. Becoming immersed in the elements. The need to develop reverence and devotion for the wisdom of ancient revelations. A quotation from Exodus as an example. The human being as a thought of the higher hierarchies. Contrasts in perceptions of the sensible and spiritual worlds. Loss of knowledge about the threefold nature of the human being since the advent of materialism. Applying the words liberty, equality, fraternity to different levels of human experience. Fraternity as the ideal for the physical world, liberty for the soul world, equality for the spiritual life. Olaf Åsteson as an image of human beings being spiritually asleep. Dawn of a new cosmic day.

Lecture 5, Moral Experience of Colour and Music

Dornach, 1 January 1915

Reverence on the one hand and the power of inner work on the other arising from an understanding of spiritual science. The position of the moon on the night of the new year as an example of endeavouring to achieve harmony between microcosm and macrocosm by reading the script of the stars. The way to a new art. The experience of colours and musical notes as an example of the moral-spiritual experience of sense impressions. Red—divine wrath. Shapes brought about by colours; the activity of the Elohim. Orange—longing for knowledge of the inner essence. Yellow—life in creative forces. Green—growing stronger inwardly. Blue—leading to divine mercy. Prime—being drawn into the spiritual world. Second—a sum of notes sounds towards us. Third—notes that are friends come towards us. Fourth—note-memories of different colours. Fifth—enrichment of soul experience. How spiritual forces flow into human beings. Example: a lawyer faints. Spiritual science has the task of remedying cosmic illiteracy.

Lecture 6, Working with Sculptural Architecture—I

Dornach, 2 January 1915

The dulling effect of science contrasted with the enriching and enlivening effect of spiritual science. Entering into things. Example: architecture. The balance between weighing down and supporting as a balance between the ahrimanic and the luciferic. The development of a musical mood in architecture. The Goetheanum as an attempt to reconcile the arts. The columns and architraves as the body, the domes as the soul, the windows as the spirit of the building. Enrichment of education through spiritual science. The karmic adjustment between child and teacher: the teacher’s musically tuned future works on the child’s sculpturally shaped past. Luciferic and ahrimanic education. Bringing spiritual science to life. The need to remain psychologically young in old age. Spiritual science as a ‘draught of youth’.

Lecture 7, The Future Jupiter Evolution and its Beings

Dornach, 3 January 1915

Human beings on earth prepare future human beings for the Jupiter evolution. The relationship between science and spiritual science. Natural existence and moral action. The influence of moral and immoral actions on the beings created in the exhaled breath of human beings: preparation for Jupiter human beings or the creation of parasitic demons harking back to Old Moon. The effect of these luciferic demons on the child in the womb. Ordering life in accordance with spiritual science: allowing thought to die down in concentration and gaining equanimity in the face of destiny. Two helpful maxims. The nature of spiritual science as seen in the forms of the Goetheanum. Christian Morgenstern’s deep link with the building. Seriousness and tact needed with regard to the communications of spiritual science.

Lecture 8, Working with Sculptural Architecture—II

Dornach, 4 January 1915

The architectural principle of the boiler house. Metamorphoses in the skeletal system. The double dome structure: the boiler house as an ahrimanic metamorphosis of this. The forms should be experienced inwardly rather than interpreted. Perceiving the external world by perceiving the reflections of blood and nerve activities. Pythian clairvoyance arising when the blood and nerve tracts of the body are enjoyed during waking life: reversion to Old Moon. Prophetic clairvoyance brought about by submersion in blood and nerve tracts leading to refined enjoyment of the body during sleep. New clairvoyance: taking hold of the skeletal system and turning in devotion towards the higher hierarchies. Light and dark sides of endeavours in spiritual science.

Foreword

The title Kunst im Lichte der Mysterienweisheit was originally given by Marie Steiner to a collection of Rudolf Steiner’s lectures brought out by her in the 1930s. The same collection was published in English in 1935 (and in a new translation in 1970) under the title Art in the Light of Mystery Wisdom. Meanwhile, in 1966, the administrators of Rudolf Steiner’s literary estate, the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, had used the same German title for the present series of lectures, which they published (together with the Introduction Marie Steiner had originally written for the earlier collection) as Volume 275 in the Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner in German. In 1984 the Rudolf Steiner Press, London, brought out a translation of that volume under the present title Art as Seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom.

These lectures were given in Dornach at the turn of the year 1914–15 in the carpentry workshop located near the first Goetheanum, then in process of being built. The audience consisted of members of the Anthroposophical Society living in Dornach and working on the building during those early months of the First World War.

