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Results of Spiritual Research
GA 62

30 January 1913, Berlin

Translated by Rick Mansell

9. The Mission of Raphael in the Light of Spiritual Science

Raphael is one of those figures in the spiritual history of mankind who rise like a star. They stand there, making us feel that they emerge suddenly out of the dark depths of the spiritual evolution of humanity and disappear again, when through their mighty creations their being has been engraven into the spiritual history of man. On closer observation it becomes evident that such a human being, whom we have at first compared to a star that flashes out and then disappears again, becomes a member of the whole spiritual life of mankind, like a limb in a great organism. This is very especially so in regard to Raphael.

Hermann Grimm, the eminent thinker on Art, has tried to follow Raphael's influence and fame through the ages down to the present day. Grimm has been able to show that Raphael's creations went on working after the painter's death as a living element, and that a uniform stream of spiritual development has flowed onwards from the life of Raphael to our own time. Grimm has shown how the evolution of humanity has proceeded since the creations of Raphael, and on the other side of the spiritual conception of history it may be said that preceding ages too give the impression as if they were themselves pointing to the Raphael who was later to appear in world evolution like a limb inset in a whole organism. We may here recall an utterance once made by Goethe and from the world of Space apply it to the world of Time. Goethe once wrote these significant words: “What would all the starry world and all that is spread out in Space amount to if it were not at some time reflected in a human soul, celebrating its own higher existence for the first time in the experiences of this human soul?” Applying these words to the evolution of the ages, we may say that in a certain sense, when we cast our eyes back into antiquity, the Homeric gods who were described so gloriously by Homer nearly 1000 years before the founding of Christianity, would seem less to us if they had not risen again in the soul of Raphael, finding their consummation in the sublime figures of his pictures. What Homer created long ages before the appearance of Christianity unites in this sense into an organic whole with what was born from the soul of Raphael in the 16th century. Again, we turn our gaze to the figures of the New Testament, and in the face of Raphael's pictures we feel that something would be lacking if the creative, formative power in the Madonnas and other pictures which have sprung from Biblical tradition and legend, had not been added to the Biblical description. Therefore we may say: not only does Raphael live on through the following centuries but his creations form one organic whole with all preceding ages. Most ages indeed already pointed to one in whom they should find their consummation, although this, it is true, could only be discovered in later history.

The words of Lessing when he speaks of “the Education of the Human Race” assume great significance when we thus see how a uniform spiritual essence flows through the evolution of humanity, flashing up in figures like Raphael. The truth of repeated earthly lives that has so often been emphasized from the spiritual-scientific standpoint in connection with the spiritual evolution of humanity is perceived with special vividness when we bear in mind what has just been said. We realize then for the first time what it means that the being of man should appear again and again in repeated earthly lives through the epochs, bearing from one life to the other what is destined to be implanted in the spiritual evolution of humanity. Spiritual Science is seeking the meaning and purpose in the evolution of mankind. It does not merely seek to portray the consecutive events of human evolution in one straight, continuous line, but to interpret the various epochs in such a way that the human soul, appearing again and again over the course of the ages, must have ever new experiences. Then we can truly speak of an “Education” which the human soul undergoes as the result of its different earthly lives,—an education proceeding from all that is created and born from out of the common spirit of humanity.

What will here be said from the standpoint of Spiritual Science in regard to Raphael's relationship to human evolution as a whole during the last few centuries, is not intended to be a philosophical or historical study, but the result of many-sided study of Raphael's creative activity. There is no question of giving a philosophical survey of the spiritual life of humanity for the sake of bringing Raphael into it. Everything that I myself have experienced after study and contemplation of his different works has crystallized quite naturally into what I propose to say tonight.

It will be impossible, of course, to enter in details into single creations of Raphael. That could only be if one were able by some means to place his pictures before the audience. A general impression of the creative power of Raphael arises in the soul and then the question arises: what place has this in the evolution of humanity? The gaze falls upon a significant epoch,—an epoch to which Raphael stands in inner relationship when we allow him to work upon us—I refer to the Greek epoch and its development. All that the Greeks not only created but experienced as the outcome of their whole nature and constitution appears as a kind of middle epoch when we study human evolution during the last few thousand years. Greek culture coincides in a certain sense with the founding of Christianity and all that preceded it seems to bear a different character from following ages. Studying humanity in the Pre-Grecian age of civilization we find that the soul and spirit of man are much more intimately bound up with the corporeal, with the outer corporeality than is the case in later times. What we speak of today as the “inwardness” of the human soul,—the inward withdrawal of the soul when applying itself to the spiritual or the spiritual becoming conscious of the Spiritual underlying the universe,—this inwardness did not exist to the same degree in Grecian times. When man made use of his bodily organs in those days, the spiritual mysteries of existence simultaneously lit up in his soul. Observation of the sense-world was not so detached and aloof as is ordinary Science to-day. Man beheld the objects with his senses, and with his sense impressions he simultaneously perceived the spirit and soul-elements weaving and living within the objects. The Spiritual was there with the objects as they were perceived. To press forward to the Spirituality of the universe in ancient times it was not necessary for man to withdraw from sense impressions or to give himself up wholly to the inner being of the soul. Indeed in very ancient times of evolution “clairvoyant perception of things”—in the very best sense of the word—was a common possession of man. This clairvoyant perception was not attained as the result of certain given conditions, but was as natural as sense perception.

Then came Greek culture with the world peculiar to it,—a world where we may place the beginning of the inward deepening of spiritual life, but where the inner experiences of the spirit are still connected with the outer, with processes in the world of sense. In Greek culture the balance is between the Sensible and the Psychic-Spiritual. The Spiritual was not so immediately present in sense perception as was the case in Pre-Grecian times. It lit up in the soul of the Greek as something inwardly apart, but that it was perceived when the senses were directed to the outer world. The Greek beheld the Spirit not in the objects, but with the objects. In Pre-Grecian times the soul of man was poured out, as it were, into corporeality. In Greek culture the soul had freed itself to some extent from the corporeality, but the balance between the Psychic-Spiritual and the bodily element was still held. This is why the creations of the Greeks seem to be as fully permeated with the spirituality as that which their senses perceived.

In Post-Grecian ages the human spirit undergoes an inward deepening and is no longer able to receive, simultaneously with the sense impression the, Spiritual living and weaving in all things. These are the ages when the human soul was destined to withdraw into itself and experience its struggles and conquests in an inner life before pressing forward to the Spiritual. Spiritual contemplation and the sense perception of things became two worlds which the human soul must experience. How clearly evident this is in a spirit like Augustine, for instance, who in the Post-Christian epoch is really not so far removed from the founding of Christianity as we are from the Reformation. The experiences and writings of Augustine as compared with the traditions of Greek culture are highly characteristic of the progress of humanity. The struggles of the inward turned soul, the scene of action existing in the inner being of the soul apart from the external world that we see in Augustine,—how impossible all this appears in the Greek spirits who everywhere reveal how deeply their soul-content is united with the processes of the external world.

The evolutionary history of humanity shows evidence of a division, a mighty incision. Into this evolutionary picture there enters on the one side Greek culture, where man holds the balance between the Psychic-Spiritual and outer corporeality; on the other side there is the founding of Christianity. All the experiences of the human soul were thereafter to become inward, to take their course in inner struggles and conquests. The mission of the founding of Christianity was not to direct man's gaze to the world of sense in order that he might become conscious of the riddles of existence, but to all that the spirit might intuitively behold when giving itself up wholly to the powers of the spirit and soul. How utterly different,—divided by a deep, deep cleft, are those beautiful, majestic Gods of Greece, Zeus or Apollo, from the figure dying on the Cross,—a figure, it is true, full of inner profundity and power, but not beautiful in the external sense. Already here we find the outer symbol of the deep incision made by Christianity and Greek culture in the evolution of humanity. And in the spirits of the Post-Grecian ages we see the effects of this incision as an ever more intense inward deepening of the soul.

Thence forward this inner deepening has been characteristic of the onward progress of evolution. And if we would understand human evolution in the sense of Spiritual Science we must realize that we are living in an age which represents a still greater inward deepening, the more we observe it in relation to the immediate past and the prospect of the future in which a cleft, still deeper than that which the contemplation of the past reveals, will appear between all that is proceeding in the world in a more or less mechanical, technical life of the outer world, and the goal ahead of the human soul as it endeavors to scale the heights of spiritual being,—heights which open up only in our inner being as we attempt to ascend to the Spiritual. More and more we are advancing into an age of inner deepening.

A mighty incision in the progress of humanity in Post-Grecian times toward an energy being is what has remained to us in the creations of Raphael. Raphael stands there as a mighty spirit at a parting of the ways in human evolution. All that preceded him marks the beginning of the process of this inner deepening; what follows him represents a new chapter. Although much that I have to say in this lecture may have the appearance of symbology, it should not be taken merely as a symbolical mode of expression, but as an attempt to create as broad a conception and idea as possible, that which can be clothed only in the “trivial concepts of man” on account of Raphael's towering greatness.

When we try to penetrate into the soul of Raphael we are struck, above all, by the way in which the soul appears in the year 1483 in a “spring-like” birth, as it were, passing through an inner development radiating forth its glory from the most marvellous creations. Raphael dies at an early age, at 37. In order so to deepen ourselves in this soul so that we can follow all its stages, let us turn our attention for the moment away from all that was going on in world history and concentrate wholly on the inner nature of this soul.

Hermann Grimm has pointed out certain regular cycles in the inner development of Raphael's soul. And indeed it may be said that Spiritual Science today has no need to be ashamed of directing the attention of modern skeptical mankind to the existence of cyclic laws holding sway along the path to the spirit, in all evolution and also in that of individual human beings, if so eminent a mind as Hermann Grimm was led, without Spiritual Science, to the perception of this regular inner cyclic development in the soul of Raphael. Grimm speaks of the picture called “The Marriage of the Virgin” as being a new phenomena in the whole evolution of Art, saying that it cannot be compared with anything that had gone before. From infinite depths of the human soul, Raphael created something entirely new in the whole of spiritual evolution. If we thus gain a conception of the gifts lying in Raphael's soul from birth onwards, we can readily agree with the following passage of Hermann Grimm: “We now see Raphael's soul developing onwards in regular cycles of four years duration. It is wonderful to observe how this soul advances onwards thus, and studying one such period we find that at the end of it, Raphael stands at a higher stage of his soul's development. Four years after the picture The Marriage of the Virgin comes The Entombment; four years later again the frescoes in the Camera della Segnatura in the Vatican,—and so on, by four year stages up to The Transfiguration which stood unfinished by his death bed.”

We feel the desire to study this soul for its own sake because its development is so harmonious. Then however we get the impression that in the Art of Painting itself an inwardness had to develop,—an inwardness such as that expressed in figures which only Raphael could create. It is an inwardness borne out of the depths of the soul experience although it appears in pictures of the world of sense, and it then becomes part of history itself.

Having thus contemplated the inner nature of the soul of Raphael, let us allow the age in which he lived and all that was around him, to work upon us. While Raphael was growing up more or less as a child in Urbino, his environment was of a kind that could stimulate and awaken any decisive talents. The whole of Italy was excited at that time about a certain palace that had been built in Urbino. This was something that imbued the early talents of Raphael with an element of harmony with their nature. After that, however,we find him transplanted to Perugia, thence to Florence, thence to Rome. Fundamentally speaking, his life ran its course within narrow circles. These towns seem so near when we study his life. His world was enclosed within these circles so far as the world of sense was concerned. It was only in the spirit that he rose to “other spheres.” In Perugia, however, which was the scene of his youthful soul development, fierce quarrels were the order of the day. The town is populated by a passionate, tumultuous people. Noble families whose lives were spent in wrangling and quarreling fought bitterly against each other. The one drove the other out-of-town, then after a short banishment the other family would try again to take possession of it. More than once the streets of Perugia flowed with blood and were strewn with corpses. One historian describes a remarkable scene, and indeed all the descriptions of that epoch are typical. A nobleman of the town enters it as a warrior in order to avenge his relatives. He is described to us as he rides through the streets on horseback like the spirit of War incarnate, beating down everything that crosses his path. The historian evidently has the impression that the revenge was justifiable and there arises before his soul the picture of St. George bringing the enemy to his feet. Later on, in a work by Raphael, we feel the scene as described by the historian rise up before us in picture form and our immediate impression is that Raphael must surely have allowed this to affect him; and then what seemed so terrible in the outward sense is deepened and rises again from out of his soul in the subject of one of the most wonderful pictures.

