Since Steiner was formerly the German president of the Theosophical Society and was very involved in art, he should be included on this website for historical consistency.
Eurythmic art is based on a visible language formed out of the human being. This reveals itself in movements that are performed by an individual through their body or limbs or that are performed by groups of people.
In these latter aspects the forms used in eurythmy as an art are transformed accordingly. It is to be hoped that this art form, which is still in its infancy today, will be able to perfect itself to an unlimited extent, for its tool is the human being itself in a more comprehensive sense than is the case with other art forms.
The external configuration of the Greek life, however, is like a piece of art: Plato creates a state idea in which the single human being should adapt himself like a limb to the whole body.
This feeling of loneliness is something absolutely modern, and Ibsen’s art arises from it. This concept, nevertheless, which speaks from Ibsen’s dramas: we must appeal to the human personality, is nothing clear.
Occasionally, when I had the opportunity to show visitors around the building, I would say that I felt it would be wrong to ‘explain’ the forms and colours, for art should not be brought home to people by presenting thoughts about it; art is there to be looked at, to let our feelings respond to it. Art that springs from the same ground as the ideas that make up true anthroposophy can become genuine art.
In the same way the building can only be a shell the form and images of which reveal in art the spirit that lives in the word when anthroposophy uses the language of ideas. Every style in art has in fact been born out of a spirit that also came to expression in the ideas of a philosophy.
And this penetration down to this central power, which is the * will, is attempted through the art of eurythmy, through that art which seeks to bring the whole human being as a will-being to direct sensory perception.
And if we understand the relationship between art and anthroposophy, we will also recognize how this relationship can help art to emerge from a certain tragic situation, from the situation in which science fundamentally denies art its right to exist in reality, and in which, when art engages with science, it can only speak in such a way that the artist must reject it. Art and science will enter into a different relationship when there will be a science that will prove, precisely through its own existence, that art is a genuine citizen in the full reality of the world, that art is not merely a product of unreal fantasy, but that art is the great interpreter of the deepest secrets of the world.
A stronger impact would have had a significant effect on the place of art in educational and teaching practice. Art, both visual and poetic-musical, is required by children’s nature.
Art is there for art’s sake, after all. But as an educator, one should love art so much that one does not want to deprive the developing human being of the experience of it. And then you will see what the experience of art does for the developing human being – the child. It is only through art that the mind comes to true life.
Art has to speak in a new way to souls today, and our Goetheanum building6 is meant to be the very first step, really and truly the very first step towards art of this kind, and not anything perfect.
I asked, “How does the effect our Goetheanum building is intended to have, compare with that of an older building, or an older work of art in general? A work of art from the past made an impression by means of its forms and colours.
All that the forms do is set the process going that creates the work of art. The work of art is what the soul experiences when it feels the shape of the forms. The work of art is the jelly.
It is none other than the sense granted us for the appreciation of art; the artistic sense can transmit to us spirit shining in matter, and revealed as the beauty we appreciate in art.
The ancient Greeks spoke of Phidias’s statue of Zeus as “healing magic.” Genuine art will not only take hold of soul and spirit, but it will also enhance health and growth. Genuine art has always had healing powers.
It also helps lead us most beautifully into the practical aspects of education. Through an art of teaching such as I have outlined, those who love art and respect humanity will assign art the proper place in the life of a school.
How is it, then, that truly artistic personalities attribute to art a mission of this kind, while the spiritual scientist feels his heart so strongly drawn to these mysterious revelations of great art?
If we are to study the significance and task of art from this point of view, we must not go by human opinions or the quibblings of the intellect. We must consider the development of art in relation to the evolution of man and the world. We will let art itself speak to us of its significance for mankind. If we wish to trace the beginnings of art, as it first appears among men in the guise of poetry, then according to ordinary ideas we have to go back very far indeed.
“I think that one could call science the knowledge of the general, abstracted knowing; art, on the other hand, would be science turned into action; science would be reason, and art its mechanism; therefore one could also call art practical science. And finally then science could be called the theorem and art the problem.” What science states as idea (theorem) is what art has to imprint into matter, becomes art’s problem.
Herein lies the reason why the Goethean direction in art must supplement itself with science. As art, it is already an activity of knowing. Goethe, in fact, wanted neither science nor art: he wanted the idea.
The art of printing gave him the opportunity to solve these tasks. It is deeply symbolic that the new art did not emerge from the circles of scholarly education.
What is the significance of all the arguments about the fatherland of the art of printing? Gutenberg’s fatherland is the modern cultural world. He had to grow out of all paternity to genuine modern humanity in order to create the international art of printing for mankind.
These characteristics show how the need for the art of printing was born out of the masses’ thirst for learning and education. Those who recognize the signature of intellectual life in the last four centuries as an anti-ecclesiastical one may welcome the fact that the authors do not overestimate the influence of the Church on the spread of Gutenberg’s art.
Theosophy & ARTS 