Introduction by Marie Steiner (abridged)

The impulses of regeneration given to mankind in these lectures will only be understood by those who are able to assimilate the nature of spiritual science fully in such a way that for them the concreteness of the spiritual world, its richness of form and being, has become a self-evident fact. Rudolf Steiner, fully equipped with the most modern scientific methods and with the utmost singleness of thought, brought the reality of the spiritual world close to his contemporaries and showed them how the human ego is placed at the focal point of the development of consciousness and how mankind must grasp this ego with full knowledge. One path towards the grasping of the ego in the fullness of life’s experience, but also in sun-filled contemplation, is the path of art. It is one of the healthiest and most revealing and most direct; it was the last to turn away from its source in the temples of Mystery wisdom and has not been so quickly smothered under rubble as has the path of religion by the passion of the church for power or that of science by the rigidity of thought born of the materialistic age. For these three paths once more to find each other, for art, science and religion once more to unite and intermingle—it was for this that Rudolf Steiner worked among us. He turned his fullest attention to each of these paths because in their living synthesis he saw the salvation of mankind. They worked together once in the ancient, holy Mysteries, bringing into existence and filling with light and nourishment all the cultures of the earth. They must again be brought together and reunited through the knowledge of their undivided spiritual origin.

Human beings must now awaken within themselves a knowledge of this living and essential union. They can do this in complete freedom through careful investigation and practice if they do not timidly close themselves in the face of superior and as yet unknown powers, if they do not bow before the restraining influence of the church, nor before the authority of dogmatic science. The stages along the path have been revealed to us under the wise and entirely objective guidance of one who knows it and who, in conformity with the demands of our times, has not appealed to the human craving for submission and devotion but only to our capacity for knowledge.

The first stage is study; the basis for understanding what is presented in these lectures is the study of spiritual science. The works of Rudolf Steiner can supply the basis for penetrating the Mysteries which are the foundation of human artistic creativity and out of which impulses, acting from the supersensible sphere, must now be brought from subconscious numbness into the wakefulness of ego-consciousness. Art is beginning to wither; even art has already choked the flow from its living spiritual source. Observation through the senses, imitation of fortuitous situations on the physical plane, overemphasis of the personality: along these routes art has moved right away from its spiritual origin. To tie the torn threads together again, to recover the original spirit, once more to tread the lost road in freedom and the joy of knowledge with the newly-acquired forces of the awakened personality: this is our task today. It is hoped that the deep wisdom, the beauty and the strength speaking out of the words of Rudolf Steiner published in this book will be a help to this end.

A renewal of art will never be brought about by dallying with modern feebleness or by compromise, but only by a return to the spiritual founts of life. Having drunk at these springs, surely we cannot watch while human beings thirst without pointing out the remedy that could restore health?

The remedy lies in unlocking the wisdom of the Mysteries and presenting it to humanity in a form adapted to contemporary needs. The new initiation science must call upon our power of thought, our sense of art and style, and also the eternal essence of our being, by summoning us to conscious alertness in all these domains.

Through words, pictures and deeds Rudolf Steiner summoned us to wakefulness in each of these three domains. He has created works that give art a new orientation. He has delivered it from rigidity and brought movement into it; he has restored life to what had been smothered. Perhaps his manifold obligations in other fields would never have given him the chance to revive all the realms of art as he did, if the construction of the Goetheanum had not demanded it of him and if the World War, by curtailing some of his other activities, had not given him the time.

In the first Goetheanum, Rudolf Steiner was able to realize his living thoughts about architecture. He entrusted them to wood, the most alive of all building materials. A work of inexpressible beauty came into being, deeply affecting to the beholder by reason of the stirring force that went forth from its forms in their succession of organic developments and from the counterbalancing relations of direction—the proportions of upward and downward movement. Number, dimension and weight were triumphant in a triad of sweep, elevation and direction. The building stood as man, and man as building. The genesis of worlds, the genesis and deeds of human beings, the deeds of the gods were all inscribed in it; they were revealed in the waves of colour in the domes, in the organic growth of motifs in columns and architraves, in the luminous creation of the windows. Sculpture and painting passed beyond their own sphere, overcame line and were transformed into movement. Colour created form from within by virtue of its own creative soul quality. Music and speech became movement in the newly-blossoming art of eurythmy, and were made visible through the instrument of the human body. The creative forces of speech thus made visible were reflected back to the other forms of art, reviving them and kindling the fire of spiritual creativity. Its innate note of creativity was able to grasp the physical sound that moulds the air, filling it with spiritual substance and elevating it to higher spheres. Rudolf Steiner called his building ‘the House of Speech’. All forms of art, together with science and Mystery wisdom, had found a home there. The synthesis of art, science and religion was once more accomplished.