Thus Raphael saw around him a quarreling humanity; disorder upon disorder, battle upon battle, surrounded him in the town where he was studying under his master Pietro Perugino. One gets the impression of two worlds in the town,—one, the scene of cruelty and terror, and another, living inwardly in Raphael's soul, which had really little to do with what was going on around him in the physical world.

Then, later again we find Raphael transplanted to Florence in the year 1504. What was the state of Florence then? In the first place the inhabitants give the impression of being a wearied people who had passed through inner and outer tumults and were living in a certain ennui and fatigue. What had been the fate of Florence? Struggles, just as in the case of the other town, bitter persecutions among different patrician families, and of course, quarrels with the outer world. And on the other hand the stirring event that had thrown every soul in the town into a state of upheaval when Savonarola, a short time previoulsy, had been martyred. This extraordinary figure of Savanarola appears before us uttering words of fire against the current misdeeds, the cruelty, materiality and heathendom of the Church. The words of Savonarola seem to resound again in our ears, words by which he dominated the whole of Florence and to such an extent that the people not only hung upon his lips but revered him as deeply as if a spirit from a higher world were standing before them in that ascetic body. The words of Savonarola transformed Florence as if the direct radiations of the Reformer of Religions Himself had permeated not only the religious conceptions, but the very social life of the town. It was as though a citadel of the Gods had been founded. Such was Florence under the influence of Savonarola. He fell a victim to those Powers whom he had opposed, morally and religiously. There rises before our soul the moving picture of Savonarola as he was led to the fire of martyrdom with his companions, and how from the gallows whence he was to fall onto the burning pyre, he turned his eyes—it was in May 1498—down to the people who had once hung upon his words, but who had now deserted him and were looking with apparent disloyalty at the figure who had for so long inspired them. Only in a very few,—and they were artists,—did the words of Savonarola still resound. There were painters at that time who themselves donned the monk's robe after Savonarola's martyrdom in order to work on in his Order under the influence of his spirit.


One can visualize the weary atmosphere lying over Florence, Raphael was transplanted into this atmosphere in the year 1504. And he brought with him in his creations the very Spirit's breath of Spring, although in a different way from Savonarola. When they contemplate the soul of Raphael in all its isolation,—a soul so different from the mood surrounding it in this town, visualizing him in the company of artists and painters working at his creations in lonely workshops in Florence or elsewhere, another picture rises up, showing us visibly in history how Raphael's soul stands out inwardly aloof from the outer life around it. And there arises before us the figures of the Roman Popes, Alexander VI, Julius II, Leo X, in fact the whole Papal system against which Savonarola directed his words of scorn, the Reformers their attacks. Yet this Papacy was the Patron of Raphael who entered its service, although inwardly his soul had little in common with what we find in his Patron Pope Julius II for instance. It was said of Julius II that he gave the impression of a man with a devil in his body, who always likes to show his teeth to his enemies.

They are mighty figures, these popes, but “Christians” in the sense of Savonarola or of others who thought like him, they certainly were not. The Papacy had passed over into a new “heathendom”. In these circles there was not much Christian piety. There was, however, much brilliance, ambition, lust for power in the Popes as well as in their environment. We see Raphael in the service as it were of this heathenized Christendom, but in what sense in this service? From out his soul flow creations which give a new form to Christian conceptions and ideas. In the Madonnas and other works, the tenderest, most inward element of Christian legend rises again. What a contrast there is between the soul inwardness in Raphael's creations and all that was going on around him in Rome when he entered into the outer service of the Popes!

How was this possible? We see the contrast between outer life and Raphael's inner being in the early student days in Perugia, but we see it's still more intensely in Rome where his all-conquering works were created in the midst of an officialdom of Cardinals and Priests which had been intolerable to Savonarola. True, the two men were different, but we must nevertheless contrast Raphael with his environment in this way if we are to obtain a true picture of what was living in his soul.

Let us allow the picture of Raphael to work upon us. This cannot be done in detail in a lecture, but we can at least call up before the mind's eye one of the more widely known works for the purpose of contemplating the peculiar qualities living in Raphael's soul,—I mean the Sistine Madonna which is familiar to everybody in the innumerable copies existing all over the world. The Sistine Madonna is one of the greatest and noblest works of Art in human evolution. The “Mother with the Child” hover towards us on clouds which cover the Earth globe,—hover from the shadowy world of spirit and soul, surrounded in clouds which seem naturally to form themselves into human figures, one being the Child Himself. Feelings arise which, when we permeate them with soul, seem to make us forget all those legendary conceptions which culminate in the picture of the Madonna. We forget all that Christian traditions has to tell of her. I say this not for the sake of giving any dry description, but in order to characterize as fully as may be the feelings that arise within us at the site of the Madonna.

Spiritual Science raises us above all materialistic conception of human evolution. Although it is difficult to understand in the sense of Natural Science according to which the development of lower organisms proceeded until finally it reached the stage of the human being,—nevertheless it is the fact that man is a being whose life transcends everything below him in the kingdom of Nature. Spiritual Science knows that man contains a something within him much more ancient than all the beings who stand in greater or lesser proximity to him in the kingdom of Nature.

Man existed before the beings of the animal, plant and even of the mineral kingdom. In a wider perspective we look back to ages when that which now constitutes our inner being was already in existence and which only later was incorporated into the kingdoms which now stand below man. We see the being of man proceeding from a super-earthly world and realize that we can only truly understand it when we rise above all that the Earth can produce out of herself to something super-terrestrial and pre-terrestrial. Spiritual Science teaches that even if we allow all the forces, all the living substances connected with the Earth herself to work upon us, none of this can give a true picture of the whole essence and being of man. The gaze must rise beyond the Earthly to the Supersensible whence the being of man proceeds. Speaking figuratively we cannot but feel how something wafts towards the Earthly when, for instance, we gaze at the golden gleaming morning sunrise,—and especially is this the case in a region like that in which Raphael lived. Forces which work down into the Earth seem here to flow into the Earthly elements,—forces which inhere in the being of the Sun. And then out of the golden radiance there rises before our soul the sense image of what it is that is wafting hither in order to unite itself with the Earthly.

Above all in Perugia we may feel that the eye is beholding the very same sunrise once seen by Raphael, who in these phenomena was able to sense the nature of the Super-Earthly element in man. And gazing at the Sun-illuminated clouds there may dawn on us a realization that the picture of the Madonna and Child is a sense picture of the eternal Super-Earthly element in man that is wafted to Earth from super-earthly realms themselves and meets, in the clouds, those elements that can only proceed from the Earthly. Our perception may feel itself raised to the loftiest spiritual heights if we can give ourselves up—not theoretically, or in an abstract sense, but with the whole soul—to what works upon us in Raphael's Madonnas. This perfectly natural feeling may arise before the world-famous picture in Dresden. And to prove to you that it has indeed had this effect upon many people I should like to quote words written about the Sistine Madonna by Karl August, Duke of Weimar, the friend of Goethe, after a visit to Dresden: He says:

“In regard to the Raphael picture that adorns the collection, I felt as if the whole day long I had roamed over the heights of the Gotthard, through the Urner cleft and looked down from thence to the green, blossoming valley. As I looked at the picture and again away from it, it always seemed to me a revelation of the soul. Even the most beautiful Correggios were pictures only of the human; the memory of them tangible like beautiful forms. Raphael, however, remained with me as a breath, as one of those revelations sent to one in women's form by the Gods to bring us happiness or sorrow, like a figure that arises before one again and again in waking or dream life, whose gaze, once experienced, is with one forever, day and night, moving the innermost being.” (Karl August to his friend Knebel, 14th October, 1763)

Another remarkable thing is that if we study the literature of those who speak of the experiences of deep emotion at the site of this Sistine Madonna and also of other pictures of Raphael, we shall always find that they use the analogy of the Sun, all that is radiant and spring-like.

This gives us a glimpse into Raphael's soul and we realize how from amid the environment already described, it held converse with the eternal mysteries of the genesis of man. And then we feel the uniqueness of this soul of Raphael, realizing that it is not a “product” of its environment, but points to a hoary antiquity. There is no longer any need for speculation. A soul like this, looking out into the wide universe,—a soul which does not express the mystery of existence in ideas, but senses and gives it form in a picture like the Sistine Madonna, stands there in its inner perfection quite naturally as mature in the highest degree. Truly, the gifts inherent in this soul represents something that must have passed through other epochs of human evolution, not many such epochs which poured into it a power able to reemerge in what we call the “life of Raphael”. But from what it re-merges?

We see the living content of Christian legends and traditions appearing again in Raphael's pictures in the midst of an age when Christendom had, as it were, become heathenised and was given up to outer pomp and show, just as Greek paganism was represented in the figures of its gods and honoured above all else by the Greeks in their intoxication with beauty. We see Raphael giving form to the figures of Christian tradition in an age when treasures of Greek culture which had for long centuries been buried under ruins and debris on Roman soil were unearthed, Raphael himself assisting. It is a remarkable spectacle, the Rome where Raphael found himself at this time. Let us consider what had gone before.

First there are the centuriesof the Rise of Rome,—a Rome built upon the Egoism of individual men whose aim it was above all to establish a human society in the external physical world on the foundation of what man, as the citizen of a State, was meant to signify. Then during the age of the Emperors, when Rome had reached a certain eminence, it absorbs the Greek culture which streams into Roman spiritual life. Rome subdues Greece in the political sense, but in the spiritual sense Greece conquers Rome. Greek culture lives on within Roman culture; Greek art, to the extent to which it has been imbibed by Rome, lives on there; Rome is permeated through and through by the essence of Greek culture.

But why is it that this does not remain through the following centuries as a characteristic quality of the development of Italy? Why was it that something entirely different made its appearance? It was because soon after Greek culture had streamed into the life of Rome there came the influx of that other element which impressed its signature strongly into the spiritual life that was developing on the soil of Italy, I mean, Christendom. The mission of this inward deepening of Christendom was not that of the external sense element in the Greek State, Greek sculpture, or Greek philosophy. A formless element was now to draw into the souls of men and to be laid hold of by dint of inner effort and struggle. Figures like Augustine appear,—men whose whole being is inward turned. But then,—since everything in evolution proceeds in cycles, we see arising in men who have passed through this inward deepening and whose souls have long lived apart from the beauties of external life, a yearning for beauty. Once again they behold the inner in the outer. It is significant to see the inwardly deepened life of Francis of Assisi in Giotto's pictures for those pictures express the inner experiences called forth in the soul by Christianity. And even if the inner being of the human soul speaks somewhat haltingly and imperfectly from Giotto's pictures, we do nevertheless see a direct ascent to the point where the most inward elements, the very loftiest and noblest in external form confronts us in Raphael and his contemporaries. Here we are directed once again to a characteristic quality of this soul of Raphael.

If we try to penetrate into the kind of feelings and perceptions which Raphael himself must have had, we cannot help saying to ourselves: “Yes, indeed, in the contemplation of pictures like the Madonna della Sedia, for instance, the whole way in which the Madonna with the Child, and the Child John in the foreground are here represented, makes us forget the rest of the world, forget above all that this Child in the arms of the Madonna is connected with the experiences of Golgotha. Gazing at Raphael's pictures we forget everything that afterwards proceeds as the “life of Jesus”; we live entirely in the moment here portrayed. We are gazing simply at a Mother with a Child, which in the words of Hermann Grimm, is the great Mystery to be met with in the outer world. Peace surrounds this moment; it seems as though nothing could connect with it, before or afterwards; we live wholly in the relationship of the Madonna to her Child and separate it off from everything else. Thus do the creations of Raphael appear to us,—perfect and complete in themselves, revealing the Eternal in one moment of Time.

How shall we describe the feelings of a soul able to create like this? We cannot compare them to the feelings of a Savonarola, who when he uttered his words of scorn or was speaking those uplifting, godly words to Christian devotees, was seized with inner fire and passed through the whole tragedy of the Christ. We cannot conceive that Raphael's soul burst forth suddenly like the genius of a Savonarola, or others like him; nor can we conceive that it was swayed by the so-called “fire of Christendom.” Raphael could not however have portrayed the Christian conceptions in such inner perfection if his soul had been as foreign to this “Christian fire” as may appear to have been the case.

On the other hand, the forms in all their objectivity and roundness could not have been created by a soul permeated with Savonarola's fire and winged by the experience of the whole tragedy of the Christ. Quite a different peace, quite a different Christian feeling must have flowed into the soul. And yet no soul could have created these pictures if the very essence of Christian inwardness were not living within it. Surely it is almost natural to say: here indeed is a soul which brought with it into the physical existence of the artist Raphael, the fire that pours forth from Savonarola. When we realize how Raphael brings this fire with him through birth from earlier experiences, we understand why it is so illuminating and inwardly perfect; it does not come forth as a consuming and shattering element but as the reliance of plastic creation. In Raphael's innate gifts one already feels the existence of something that in an earlier life might have been able to speak with the same fire that is later found in Savonarola. It need not astonish us to find in Raphael a soul reincarnated from an age when Christianity was not yet expressed in picture form or in Art, but from the age of its founding, the starting point of the whole mighty impulse which then worked on through the centuries.

In the attempt to understand the soul like Raphael's, it is perhaps not too bold to say something of this kind, for those who have steeped themselves again and again in the works of Raphael and have thus learnt to reverence this soul in all its depth, cannot but realize what it is that speaks from those wonder-works into which the artist poured his soul. Thus the mission of Raphael only appears in the right light when,—to use an expression of Goethe,—we seek in a life already past for the Christian fire that is revealed in the radiance of the Raphael life. Then we understand why his soul was necessarily so isolated in the world and why it was that having possessed to an intense degree in an earlier existence something of the nature of a Savonarola. It was able to refresh and renew all that had arisen in the spiritual evolution of Italy in the 16th century.

I have already described how in the age of the Rise of the Empire, the influence of Greek culture has entered into Roman development and how an inward deepening of the soul had set in. Later on, in the age of Raphael,—the Renaissance,—we see on the one side the reappearance of this old Greek culture that had long been buried under ruins and debris. We see in Rome with the remnants of this Greek culture, the reappearance of the Greek spirit that had once adorned and beautified the city; the eyes of the Roman people turn once again to the forms that had been created by this Greek spirit. On the other side, however, we see how the spirit of Plato, of Aristotle, of the Greek Tragedians, penetrates Roman life in the epoch. Once again the victory of Greek culture over the Roman world! The Greek culture which was emerging from ruins and debris and spreading over the Italian peninsula could not help having a refreshing and renewing effect on a spirit like Raphael's, who in an earlier existence was imbued, to the exclusion of everything else, with the moral-religious conception of Christendom.

If we see the moral-religious impulse of Christendom born in the gifts of Raphael, we also see that element which these gifts did not at first contain rising before his eyes in the resurrected culture of Greece. And just as the city, rising out of ruins and debris, influenced this soul more deeply than all others, so also did the spiritual yields of Greek culture that were unearthed in the hidden manuscripts. Raphael's inborn gifts, united with his “super-spiritual” devotion to everything of a cosmic nature, worked hand-in-hand with the Greek spirit that was emerging again in his age. These were the two elements that united in Raphael's soul; this is why his works express the inwardness proceeding from the post-Grecian age,—the inwardness poured by Christianity into the evolution of humanity which was expressed in outward manifestation in a world of artistic forms permeated with the purest Greek spirit.

We are faced, then, with the remarkable phenomenon of the resurrection of Greek culture within Christendom through Raphael. In him we see the resurrection of a Christendom in an age which in a certain respect represents the “Anti-Christian” element around him. In Raphael there lives a Christianity far transcending what had gone before him and rose to a much loftier conception of the world as it was at that time. Yet it was a Christianity that did not dimly and vaguely direct the attention to the infinite spheres of the Spiritual, but was concentrated into forms that delight the senses too, just as in earlier times the Greeks expressed in artistic forms their ideas of the gods united with the formless element living and weaving in the universe.

This is what we find when we try to form a general picture of Raphael, allowing one or another of his creations in all their sublime perfection yet marvellous superfluity of youth,—for Raphael died at the age of 37,—to work upon us. Not for the sake of any colorless theory, or for the purpose of building any kind of philosophical history, but as the result of a conception born out of Raphael's works themselves, it must be said that the law holding sway in the course of human spiritual life finds its true revelation in a mighty spirit such as his.

It is not correct to think of this course of spiritual life as a straight line where effect follows cause as a natural matter of fact. It is only too easy in this connection to quote one of the so-called “golden sayings” of humanity to the effect that the life and nature does not advance by leaps and bounds. Well and good, but the fact is that in a certain respect both life and nature do continually do so, as can be seen in the development of the plant from the green leaf to the blossom, from the blossom to the fruit. Here everything does indeed “develop” but sudden leaps are quite obvious.

So too is it in the spiritual life of humanity, and this, moreover, is bound up with many mysteries, one of them being that a later epoch must always have its support in an earlier. Just as the male and female must work in conjunction, so may it be said that the different “Spirits of the Age” must mutually fertilize and work together in order that evolution may proceed. Roman culture, already at the time of the empire, had to be fertilized by Greek culture in order that a new “Spirit of the Age” might arise. This new Spirit of the Age had in its turn to be fertilized by the Christ Impulse before the inwardness which we then find in Augustine and others was possible. This human soul that had been so inwardly deepened, had once again to be fertilized by the spirit of the Greek culture which, although it was doubly buried, doubly hidden, was made visible again to the eyes of man in the works of Art resting beneath the soil of Italy, and to their souls in the rediscovered literary manuscripts.

The first Christian centuries in Italy were extraordinarily uninfluenced by what lived in Greek Philosophy and Poetry. Greek culture was buried in a double grave and waited in a realm beyond as it were, for an epoch when it could once again fertilized human soul that had meantime passed through a new phase. It was buried, this Greek culture, hidden from the eyes of men and from souls who did not know that it would live and flow onwards like a river that sometimes takes a track under a mountain and is not seen until it once again comes to the surface. Hidden, outwardly from the senses, inwardly from the depths of the soul was this Greek culture and now it appeared once again. For sense perception it was brought to the light of day from out of the soil of Italy and flowed into the works of art; for spiritual perception it was not only unearthed from the ancient manuscripts; men began once again to feel in the Greek sense how the material is the manifestation of the Spiritual. They began to feel all that Plato and Aristotle had once thought.

It was Raphael in whom this Greek culture could bring forth its fairest flower because the Christ Impulse had reached a greater ripeness in his soul than in any other. This twice buried and twice resurrected Greek culture worked in him in such a way that he was able to impress into forms the whole evolution of humanity. How marvellously was he able to accomplish this in the pictures in the Camera della Segnatura in the Vatican! The ancient spiritual contests rise again before our eyes,—the struggles and activities of those Spirits who developed onwards during the epoch of inward deepening, who were not there in the Greek culture as it reappeared in the time of Raphael. The whole period of inward deepening was necessary before Greek culture could become visible in this particular form, and then it is painted on the walls of the Papal Chambers.

What the Greeks had conceived of in forms only, has now become inward; we see the inner struggles and conflicts of humanity itself charmed onto the walls of the Vatican in the spirit of Greece, of Greek Art and beauty. The Greeks poured into their statues their conception of the way in which the Gods worked upon the world. How this working of the Gods is experienced by man, so that he presses onwards to the foundations and causes of things,—this is what is expressed in the picture so often called “The School of Athens”. The conceptions which the human soul had learned to form of the Greek Gods is expressed in the Parnassus, with its new and significant interpretation of the Homeric gods. These are not the gods of the Iliad and Odyssey; they are the gods as perceived by a soul that had passed through the period of inward deepening.

On the other wall there is a picture that must remain indelibly in the memory of everyone, whatever their religious creed,—I refer to the fresco of the “Dispute about the Mass” which portrays the deepest inner truths. Whereas the other pictures,—in a Greek beauty of form it is true,—express the goal to be attained as the result of a certain philosophical striving, we have in the “Dispute about the Mass”, the fairest thing that the soul of man may experience. Here we find “Brahma”, “Vishnu”, “Shiva” portrayed in quite a different sense,—a proof to us that there is no need to adhere rigidly to a narrow Christian dogmatism. What can be inwardly experienced by every human soul, irrespective of creed or confession, as the “Trinity”, faces us in the symbolism,—though the portrayal is not merely “symbolical”, in the upper part of the picture. We see it again in the countenances of the Church Fathers, in their every gesture, in the whole grouping of the figures, in the wonderful coloring, indeed in the picture as a whole which portrays the inwardness of the human soul in a beauty of form permeated by the spirit of Greece.

And so the inward deepening experienced by the soul man in the course of 1500 years rises again in outer revelation. Christianity, not as the heathendom of the Roman popes and cardinals, but as the wonderful paganism of Greece with its mighty Gods, is resurrected in the works of Raphael.

Thus the soul of Raphael stands at the turning point of ages, pointing back to days of yore, containing within itself all that had developed up to the time of Christendom in the beauty of external revelation, and yet at the same time permeated by what had been brought about by the so-called “education of the human race”, namely an inward deepeningin the reincarnated soul. These wonderworks of so rare and art stand before us like a fusion of two ages, each clearly different from the other,—the pre-Grecian and the post-Grecian epochs, the one of external, the other of inner life. But the pictures also open up a glimpse into the future. Those who realize what the fusion of external beauty and the inner wisdom-filled urge of the human soul may signify, cannot but feel security and hope that this inward deepening—despite all the materiality that must develop more and more as humanity progresses,—must increase in the course of evolution and that the soul of man through successive lives will enter into greater and greater depths of inwardness.

If we now turn to literature and study not as “Art critics” or mere readers, the works of a spirit like Hermann Grimm, who tried with his whole soul to portray the workings of human fantasy, we can understand the depths of inner sympathy with which he contemplated the creations of Raphael. If we ourselves study a spirit like Hermann Grimm with this same inner sympathy, we can understand the significance of certain words of his which express what was passing through his soul when he makes a somewhat tentative utterance at the beginning of his books, in a passage dealing with the way in which Raphael is a product of all the ages. Grimm's formal descriptions of the various works of Raphael do not show us whence this particular thought has sprung. In the middle of other wider historical considerations into which Raphael is introduced, Hermann Grimm is struck by a thought which he records somewhat tentatively in these words: “When we contemplate the spiritual creations of humanity and see how they have passed over from days of yore into our own time, we may well be aware of a longing to tread this Earth once more in order to see what has been their fate as they have lived on.”

This desire for “reincarnation” expressed by Hermann Grimm in the introduction to his book on Raphael is remarkable, and moreover, deeply characteristic of the feeling living in the soul of a man of our own time,—I mean of course one who tried to penetrate into the very soul of Raphael and his connection with other epochs. Surely this makes us feel that works like those of Raphael are not merely a “natural product”; they do not only induce a sense of gratitude for all that the past has hitherto bestowed. They rather give birth to a feeling of hope, because they strengthen our belief in an advancing humanity. We feel that these works could not be what they are if progress were not the very essence of humanity. A feeling of security and hope arises when we allow Raphael to work upon us in the true sense and we are able to say: Raphael has spoken to humanity itself in his artistic creations.

In front of the Stanzas in the Camera della Segnatura we do indeed feel the transitoriness of the outer work and that those ofttimes repaired frescoes can no longer give any conception of what Raphael's magic once charmed on those walls. We realize that at some future time men will no longer be able to gaze at the original works, but we know too that humanity will never cease progressing. Raphael's works began their march of triumph when out of sheer love of them the innumerable reproductions now in existence were made. The influence of the originals live on, even in the reproductions. We can so well understand Hermann Grimm when he says that he once hung a photograph of the Sistine Madonna in his room but always felt that he had no right to go into that room; it seemed to him to be a sanctuary of the Madonna in the picture. Many will have realized that the soul is changed after they have entered livingly into some picture of Raphael, even though it is only a reproduction. True one day the originals will disappear, but may it not be said that they exist nonetheless in other worlds?