Such a building cannot rise again, unless perhaps it shall be granted to the same individuals who executed the artistic work to transform what they have learned and experienced into another structure like it.

Otherwise a work that even by this time might have been an immense help for the spiritual development of mankind will sink back as a memory into the past, though bearing within it a spiritual seed for a new future. The flames on the eve of the New Year 1923 have for the present destroyed a mighty impulse for progress.

The retarding powers willed it so. They incited the mob against Rudolf Steiner and are still at work trying to blacken his memory. But the resounding clamour is impotent to destroy his spiritual work, for it is rooted too firmly in the soil of spiritual reality and in the needs of contemporary souls.

For the new Goetheanum the most rigid material has been employed: concrete. Like a fortress it stands, but not withdrawn in defiance. An abode for spiritual endeavour, it radiates over the landscape, welcoming all who desire to strive for that noblest of treasures, the knowledge of the world and of the human being.

The new Goetheanum does not claim to compete in form or effect in any way with its predecessor destroyed by fire. Nevertheless, its external form towers upwards with a bold and harmonious beauty, a final gift left to us by a master of the impulses of beauty. After creating its form he laid down hammer, trowel and plumb-line and worked at the word in stillness for a little while before leaving us. The work upon the building is now being carried on by his pupils according to their gifts.

It was his last bequest. The building work has been restricted by the hard constraint of inadequate funds; at the stubborn behest of financial insufficiency the artists have had to sacrifice their own intentions and often even specific directions given by Rudolf Steiner. One cannot help wondering how differently things might have turned out had there been sufficient funds to carry out also inside the new building what would be required by the force of Mystery impulses rooted in esoteric wisdom. Involuntarily again and again the thought forces its way into our minds: When and where, in what country and at what time will it be possible to erect a building that will gather together and radiate out these eternal impulses that united every detail of the burnt Goetheanum into one world-embracing whole, bringing to expression man and the universe, microcosm and macrocosm, working with spiritual creativity and soul-fashioning force?

... The following words were engraved in the windows of the first Goetheanum... They hint at the path to be traversed through the various stages of initiation... Genuine art leads to Mystery wisdom.

LECTURE 1

Technology and Art

Dornach, 28 December 1914

The main intention of lectures given here recently1 has been to build a bridge from the knowledge of spiritual science to the kind of conception of life which our time demands, and in the coming days I intend to give a few more indications on this theme.

What we call modern life powerfully confronts those of us who have been removed from a direct connection with nature through living in towns or in similar circumstances. Since its advent people have always thought about the significance of modern life for the intellectual and material progress of human civilization, and the time has now come for the impulses we are acquiring from spiritual science to enter into this modern life. Gradually we shall have won through to the feeling that we need spiritual science as a kind of compensation for many things in modern life that weaken—we might actually say destroy—something of the general divine spiritual forces that live in us.

Those who are enabled by the first stages of the life of initiation to experience what modern civilization, in all its aspects, actually does to them will gain deeper insights into the significance it has for human existence than that obtained from an external view of life unsupported by spirituality. People who have taken the first steps in the life of initiation will pass differently through the experience of spending a night in a train or on a steamer, especially if they sleep on the journey. What is different for the person who is in these first stages of initiation, as opposed to one who has not had any connection with it, is that the experiences become conscious for the former, and he finds out what is actually happening to him when he spends a night travelling on a train or a ship, especially if he goes to sleep. Of course the person who has not acquired initiation knowledge of things also undergoes the effects that an experience of that sort has on the whole human organism. With regard to the whole effect on the human being there is, of course, no difference.

If we want to understand what these indications actually mean we must call to mind a spiritual scientific truth which you no doubt know, namely, that while we are asleep our ego and astral body are outside our physical and ether bodies.* Actually, because of certain limitations which cosmic laws impose on us in the natural order of things, our ego and astral body remain very close to our physical and ether bodies, so that if we are asleep on a train journey our ego and astral body are right inside all the rattling, rumbling and braking going on in the wheels and the engine of the train. This is equally the case on a modern steamer. We are inside everything going on around us. We are inside these not exactly musical experiences in our surroundings, and you need only have taken the very first steps in initiation to notice on waking up that when the ego returns with the astral body into the physical and ether bodies they bring with them what they experienced while they were being squeezed by the machinery, for they really were inside the moving machinery right up to the moment of waking.