The words of Hermann Grimm in his book on Homer are quite true: “Neither can the original works of Homer truly delight us in these days for when we read the Iliad and Odyssey in ordinary life without higher spiritual faculties, we are no longer able to enter fully into all the subtleties, beauty and power of the Greek language. The originals exist no longer; yet in spite of this Homer speaks to us through his poems.” What Raphael has given to the outer world however will always remain as a living witness of the fact that there was once an age in the evolution of humanity when the mysteries of existence were indeed revealed through mighty creations, although at that time men could not penetrate into these mysteries through printed writing. In the age of Raphael men read less, but they beheld a great deal more.

Raphael's eternal message to humanity will bear witness to this epoch,—an epoch differently constituted but that will nevertheless work on through all the ages to come, because humanity is one complete organism. Thus Raphael's creations will live on in the outer course of human evolution and inwardly in the successive lives of the spirit of man, bestowing ever mightier and more deeply inward treasures.

Spiritual Science points to a twofold continuation of life, one aspect of which has been described in previous lectures here, and will be still further described, and to another spiritual life towards which we are ever striving. This spiritual life becomes our guide as we pass through the epochs of earthly existence. Hermann Grimm spoke words of truth when he expressed what his study of Raphael imparted to his feeling and perception. He says: “A time must come when Raphael's work will have long since faded and passed away. Nonetheless he will still be living in mankind, for in him humanity blossomed forth into something that has its very roots in man and will forever germinate and bear fruit.” Every human soul who can penetrate deeply enough into Raphael's soul will realize this. Indeed we can only truly understand Raphael when we can sublimate and deepen in the sense of Spiritual Science a feeling which permeated Hermann Grimm when he turned again and again to the contemplation of the painter. (In the last lecture we saw how near Hermann Grimm stood to Spiritual Science.) It will help us to understand our own relation to Raphael and the sense in which thoughts such as have been given today may grow into seeds. If we conclude with a passage from Grimm which expresses what I have really wished to say: “Men will always long to understand Raphael, the fair young painter who surpassed all others, who was fated to die early and whose death was mourned by all Rome. When Raphael's works are lost his name will nevertheless remain engraven in the memory of man.”

Thus wrote Hermann Grimm went in his own particular way he began to describe Raphael. We can understand these words and also those with which he concludes his book: “All the world will long to know of the life work of such a man for Raphael has become one of the basic elements in the higher development of the human spirit. We would fain draw nearer to him nay, we need him for our healing.”

Raffaels Mission Im Lichte Der Wissenschaft Vom Geiste

Raffael gehört zu denjenigen Gestalten der menschlichen Geistesgeschichte, welche wie ein Stern auftauchen, die einfach da sind, so daß man das Gefühl hat, sie kommen aus unbestimmten Untergründen der geistigen Entwicklung der Menschheit plötzlich herauf und verschwinden dann wieder, nachdem sie durch gewaltige Schöpfungen ihre Wesenheit in diese Geistesgeschichte der Menschheit eingegraben haben. Bei genauerem Zusehen stellt sich allerdings dem forschenden Blicke heraus: eine solche menschliche Wesenheit, von der man erst angenommen hat, daß sie wie ein Stern aufglänzt und wieder verschwindet, fügt sich in das ganze menschliche Geistesleben wie ein Glied in einen großen Organismus ein. Dieses Gefühl hat man insbesondere bei Raffael.

Herman Grimm, der bedeutsame Kunstbetrachter, von dem ich das letztemal hier sprechen durfte, hat versucht, Raffaels Wirkung, Raffaels Ruhm durch die Zeiten zu verfolgen, die auf Raffaels eigenes Zeitalter gefolgt sind, bis in unsere Tage herein. Er konnte zeigen, daß dasjenige, was Raffael geschaffen hat, nach seinem Tode fortwirkte wie ein Lebendiges, daß ein einheitlicher Strom geistigen Werdens vom Leben Raffaels bis über seinen Tod hin fortgeht und sich eben bis in unsere Tage hereinzieht. Hat Herman Grimm so gezeigt, wie die nachfolgende Menschheitsentwickelung hinüberlebt über Raffaels Schaffen, so möchte man auf der andern Seite, der geistigen Geschichtsbetrachtung gegenüber, sagen: auch die vorhergehenden Zeiten können einem aus dem oder jenem den Eindruck geben, als ob sie doch in einer gewissen Beziehung schon so hinwiesen auf den erst später in die Weltentwickelung hineintretenden Raffael, wie eben ein Glied sich einreiht in einen ganzen Organismus.

Man möchte sich an einen Ausspruch erinnern, den Goethe einmal getan hat, und ihn sozusagen von der Raumeswelt auf die Zeitenwelt anwenden. Goethe tat einmal den bedeutsamen Ausspruch: «Wie kann sich der Mensch gegen das Unendliche stellen, als wenn er alle geistigen Kräfte, die nach vielen Seiten hingezogen werden, in seinem Innersten, Tiefsten versammelt, wenn er sich fragt: darfst du dich in der Mitte dieser ewig lebendigen Ordnung auch nur denken, sobald sich nicht gleichfalls in dir ein beharrlich Bewegtes um einen reinen Mittelpunkt kreisend hervortut?»

Mit Anwendung dieses Ausspruches auf die Zeitentwickelung möchte man sagen, daß in einer gewissen Beziehung die Götter Homers, die von Homer fast ein Jahrtausend vor der Begründung des Christentums so grandios geschildert worden sind, in unseren nach der Vorzeit blickenden Augen etwas verlieren würden, wenn wir nicht schauen könnten, wie sie wiedererstanden sind in der Seele Raffaels und da erst in einer gewissen Beziehung durch den mächtigen bildhaften Ausdruck, den sie in Raffaels Schöpfungen gefunden haben, eine besondere Vollendung erfahren haben. So gliedert sich uns das, was Homer lange Zeit vor der Entstehung desChristentums geschaffen hat, mit demjenigen, was im sechzehnten Jahrhundert aus der Seele Raffaels entsprungen ist, zusammen zu einem organischen Ganzen.

Und wiederum: lenken wir den Blick hin auf die biblischen Gestalten, von denen uns das Neue Testament spricht und betrachten dann die Bildwerke Raffaels, so haben wir das Gefühl, die Empfindung, als würde uns sogleich etwas fehlen, wenn zu der Schilderung der Bibel nicht hinzugekommen wäre die gestaltenschaffende Kraft in Raffaels Madonnen und ähnlichen Bildern, die aus der biblischen Tradition und Legende entsprungen sind. Daher möchte man sagen: Raffael lebt nicht nur fort in den auf ihn folgenden Jahrhunderten, sondern was ihm vorangegangen ist, das gliedert sich mit seinem eigenen Schaffen zu einem organischen Ganzen zusammen und weist, gleichsam um seine Vollendung durch ihn zu erhalten, auf ihn schon hin, wenn das auch erst in der späteren geschichtlichen Betrachtung zum Ausdruck kommt.

So erscheint ein Wort, das Lessing an bedeutsamer Stelle gebraucht hat, das Wort «die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts», gerade dann in einem besonderen Lichte, wenn wir sehen, wie in solcher Art ein einheitliches geistiges Wesen hinflutet durch die Entwickelung der Menschheit, und wie dieses einheitliche Wesen besonders aufstrahlt in solchen hervorragenden Gestalten, wie Raffael eine ist. Und das, was wir oftmals vom geisteswissenschaftlichen Standpunkte aus in Beziehung auf die Geistesentwickelung der Menschheit betonen konnten, die wiederholten Erdenleben des Menschenwesens, sie lassen sich in einer ganz besonderen Weise empfinden, wenn man das eben Gesagte ins geistige Auge faßt. Da gewahrt man erst, wie es einen Sinn hat, daß dieses Menschenwesen in wiederholten Erdenleben durch die Epochen der Menschheit hindurch immer wieder und wieder erscheint und selber von einem Zeitalter zum andern dasjenige trägt, was der Geistesentwickelung der Menschheit eingepflanzt werden soll. Sinn und Bedeutung suchtdieGeisteswissenschaft in derEntwickelung derMenschheit. Nicht will sie bloß wie in einer gerade fortlaufenden Entwicklungslinie darstellen, was aufeinanderfolgend geschehen ist, sondern den einzelnen Zeitaltern will sie einen Gesamtsinn zuerteilen, so daß die Menschenseele, wenn sie immer wieder und wieder in den aufeinanderfolgenden Erdenleben erscheint, diese Erde so betritt, daß sie immer wieder und wieder Neues erleben kann. So daß wir wirklich sprechen können von einer Erziehung, welche die Menschenseele durch ihre verschiedenen Erdenleben durchmacht, eine Erziehung durch alles das, was von dem gemeinsamen Geiste der Menschheit geschaffen und ausgebildet wird.

Was hier vom geisteswissenschaftlichen Standpunkte aus über das Verhältnis Raffaels zu der gesamten Menschheitsentwicklung der letzten Jahrhunderte vorgebracht werden soll, das soll nicht eine philosophische Geschichtskonstruktion sein, sondern etwas, das sich auf naturgemäße Weise durch mancherlei Betrachten von Raffaels Schaffen ergeben hat. Und nicht weil es sozusagen eine Art von Trieb sein könnte, das Geistesleben der Menschheit philosophisch zu konstruieren, soll das gesagt werden, was die Betrachtung des heutigen Abends ausmacht, sondern weil alles, was sich mir selbst ergeben hat nach mancherlei Anschauen und Betrachten der verschiedenen Schöpfungen Raffaels, sich ganz naturgemäß zu dem zusammenkristallisiert hat, was ich darstellen möchte. Allerdings wird es unmöglich sein, auf einzelne Schöpfungen Raffaels einzugehen. Das kann man nur, wenn man in der Lage ist, durch irgendwelche Mittel zugleich die BildwerkeRaffaels den Zuhörern vorzuführen. Aber das Gesamtschaffen Raffaels drängt sich ja auch zu einem Gesamteindruck in der Empfindung zusammen. Man trägt, wenn man Raffael studiert hat, sozusagen etwas von einem Gesamteindruck in der Seele. Und dann mag man wohl fragen: Wie nimmt sich dieser Gesamteindruck gegenüber der Entwickelung der Menschheit aus?

Da fällt der Blick auf ein bedeutsames Zeitalter, mit dem Raffael innig zusammenhängt, wenn man ihn auf sich wirken läßt, jenes Zeitalter, das ja die Menschheit dadurch besonders charakterisiert, daß sie es zusammenfallen läßt mit der Entwicklung des griechischen Volkes. Und in der Tat: wenn wir die Menschheitsentwicklung der letzten Jahrtausende betrachten, so stellt sich wie eine Art von mittlerer Epoche in diese Menschheitsentwicklung der letzten Jahrtausende das hinein, was die Griechen nicht nur geschaffen, sondern was sie durch ihre ganze Wesenheit erlebt haben. Was der griechischen Kultur, die in einer gewissen Beziehung zusammenfällt mit der Begründung des Christentums, vorangegangen ist, das stellt sich uns mit einem ganz anderen Charakter dar als das, was dieser griechischen Kultur nachgefolgt ist. Wenn wir die Menschen in der Zeit betrachten, die der griechischen Kultur vorangegangen ist, so finden wir, daß damals Seele und Geist der Menschen viel inniger zusammenhingen mit allem Leiblichen, mit dem äußerlich Körperlichen, als das in der späteren Zeit der Fall ist. Was wir heute Verinnerlichung der Menschenseele, Sichzurückziehen der Menschenseele nennen, wenn sich diese dem Geist zuwenden, zum Besinnen über das kommen will, was als Geistiges der Welt zugrunde liegt, das gab es für die der griechischen Zeit vorangegangenen Zeiten nicht in solchem Maße wie heute. Damals war es so, daß, wenn sich der Mensch seiner leiblichen Organe bediente, ihm gleichzeitig die geistigen Geheimnisse des Daseins in seine Seele hereinleuchteten. Eine solch abgeschlossene Betrachtung der Sinnenwelt, wie sie in der heute gebräuchlichen Wissenschaft vorhanden ist, war in älteren Zeiten nicht vorhanden. Der Mensch schaute mit seinen Sinnen die Dinge an und empfand, indem er den Sinneseindruck vor sich hatte, zugleich dasjenige, was geistig-seelisch in den Dingen lebte und webte. Mit den Dingen und ihrer Betrachtung durch die Sinne ergab sich zugleich dem Menschen das Geistige. Ein besonderes Zurückziehen von den sinnlichen Eindrükken, ein besonderes Sichhingeben der Innerlichkeit der Seele, um zum Geistigen der Welt vorzuschreiten, war in der älteren Zeit nicht notwendig.

Wenn wir in der Menschheitsentwickelung sehr weit zurückgehen, so finden wir, daß selbst das, was wir im besten Sinne des Wortes «hellsichtige Betrachtung der Dinge» nennen, ein allgemeines Gut der Menschheit der Urzeiten war, und daß dieses hellsichtige Betrachten nicht durch abgesonderte Zustände erreicht wurde, sondern da war und etwas so Naturgemäßes war, wie die sinnliche Betrachtung. Dann kam das Griechentum mit seiner ihm eigentümlichen Welt, von der man sagen kann, daß zwar damit die Verinnerlichung des Geisteslebens beginnt, daß aber das, was der Geist innerlich erlebt, überall noch im Zusammenhange gesehen wird mit dem Äußeren, das in der Sinneswelt vorgeht. Im Griechentum halten sich das Sinnliche und das Seelisch-Geistige die Waage. Nicht mehr so unmittelbar wie in der vorgriechischen Zeit war mit der Sinnesbetrachtung zugleich das Geistige gegeben. Es stieg gleichsam in der griechischen Seele das Geistige auf als ein innerlich Abgesondertes zwar, aber als etwas, was man empfand, wenn man die Sinne nach außen lenkte. Nicht in den Dingen, sondern an den Dingen wurde der Mensch das Geistige gewahr. So war in der vorgriechischen Zeit die Seele des Menschen gleichsam ausgegossen in die Leiblichkeit. Von der Leiblichkeit befreit hatte sie sich im Griechentume in einer gewissen Weise, aber das Seelisch-Geistige hielt dem Leiblichen im ganzen Griechentum noch die Waage. Daher kam es, daß das, was die Griechen schufen, ebenso durchgeistigt erscheint wie das, was ihnen, durch die Sinne ermöglicht, vor die Augen trat. -— Dann kommen die nachgriechischen Zeiten, jene Zeiten, in denen sich der Menschengeist verinnerlicht, in denen es ihm nicht mehr gegeben war, daß er mit dem Sinneseindruck zugleich das empfangen konnte, was in den Dingen lebt und webt als Geistiges. Das sind die Zeiten, in denen sich die Menschenseele in sich zurückziehen mußte und abgesondert in einem besonderen Innenleben ihre Kräfte, ihre Überwindungen erleben mußte, wenn sie zum Geistigen vordringen wollte. Geistige Betrachtung der Dinge und sinnliche Anschauung der Dinge wurden sozusagen zwei Welten, welche die menschliche Seele zu durchleben hatte.

Wie erscheint uns das eben Gesagte anschaulich, wenn wir einen Geist wie zum Beispiel Augustinus betrachten, der ja in der nachchristlichen Zeit von der Begründung des Christentums kaum so weit getrennt ist als wir etwa von der Reformation. Wie charakteristisch erscheint uns der angedeutete Fortschritt der Menschheit, wenn wir das, was Augustinus erlebt und in seinen Schriften dargestellt hat, mit dem vergleichen, was aus der griechischen Welt überliefert ist! Was Augustinus in seinen «Confessiones» darlegt, was er uns zeigt als die Kämpfe der verinnerlichten Seele, was er uns zeigt als einen Schauplatz, der sich rein abgezogen von der Außenwelt in der inneren Seele darstellt, wie unmöglich erscheint uns das bei den Geistern Griechenlands, bei denen wir überall sehen, wie sich das, was in der Seele vorhanden ist, anknüpft an das, was sich in der Außenwelt abspielt.

Man darf sagen, wie durch einen mächtigen Einschnitt getrennt erweist sich die Entwickelungsgeschichte der Menschheit. Und in diese Entwickelungsgeschichte stellt sich hinein auf der einen Seite das Griechentum, das uns zeigt, wie das Menschentum die Waage hält in bezug auf das Geistig-Seelische und auf das äußerlich Leibliche. Auf der anderen Seite stellt sich in diesen Einschnitt hinein die Begründung des Christentums, die zunächst darauf ausging, alles, was die menschliche Seele erleben konnte, gleichsam innerlich, in inneren Kämpfen und Überwindungen zu erleben, den Blick hinzuwenden nicht auf dieSinneswelt, um die Rätsel des Daseins zu fühlen, sondern auf das, was der Geist erahnend erschauen konnte, wenn er sich rein den geistig-seelischen Kräften hingab. Wie unendlich verschieden und wie durch eine tiefe Kluft getrennt sind die schönen Griechen, die majestätischen und so vollendet schönen griechischen Götter Zeus oder Apollon von dem am Kreuze sterbenden, von innerer Tiefe und innerer Größe, aber nicht von äußerer Schönheit getragenen Christus am Kreuz. Das ist schon das äußere Symbol für jenen tiefen Einschnitt, den das Christentum und das Griechentum in die Entwickelung der Menschheit machen. Diesen Einschnitt sehen wir bei den Geistern, die auf die griechische Zeit folgen, wie eine immer stärker werdende Verinnerlichung der Seele sich auswirken.

Diese Verinnerlichung, die so stattgefunden hat, charakterisiert nun den weiteren Fortgang der menschheitlichen Entwickelung. Will man geisteswissenschaftlich diese Menschheitsentwickelung begreifen, so muß man sich schon klarmachen, daß wir in einem Zeitalter leben, das, je mehr wir es seinen unmittelbaren Vergangenheiten und den Ausblicken nach betrachten, die wir in eine eventuelle Zukunft tun können, immer mehr nach dem eben Gesagten sich uns darstellt als eine fortschreitende Verinnerlichung. So daß wir hinschauen auf eine Zukunft, in welcher in der Tat eine noch tiefere Kluft, als sie jetzt schon aus den Betrachtungen der Vergangenheit vorgestellt werden kann, sich auftürmen wird zwischen allem, was draußen in der Welt vorgeht, was sich abspielt in dem mehr oder weniger mechanischen, maschinellen Leben der äußeren Welt, und dem, was die menschliche Seele zu erreichen versucht, wenn sie die Höhen eines Geistigen erfassen will, die sie ersteigen will, die sich nur auftun, wenn wir im Inneren die Schritte hinauf zu tun versuchen, die zum Geistigen führen. Immer mehr und mehr schreiten wir einem Zeitalter der Verinnerlichung entgegen. Ein bedeutender Einschnitt aber in bezug auf dieses Vorschreiten der Menschheit zur Verinnerlichung in der nachgriechischen Zeit ist das, was uns hinterblieben ist in den Schöpfungen Raffaels.

Als ein ganz besonderer Geist stellt sich Raffael hin wie an eine Wasserscheide der Menschheitsentwicklung. Was vor ihm liegt, ist wieder, man möchte sagen in einer ganz besonderen Weise der Beginn menschlicher Verinnerlichung. Und was nach ihm liegt, das stellt ein neues Kapitel dar in dieser menschlichen Verinnerlichung. Wenn auch manches, was ich in der heutigen Betrachtung zu sagen habe, wie eine Art symbolischer Betrachtung klingen mag, so soll es doch nicht bloß in symbolischer Ausdrucksweise genommen werden, sondern so, daß versucht wird, zu fassen das, was wegen Raffaels so überragender Größe doch nur in menschliche triviale Begriffe zu kleiden ist, indem es in möglichst weite Begriffe und Ideen gedrängt wird.

Wenn wir in Raffaels Seele einen Blick zu tun versuchen, so fällt uns vor allem auf, wie diese Seele im Jahre 1483 wie eine Frühlingsgeburt für die Seele erscheint, dann eine innere Entwickelung durchmacht, glanzvoll in glanzvollen Schöpfungen sich entwickelt und als Raffael siebenunddreißigjährig, also noch jung stirbt. Man möchte, um sich in diese Seele Raffaels so recht zu vertiefen, so daß man ihrem Schritte folgen kann, eine Weile den Blick ganz von dem ablenken, was in der Weltgeschichte sonst vorgegangen ist, und rein den Blick hinlenken auf das Innerliche der Raffael-Seele.

Herman Grimm hat zuerst auf gewisse Regelmäßigkeiten der inneren Entwicklung der Raffael-Seele hingewiesen, und man möchte sagen: es braucht sich schon einmal die Geisteswissenschaft nicht zu schämen, wenn sie heute gegenüber der ungläubigen Menschheit auf gewisse zyklische Gesetze, Gesetze eines regelmäßigen Geistesweges in jeder Entwicklung, auch in der menschlichen Einzelentwicklung, hinweist, da ein so bedeutsamer Kopf wie Herman Grimm selber schon, ohne diese Geisteswissenschaft anzuerkennen, zu einer solchen regelmäßigen inneren zyklischen Entwicklung für die Raffael-Seele hingeleitet worden ist. Herman Grimm macht nämlich darauf aufmerksam, daß das Werk, das uns heute ja in Mailand so ergötzt, die «Vermählung der Maria», wie eine völlige Neuerscheinung in der ganzen Kunstentwickelung dastehe und mit nichts Vorhergehendem sich unmittelbar zusammenstellen lasse, so daß man sagen könne, Raffaels Seele habe wie aus unbestimmten Untergründen einer menschlichen Seele heraus etwas geboren, das aus diesen Untergründen sich in die Gesamtentwickelung des Geistes hineinstellt wie ein völlig Neues.

Bekommen wir so eine Empfindung von dem, was in dieser Seele Raffaels von der Geburt an veranlagt war, so können wir auch fühlen mit Herman Grimm, wenn wir nun die Raffael-Seele weiter verfolgen, wenn wir die Entwicklung Raffaels fortschreiten sehen, wie er in regelmäßigem Entwicklungslauf gewisse Etappen betritt, Etappen von vier zu vier Jahren. Merkwürdig schreitet Raffaels Seele vorwärts in Zyklen von vier zu vier Jahren. Und wenn wir ein solches Jahrviert betrachten, so sehen wir Raffael jeweils auf einer für seine Seele höheren Stufe. Vier Jahre etwa nach der «Vermählung der Maria» malte er die «Grablegung», weitere vier Jahre später die Bilder der «Camera della Segnatura», und so in Etappen von vier zu vier Jahren bis zu jenem Werke, das unvollendet neben seinem Sterbebett stand, der «Verklärung Christi».

Weil in dieser Seele alles so harmonisch fortschreitet, deshalb möchte man sie ganz für sich betrachten. Dann bekommt man aber einen Eindruck davon, daß in dem Zeitalter Raffaels auch in bezug auf die Kunst der Malerei eine solche Innerlichkeit sich entwickeln mußte, und wie dasjenige, was zur Gestaltung drängte in Gestalten, wie sie nur Raffael schaffen konnte, herausgeboren ist aus den Tiefen der seelischen Erlebnisse, obwohl es in Bildern der Sinnlichkeit auftritt. Und hebt es sich denn nicht ebenso wie die Geschichte selbst heraus?

Lassen wir, nachdem wir so eine Weile das Innerliche der Seele Raffaels betrachtet haben, die Zeit auf uns wirken, in die er hineingestellt war, und das, was um ihn herum war. Da finden wir allerdings, daß Raffael, solange er noch mehr oder weniger Kind war und in Urbino heranwuchs, sich in einer Umgebung befand, die auf bedeutsame Anlagen, die sich geltend machten, weckend wirkte. War doch in Urbino ein Palastbau zustande gekommen, der damals ganz Italien in Aufregung versetzte. Das war etwas, was für die ersten Anlagen Raffaels etwas gab wie ein harmonisch mit diesen Anlagen Zusammenfließendes. Dann aber sehen wir ihn verpflanzt nach Perugia, dann nach Florenz, dann nach Rom. In einem engen Kreise hat sich im Grunde genommen das Leben Raffaels abgespielt. Wie nahe zusammen liegen heute für uns die Orte, wenn wir sein ganzes Leben betrachten! Raffaels ganze Welt war in diesem Kreise eingeschlossen, soweit die Sinneswelt in Betracht kam. Nur im Geiste erhob er sich in andere Sphären.

Aber nun sehen wir, wie in Perugia, wo Raffael jene jugendliche Entwicklung in der Seele durchmacht, blutige Kämpfe an der Tagesordnung waren. Von einem leidenschaftlich aufgeregten Volke war dieStadtbevölkert. Adelsfamilien, die miteinander in Zank und Hader lebten, bekriegten sich. Die einen vertrieben die anderen aus der Stadt. Nach kurzer Vertreibung versuchten dann die anderen, sich wieder der Stadt zu bemächtigen, und nicht wenige Male waren die Straßen Perugias mit Blut bedeckt, mit Leichen übersät. Ein Geschichtsschreiber schildert uns eine merkwürdige Szene, wie überhaupt die Darstellungen, welche die Geschichtsschreiber aus jener Zeit geben, ganz eigentümlich sind. Da sehen wir durch einen Geschichtsschreiber lebendig auftauchen einen Adliigen der Stadt, der, um seine Verwandten zu rächen, die Stadt als Krieger betritt. Der Geschichtsschreiber schildert ihn uns, wie er zu Pferde gleich dem verkörperten Kriegsgeist selber durch die Straßen reitet und alles, was sich ihm in den Weg stellt, niedermacht, so aber, daß der Geschichtsschreiber offenbar den Eindruck gehabt hat: eine gerechte Rache ist es, die dieser Adlige da nimmt. Und es taucht auf vor dem Geiste des Geschichtsschreibers das Bild jenes Kriegers, der den Feind unter seine Füße zwingt. In einem Bilde Raffaels, dem «St. Georg», fühlen wir förmlich aus der Darstellung auftauchen dieses Bild, das der Chronist entwirft, und wir haben unmittelbar den Eindruck: es konnte nicht anders sein, als daß Raffael diese Szene habe auf sich wirken lassen, und daß dann, was äußerlich so furchtbar uns erscheinen muß, aus Raffaels Seele verinnerlicht aufersteht und zum Ausgangspunkt für seine Darstellung eines der größten und bedeutsamsten Bilder der Menschheitsentwickelung geworden ist.

So sah Raffael kämpfende Menschheit um sich. So hatte er Verwirrung über Verwirrung, Krieg über Krieg um sich in der Stadt, in der er seine Lehrzeit durchmachte bei seinem ersten Lehrmeister Pietro Perugino, und wir haben den Eindruck, als ob es damals in der Stadt zwei Welten gegeben hat: die eine, in der sich Grausames und Furchtbares abspielte, und eine andere Welt, die verinnerlicht in Raffaels Seele lebte und die im Grunde genommen nicht viel zu tun hatte mit dem, was ringsherum sinnlich vorging.

Dann wieder sehen wir Raffael im Jahre 1504 nach Florenz verpflanzt. Wie war Florenz, als Raffael die Stadt betrat? Zunächst so, daß die Einwohner das Gebaren und den Eindruck von ermüdeten Leuten machten, die durch Aufregungen des Inneren und Äußeren durchgegangen waren und mit einem gewissen Überdruß und einer gewissen Müdigkeit lebten. Was war doch alles über Florenz ergangen! Kämpfe ebenso wie in Perugia, blutige Verfolgungen verschiedener Geschlechter, allerdings auch Kämpfe mit der Außenwelt; dann aber das einschneidende, alle Seelen der Stadt aufregende Erleben Savonarolas, der, kurze Zeit bevor Raffael die Stadt betrat, den Märtyrertod gestorben war. Da steht sie vor uns, diese eigentümliche Gestalt Savonarolas, mit dem feurigen Wort gegen die damaligen Mißstände wetternd, ja, gegen die Grausamkeiten der Kirche, gegen die Verweltlichung, gegen das Heidentum der Kirche. Da klingen in uns nach, wenn wir uns der Betrachtung hingeben, die stürmischen Worte Savonarolas, durch die er ganz Florenz hinriß, so daß die Leute nicht nur an seinen Lippen hingen, sondern ihn so verehrten, wie wenn ein höherer Geist in diesem asketischen Leibe vor ihnen gestanden hätte.

Umgestaltet hatte das Wort Savonarolas die Stadt Florenz, als ob unmittelbar eine Art von religiösem Reformator die religiösen Ideen und die ganze Stadt auch staatlich durchzogen hätte. Wie wenn eine Art Gottesstaat gegründet worden wäre, so stand Florenz unter dem Einfluß Savonarolas. Und dann sehen wir, wie Savonarola denjenigen Mächten verfällt, gegen die er moralisch und religiös aufgetreten war. Vor unserer Seele taucht das ergreifende Bild auf, wie Savonarola mit seinen Gefährten zum Märtyrerfeuer geführt wird, und wie er von jenem Galgen, von dem er auf den Scheiterhaufen herunterfallen sollte, die Augen hinunterwendete — es war im Mai 1498 — zu dem Volke, das einst an seinen Lippen hing, das ihn nun auch verlassen hatte und wie abtrünnig hinschaute auf den, der es so lange begeistert hatte. Wenige waren es, darunter auch Künstler, in denen noch die Worte Savonarolas nachklangen. Es gibt einen Maler jener Zeit, der, nachdem Savonarola den Märtyrertod erlitten hatte, selber das Mönchskleid anzog, um in seinem Orden in seinem Geiste weiterzuwirken.

Man kann sich jene müde Atmosphäre vorstellen, die über Florenz lag. In diese Atmosphäre hinein sehen wir im Jahre 1504 Raffael versetzt, der den Frühlingshauch des Geistes durch die Mittel seines Schaffens mitbrachte, der gleichsam ein geistiges Feuer, allerdings in ganz anderer Art, als es Savonarola geben konnte, in diese Stadt hereinbrachte. Wenn wir so, recht unähnlich der Stimmung dieser Stadt, die Seele Raffaels sehen, die uns so recht in ihrer Isolierung erscheint, wenn wir sie, vereint mit Künstlern und Malern, an einsamer Werkstätte in Florenz oder sonstwo schaffen sehen, so taucht ja sogleich vor uns ein anderes Bild auf, das uns, man möchte sagen, noch historisch anschaulich zeigt, wie Raffaels Seele etwas innerlich Abgesondertes war auch von dem Äußerlichen, mit dem sie unmittelbar in Berührung stand. Da tauchen auf die Gestalten der römischen Päpste, Alexander VI., Julius II., Leo X., das ganze päpstliche System, gegen das Savonarola seine Zornesworte gerichtet hatte, gegen das sich die Reformatoren gewandt haben. Da taucht es aber so auf, daß wir in diesem päpstlichen System zugleich den Protektor Raffaels schauen, daß wir Raffaels Seele im Dienste des Papsttumes sehen, so sehen, daß seine Seele innerlich wahrhaftig wenig mit demjenigen gemeinsam hatte, was uns zum Beispiel an seinem Protektor, dem Papst Julius IL., entgegentritt, der ja sagte, er komme den Menschen so vor wie jemand, der einen Teufel im Leibe habe und seinen Feinden am liebsten immer die Zähne zeigen möchte.

Große Gestalten sind sie, diese Päpste, aber das waren sie gewiß nicht, was etwa Savonarola oder seine Gesinnungsgenossen «Christen» genannt hätten. In ein neues, aber jetzt nicht im alten Sinne gehaltenes Heidentum war das Papsttum übergegangen. Von christlicher Frömmigkeit war in diesen Kreisen nicht viel zu spüren, wohl aber von Glanz, Herrschsucht, Machtgelüsten, bei den Päpsten sowohl wie bei ihrer Umgebung. Gleichsam den Diener dieser heidnisch gewordenen Christenheit sehen wir in Raffael. Aber wie? Wir sehen ihn so, daß etwas geschaffen wird aus seiner Seele heraus, durch welches die christlichen Ideen vielfach in einer neuen Gestalt erscheinen. Wir sehen das Innigste, das Lieblichste der christlichen Legendenwelt auf den Madonnen-Bildern und in anderen Werken Raffaels erstehen. Welcher Kontrast zwischen dem seelisch Innerlichen in Raffaels Schaffen und dem, was um ihn herum vorging, als er in Rom dann der äußere Diener der Päpste geworden ist! Aber wie war das alles möglich? Sehen wir schon an der ersten Lehrstätte in Perugia, sehen wir dann in Florenz, wie unähnlich das Äußere seinem Innerlichen ist, so sehen wir dies in Rom ganz besonders, wo er inmitten einer — für Savonarola etwa, der ihm allerdings auch nicht gleicht unerhörten Kardinäle- und Priesterwirtschaft seine weltbeherrschenden Bilder schuf. Und dennoch: man muß Raffael und seine Umgebung doch so betrachten, wenn man sich ein richtiges Bild für das schaffen will, was in seiner Seele lebte.

Lassen wir einmal die Bilder Raffaels auf uns wirken! Das kann allerdings heute abend nicht im einzelnen geschehen, aber wenigstens eines der bekannteren Bilder darf herausgehoben werden, damit wir uns besonders über das ganz eigentümliche Seelenhafte der Raffael-Seele verständigen können. Es ist die uns ja so nahe «Sixtinische Madonna», die sich in Dresden befindet, und die wohl fast jeder aus den überaus zahlreichen Nachbildungen kennt, die in der ganzen Welt verbreitet sind. Wie sie uns da entgegentritt als eines der herrlichsten, edelsten Kunstwerke der Menschheitsentwickelung, wie uns da die Mutter mit dem Kind erscheint, heranschwebend auf Wolkenhöhen, welche die Erdkugel überdecken, aus dem Unbestimmten, möchte man sagen, der geistig-übersinnlichen Welt heranschwebend, von Wolken umkleidet und umringt, die sich wie von selbst zu menschenähnlichen Gestalten formen, von denen eine, wie verdichtet, dem Kinde der Madonna ähnlich ist, wie sie da erscheint ruft sie in uns ganz besondere Empfindungen hervor, von denen wir wohl sagen können, daß wir, wenn sie unsere Seele durchziehen, alle die legendenhaften Vorstellungen vergessen könnten, aus denen das Bild der Madonna herausgewachsen ist, und von allen christlichen Traditionen vergessen könnten, was sie uns über die Madonna sagen.

Nicht um in trockener Weise zu charakterisieren, möchte ich das vorbringen, sondern um möglichst weitherzig zu charakterisieren, was wir gegenüber der Madonna empfinden können. Wer im geisteswissenschaftlichen Sinne die Menschheitsentwickelung betrachtet, kommt ja über alle materialistische Anschauung hinaus. Im Sinne der naturwissenschaftlichen Anschauung haben sich zuerst die niederen Lebewesen entwickelt und dann ist die Entwickelung bis zum Menschen herauf geschritten. Geisteswissenschaftlich müssen wir im Menschen aber ein Wesenhaftes sehen, das hinauslebt über alles, was unter ihm in den Naturreichen steht. Tritt uns der Mensch entgegen, so erscheint uns, geisteswissenschaftlich betrachtet, in ihm etwas, was viel älter ist als alle die Wesen, die ihm in den verschiedenen Naturreichen mehr oder weniger nahestehen.

Der Mensch ist für die Geisteswissenschaft vorhanden, bevor die Wesen des tierischen, des pflanzlichen und selbst des mineralischen Reiches vorhanden waren. In weiter Perspektive sehen wir zurück in die Zeiten-Entwickelung, in welcher das, was jetzt unser Innerstes ist, schon da war, was sich später erst den Reichen eingegliedert hat, die jetzt unter dem Menschen stehen. So sehen wir aus einer überirdischen Welt des Menschen Wesenheit heranschweben, sehen, daß wir in Wahrheit diese menschliche Wesenheit erst begreifen können, wenn wir von alledem, was die Erde aus sich selber erschaffen und hervorbringen kann, uns zu etwas Außerirdischem erheben, zu etwas auch Vorirdischem. Wissen können wir durch die Geisteswissenschaft: wenn wir alle Kräfte, alles Wesenhafte, was mit der Erde selber zusammenhängt, auf uns wirken lassen, so ist doch aus all diesem kein Bild des ganzen wesenhaften Menschen zu gewinnen, sondern wir müssen von allem Irdischen den Blick erheben in überirdische Regionen und aus ihnen dieses Menschen Wesenheit heranschweben sehen. Wir müssen, wenn wir im Gleichnis sprechen wollen, einmal fühlen, wie zu dem Irdischen etwas heranschwebt, wenn wir zum Beispiel des Morgens, insbesondere in einer solchen Gegend wie die ist, in welcher Raffael gelebt hat, unsere Blicke zu einem Sonnenaufgang hinwenden, zu dem goldglänzenden Sonnenaufgang, und da ein Gefühl erhalten können, wie selbst im natürlichen Dasein zu dem, was irdisch ist, etwas hinzukommen muß an Kräften, die in das Irdische hereinwirken, an Kräften, die wir immer mit dem Sonnensein verbinden müssen. Dann steigt vor unserer Seele aus dem goldigen Glanze das Sinnbild dessen auf, was heranschwebt, um sich mit dem Irdischen zu umkleiden.

Man kann insbesondere in Perugia das Gefühl haben, daß das Auge denselben Sonnenaufgang sehen darf, den einst Raffael erlebt hat, und daß man in den Naturerscheinungen der aufgehenden Sonne ein Gefühl von dem bekommen kann, was im Menschen überirdisch ist. Aus den von dem Sonnengolde durchglänzten Wolken kann einem aufgehen — oder man kann wenigstens empfinden, als ob es einem so erscheint — das Bild der Madonna mit dem Kinde als ein Sinnbild des ewig Überirdischen im Menschen, das an die Erde eben aus dem Außerirdischen herankommt und unter sich noch, durch Wolken getrennt, alles das hat, was nur aus dem Irdischen hervorgehen kann. Zu höchsten geistigen Höhen kann sich unser Empfinden erhoben fühlen, wenn man sich, nicht theoretisch, nicht im Abstrakten, aber mit ganzer Seele, dem hingeben und sich damit durchdringen kann, was in Raffaels Madonna auf uns wirkt. Es ist eine naturgemäße Empfindung, die wir so vor dem weltberühmten Dresdner Bilde haben können. Und daß es auf manche Menschen so gewirkt hat, dafür möchte ich einen Beleg anführen, indem ich die Worte mitteile, welche der Freund Goethes, Karl August, damals noch Herzog von Weimar, über die Sixtinische Madonna nach einem Besuche in Dresden geschrieben hat:

«Bei dem Raffael, der die Sammlung dort schmückt, ist mir nicht anders gewesen, als wenn man den ganzen Tag durch die Höhe des Gotthard gestiegen ist, durchs Urseler Loch kam und nun auf einmal das blühende und grünende Tal sah. Mir war’s, so oft ich ihn sah und wieder weg sah, immer nur wie eine Erscheinung vor der Seele; selbst die schönsten Correggios waren mir nur Menschenbilder; ihre Erinnerung, wie die schönen Formen, sinnlich palpabel. Raffael blieb mir aber immer bloß wie ein Hauch, wie eine von den Erscheinungen, die uns die Götter in weiblicher Gestalt senden, um uns glücklich oder unglücklich zu machen; wie die Bilder, die sich uns im Schlaf wachend oder träumend wieder darstellen und deren uns einmal getroffener Blick uns ewig Tag und Nacht anschaut und das Innerste bewegt.»

Und merkwürdig: wenn man die Literatur verfolgt bei denjenigen, welche aus ihrer Empfindung heraus ein Tiefes gerade beim Anblick der Sixtinischen Madonna, aber auch bei anderen Raffael-Bildern aussprechen können, dann treten einem immer wieder, wenn die Menschen charakterisieren wollen, was sie empfinden, Vergleiche mit dem Licht, mit der Sonne, mit dem Erhellenden und mit dem Frühlingsmäßigen entgegen.

Da können wir einen Blick tun in die Raffael-Seele, wie sie aus den geschilderten Zuständen ihrer Umgebung heraus ihr Gespräch hält mit den ewigen Geheimnissen des Menschenwerdens. Da fühlen wir, wie ein Einzigartiges, nicht aus der Umgebung Herauswachsendes, sondern auf eine ungeheure menschliche Vergangenheit Hinweisendes diese Seele Raffaels ist. Man braucht dann nicht zu spekulieren. Eine solche Seele, die in den Umkreis der Welt hinausschaut und aus sich heraus das Geheimnis des Daseins nicht in Ideen ausdrückt, sondern empfindet und in einem solchen Bilde formt, eine solche Seele stellt sich dann wie etwas ganz Selbstverständliches durch eine solche innere Vollkommenheitals eine reifste Seele dar, die wahrhaftig in ihren Anlagen etwas trägt an Kräften der Menschheit, eine Seele, die hindurchgegangen sein muß durch andere Epochen der Menschheitsentwickelung und besonders durch manche dieser Epochen, welche Großes, Gewaltiges in diese Seele hineingegossen haben, so daß es wieder zutage treten kann in dem, was wir das Leben Raffaels nennen. Aber wie tritt es heraus?

Wir sehen das, was in den christlichen Legenden, in den christlichen Traditionen lebt, in den Bildern Raffaels auftauchen mitten in einer Zeit, in welcher das Christentum wie heidnisch geworden war und ganz äußerer Gestalt und äußerer Pracht hingegeben lebte, so etwa, wie das griechische Heidentum in seinen Göttern dargestellt war und vor allem verehrt wurde von den schönheitstrunkenen Griechen. Wir sehen Raffael diese Gestalten christlicher Überlieferungen ausprägen in einem Zeitalter, in welchem das, was lange Jahrhunderte unter Schutt und Trümmern auf römischem Boden vergraben war, wieder ausgegraben wurde. Wir sehen, daß Raffael selber mit unter den Ausgrabenden war. Merkwürdig erscheint uns dieses Rom, in das Raffael in dieser Zeit hineinversetzt war.

Was ging dieser Zeit voraus? Wir sehen zuerst die Jahrhunderte, da Rom auftaucht, sehen es auftauchen ganz aufgebaut auf dem Egoismus einzelner Menschen, die vor allen Dingen im Auge haben, auf Grundlage dessen, was der Mensch als Bürger eines Staates bedeuten sollte, eine menschliche Gemeinschaft zu begründen, eine Gemeinschaft in der äußeren physischen Welt. Dann, als Rom zu einer gewissen Höhe gelangt war, als die Kaiserzeit heraufgekommen war, sehen wir, wie es aufsaugt das Griechentum, indem in das römische Geistesleben das Griechentum hineinströmt, und wir erleben, wie Rom zwar politisch Griechenland überwältigt, wie aber Griechenland geistig Rom überwältigt. Es lebt das Griechentum dann im Römertum fort. Wir sehen, wie griechische Kunst, so weit sie von Rom aufgesogen wurde, im römischen Wesen fortlebt, sehen Rom ganz und gar von griechischem Wesen durchgossen.

Aber warum bleibt dieses griechische Wesen in den folgenden Jahrhunderten nicht eine charakteristische Eigenschaft der Entwicklung Italiens? Warum kam doch etwas ganz anderes heraus? Weil bald, nachdem dieses Griechentum sich in die römische Welt hineinergossen hatte, das andere kam, das eine stärkere Signatur dem aufdrückte, was sich auf dem Boden Italiens als Geistesleben entwickelte: das Christentum, die Verinnerlichung des Christentums, dasjenige, was nun nicht zur Menschheit so sprechen sollte wie das äußere Sinnliche der griechischen Städte, der griechischen Bildwerke oder der griechischen Philosophie, sondern das zur inneren Menschenseele das sprechen sollte, was gestaltenlos in diese Seele einziehen, was diese Menschenseele nur in inneren Kämpfen ergreifen sollte. Deshalb sehen wir solche Gestalten auftauchen wie Augustinus, ganz innerliche Gestalten.

Dann aber sehen wir, weil alles in der Entwicklung zyklisch abläuft, Kreisläufe durchläuft, nach der Verinnerlichung bei diesen Menschen, welche diese Verinnerlichung durchgemacht haben und in ihrer Seele lange gewissermaßen ohne Zusammenhang mit schöner. Äußerlichkeit gelebt haben, jene Sehnsucht nach Schönheit auftreten. Sie schauen wieder im Äußeren das Innerliche. Da ist es ein Bedeutsames,.wenn wir in Assisi das verinnerlichte Leben des Franz von Assisi durch Giotto vor unseren Augen auftreten sehen, wenn wir in den Bildern Giottos die inneren Erlebnisse sprechen sehen, die sozusagen das Christentum in der menschlichen Seele auswirken kann. Und wenn wir auch noch — der Ausdruck sei gestattet —- etwas ungelenk und unvollkommen in Giottos Bildern das Innere der Menschenseele sprechen fühlen, so sehen wir dann doch einen geraden Aufstieg bis zu jenem Punkte, wo das Innerlichste, das Hehrste und Edelste in äußerer Gestalt uns bei Raffael und seinen Zeitgenossen entgegentritt. Da werden wir wieder auf eine Eigentümlichkeit dieser Raffael-Seele hingelenkt.

Versuchen wir, uns in die Art hineinzufühlen, wie Raffael selber empfinden mußte, so müssen wir uns sagen: Ja, wenn wir solche Bildwerke auftreten sehen wie zum Beispiel die «Madonna della Sedia», so fällt uns auf, wie die Madonna mit dem Kinde, und davor das Kind Johannes, so vor uns stehen, daß wir, wenn wir sie betrachten, alle übrige Welt vergessen könnten, vor allem auch vergessen könnten, daß dieses Kind, welches von der Madonna gehalten wird, einmal mit jenen Erlebnissen verknüpft sein kann, welche wir als die Erlebnisse auf Golgatha kennen. Vor dem Bilde Raffaels vergessen wir alles, was dann als das «ChristusJesus-Leben» folgte. Wir gehen ganz auf in dem Augenblick, der hier festgehalten ist. Wir schauen einfach eine Mutter mit einem Kinde, von dem Herman Grimm gesagt hat, daß es das vornehmste Geheimnis ist, welches uns in der äußeren Welt entgegentreten kann. Wir schauen diesen Augenblick in einer Ruhe, wie wenn vorher und nachher sich nichts an ihn anschließen könnte. Wir gehen ganz auf in dem Verhältnis der Madonna zu ihrem Kinde, reißen es für uns selbst aus allem heraus, womit es sonst verknüpft ist. Und so in sich vollendet, immer das Ewige in einem Augenblicke sich uns zeigend, erscheinen im Grunde genommen Raffaels Schöpfungen.

Ja, wie muß eine Seele fühlen, die so schafft? Sie kann nicht fühlen etwa wie die Seele Savonarolas, die, von innerer Feuersglut erfaßt, die ganze Tragödie Christi in sich fühlt, wenn sie ihre Zornesworte spricht, oder auch, wenn sie zu den Hörern christlicher Andacht ihre religiös erhebenden, frommen Wortespricht. Wir können uns nicht vorstellen, daß Raffaels Seele Schwung habe in Savonarolas oder ähnlicher Geistesart, können uns nicht vorstellen, daß jenes sogenannte christliche Feuer in Raffaels Seele gewaltet hätte. Dennoch aber dürfen wir uns nicht vorstellen, wenn wir einigermaßen dasWesen einer Menschenseele auf uns wirken lassen können, daß in solcher Innerlichkeit, in solcher inneren Vollendung das, was die christlichen Vorstellungen sind, bildhaft durch Raffael vor uns hintreten könnten, wenn diese Seele dem christlichen Feuer so ganz fremd gewesen wäre, wie sie uns diesem christlichen Feuer fremd entgegentritt, wenn sie ganz objektiv an solchen Bildern schaft.

Man kann nicht objektiv und gerundet die Gestalten schaffen, wenn man etwa von dem Feuer Savonarolas durchdrungen ist, wenn man von der ganzen tragischen Stimmung des Christus in seiner Seele getragen ist und sich davon beflügelt fühlt. Es muß ganz andere Ruhe und ein ganz anderes Empfinden in der christlichen Empfindung in die Seele ausgeflossen sein. Dennoch könnte nicht aus der Seele herauskommen, was in Raffaels Bildern zum Ausdruck gekommen ist, wenn nicht das, was der tiefste Nerv christlicher Innerlichkeit ist, in dieser Seele gelebt hätte. Ist es dann nicht fast natürlich, wenn wir uns sagen: Ja, da haben wir eben eine Seele vor uns, welche jenes Feuer, das wir in Savonarola auf uns wirkend vernehmen, schon mit in das physische Dasein brachte, das sie als der Maler Raffael betrat. Wenn wir sie sehen, aus früheren Erdenleben durch die Geburt dieses Feuer ins Dasein bringend, dann begreifen wir, wie es so abgeklärt, so innerlich vollendet sein konnte, daß uns dieses Feuer nicht als das sozusagen Verzehrende und den Enthusiasmus Störende entgegentritt, sondern als das Abgeklärte des bildhaft Schaffenden erscheinen kann. Da möchte man sagen: man fühlt schon in den Anlagen Raffaels etwas durch, was einem vorkommt, wie wenn es in diesen Anlagen so lebte, als ob er in einem früheren Leben mit demselben Feuer hätte sprechen können, wie dann später Savonarola sprach. Und man brauchte sich nicht zu verwundern, wenn man in Raffaels Seele eine wiedererstandene Seele hätte aus einer Zeit, in welcher das Christentum nicht bildhaft, nicht in der Kunst stehend empfunden wurde, sondern als unmittelbar an seiner Begründung stehend, als es den großen Impuls, durch den es dann im Laufe der Jahrhunderte gewirkt hat, an seinem Ausgangspunkt hatte.

Vielleicht ist es nicht zu gewagt, zum Verständnis einer solchen Seele, wie es die Raffaels ist, sich so etwas herbeizutragen, wie es eben ausgesprochen worden ist. Denn wer gelernt hat, in immer wieder erneuerter Vertiefung in die Werke Raffaels diese Seele in ihren Tiefen zu verehren, in ihren 'Tiefen so anzuschauen, wie sie unergründlich tief wirkt, der vermag nicht anders, als durch solche weitgehende Empfindung sich begreiflich, sich verständlich zu machen, was da zu uns spricht, wo Raffael seine Seele in seine Wunderwerke hineingegossen hat.

So erscheint uns die Mission Raffaels eigentlich erst im rechten Lichte, wenn wir nach einem Ausdruck Goethes in einem «abgelebten Leben» das christliche Feuer suchen, das uns dann in einem späteren Leben als die Abgeklärtheit in seinem Raffael-Dasein erscheint. Dann verstehen wir auch, wie diese Seele so isoliert sich in die Welt hineinstellen mußte, und wir begreifen auch, wie jene Seele, die wir eben zu charakterisieren versuchten, die vielleicht, nur in gesteigertem Maße, etwas «Savonarolahaftes» in einem früheren Dasein hatte, als ein Neues empfinden konnte, was nun wieder zur Zeit Raffaels in der geistigen Entwicklung Italiens aufgetreten war.

Hatte in die Zeit, als das Kaisertum heranrückte und dann da war, in die römische Entwicklung das Griechentum hereingespielt, wie es geschildert worden ist, und war dann eine Verinnerlichung eingetreten, so sehen wir jetzt im Zeitalter Raffaels, der Renaissance, auf der einen Seite dieses alte Griechentum, das unter Schutt und Trümmern begraben war, wieder herauskommen, sehen Rom sich mit dem überbliebenen Griechentume bevölkern, sehen auftauchen, was einst als griechischer Geist die Stadt geziert und verschönt hatte, sehen die Augen der römischen Bevölkerung sich wieder hinlenken auf die Formen, die einst der griechische Geist geschaffen hatte. Auf der anderen Seite sehen wir in diesem Zeitalter aber auch, wie der Geist Platos, der Geist des Aristoteles, der Geist der griechischen Tragiker in das römische Leben eindringt. Noch einmal sehen wir die Eroberung der römischen Welt durch das Griechentum. Vielleicht gerade für einen solchen Geist, der einstmals in einseitiger Weise der moralisch-religiösen Anschauung des Christentums hingegeben war und in einem vorhergehenden Leben seine Seele ganz diesen moralischreligiösen Eindrücken hingegeben hat, mußte das Griechentum, wie ihn selbst befruchtend, erneuernd wirken, so wie es, aus Schutt und Trümmern hervorgezogen, auf der italienischen Halbinsel auftrat.

Sieht man also den moralisch-religiösen Impuls des Christentums wie in den Anlagen Raffaels liegend, so sieht man das, was in diesen Anlagen noch nicht da war, vor seinen schauenden Augen auftreten in dem wiedererstandenen Griechentum. Wie in keiner anderen Seele wirkten die aus Schutt und Trümmern wiedererstandenen Statuen und die griechischen Geistesprodukte, die aus den wiederaufgefundenen Manuskripten herausgeholt wurden, auf die Seele Raffaels. Was sich aus seinen Anlagen heraus, aus dem christlichen Empfinden heraus verband mit einem übergeistigen Hingegebensein an das Kosmische, das wirkte zusammen mit dem, was als griechischer Geist aus seinem Zeitalter heraus wiedererstand. Das waren die zwei Dinge, die sich in seiner Seele verbanden und die bewirkten, daß uns in den Werken Raffaels das entgegentritt, was an Innerlichkeit die nachgriechische Zeit geschaffen hat, was an Innerlichkeit das Christentum hineinergossen hat in die Menschheitsentwickelung und was sich zum Ausdruck brachte in, man möchte sagen, vollständig äußerer Offenbarung in einer malerischen Gestaltenwelt, aus welcher überall der reinste griechische Geist spricht.

So sehen wir die merkwürdige Erscheinung, daß uns durch Raffael das Griechentum im Christentum wiederersteht. So sehen wir in Raffael ein Christentum auftreten in einer Zeit, die eigentlich in einer gewissen Weise um ihn herum das Antichristliche darstellt. Wir sehen, daß sich in ihm ein Christentum darstellt, das weit hinausging über alle Enge des vorhergehenden Christentumes und sich erhob zu einer weiten Betrachtung gegenüber der damaligen Welt. Und doch sehen wir ein Christentum, das nicht in unendliche Sphären des bloß Spirituellen ahnend hinausweist, sondern sich zusammenschließt so, wie einst die Griechen in der künstlerischen Form ihre Götter-Ideen zusammengeschlossen haben mit dem, was gestaltenlos die Welt durchlebt und durchwebt, und es hineingedrängt haben in die Gestalten, aus denen heraus es zugleich unsere Sinne ergötzt.

Das ist es, was vor unsere Seele tritt, wenn wir uns ein Gesamtbild zu formen versuchen, wenn in unsere Seele einströmt die eine oder die andere der Schöpfungen Raffaels, wenn wir auf uns wirken lassen, was alles in höchster Vollendung-und doch in wunderbarstem Jugendüberfluß, denn Raffael starb mit 37 Jahren - auf uns wirken kann. Nicht einer grauen Theorie und auch wahrlich nicht einer philosophischen Geschichtskonstruktion zuliebe, sondern der unmittelbaren Empfindung entsprungen, welche die Werke Raffaels geben, muß gesagt werden: An einem so überragenden Geiste wie Raffael erscheint so recht das Gesetzmäßige im Fortlaufe des menschlichen Geisteslebens.

Wer sich als eine gerade Linie, wo sich immer Wirkung an Ursache anschließt, diesen Fortgang des Geisteslebens vorstellt, der ist wahrhaftig nicht mit den Tatsachen im Einklang. Man hat so leicht einen Ausspruch bei der Hand, der gewiß zu den goldenen Aussprüchen der Menschheit gehört: daß das Leben und die Natur keine Sprünge mache. Gewiß, aber in vieler Beziehung machen das Leben und die Natur fortwährend Sprünge. Das können wir sehen an der Entwickelung der Pflanze vom grünen Blatt zur Blüte, von der Blüte zur Frucht. Da sehen wir, wie zwar alles sich «entwickelt», wie aber tatsächlich Sprünge das Selbstverständliche sind.

So ist es auch im Geistesleben der Menschheit, und das ist noch mit mancherlei Geheimnissen verknüpft. Eines dieser Geheimnisse ist, daß immer eine spätere Epoche zurückgreifen muß auf eine frühere Epoche. So möchte man sagen: wie das Männliche und das Weibliche zusammenwirken müssen, so müssen die verschiedenen Zeitengeister, sich gegenseitig befruchtend, zusammenwirken, damit die Fortentwicklung geschieht. So mußte das Römertum schon um die Kaiserzeit herum vom Griechentum befruchtet werden, damit ein neuer Zeitgeist entstünde. Und so mußte wieder dieser Zeitgeist, der da entstand, befruchtet werden von dem christlichen Impuls, damit jene Verinnerlichung möglich werde, die wir dann in Augustinus und in anderen erblicken. So mußte später neuerdings diese innerlich so fortgeschrittene Menschenseele Raffael befruchter werden von dem Griechentume, das doppelt begraben war und doch wieder hervorkam, das doppelt entzogen war: den Blicken in den Bildwerken, die unten im Boden Italiens vom Erdreich bedeckt ruhten, und den Seelen in den begrabenen Literaturwerken, die den griechischen Geist ausprägten. Wenig, außerordentlich wenig berührt waren diese Jahrhunderte des ersten christlichen Jahrtausends in Italien von dem, was in der griechischen Philosophie, in der griechischen Dichtung lebte.

Doppelt begraben war das Griechentum und wartete gleichsam wie in einem jenseitigen Reich auf einen Zeitpunkt, wo es neuerdings die inzwischen durch eine neue Religion hindurchgeschrittene Menschenseele befruchten konnte. Begraben, sich den äußeren Augen der Menschen entziehend, und begraben wieder auch für die Seelen, die nicht ahnten, daß es sich fortentwickeln würde, daß man es hatte, während es nur fortfloß wie ein Fluß, der manchmal eine Strecke weit unter einem Berge fortfließt, sich den Blicken entzieht und nachher wieder an die Oberfläche kommt. Begraben, äußerlich für die Sinne, innerlich für die Tiefen der Seelen, war. dieses Griechentum. Jetzt kam es wieder hervor. Für die sinnliche Anschauung grub man es heraus aus dem Boden Italiens in den künstlerischen Werken; für die geistige Anschauung grub man es aus, indem man es nicht nur aus den alten Manuskripten hervorholte, sondern indem man wieder anfing, im griechischen Sinne zu empfinden, wie der Geist in allem Sinnlichen lebt, wie alles Sinnliche die Offenbarung des Geistigen ist. Man fing wieder an zu empfinden, was einst Plato und Aristoteles gedacht hatten.

Der aber, auf den das am meisten befruchtend wirken konnte, weil seine Seele in ihren Anlagen die christlichen Impulse am meisten verarbeitet hatte, das war Raffael. Bei ihm wirkte sich dieses doppelt vorher begrabene und doppelt wiedererstehende Griechentum jetzt so aus, daß er imstande war, die ganze Entwicklung der Menschheit in Gestalten zu prägen. Wie wunderbar vermochte er es in den Bildern der «Camera della Segnatura», wo wir das alte Geistesringen auf den Bildern wiedererstehen sehen, das Ringen jener Geister, die sich herausgebildet haben in der Zeit der. Verinnerlichung, die nicht da waren in der Zeit des Griechentums. Daß sie so angeschaut werden konnten zur Zeit Raffaels, dazu war die ganze Periode der Verinnerlichung notwendig. Jetzt sehen wir diese Verinnerlichung an die Wände der päpstlichen Zimmer gemalt.

Was sich die Griechen nur in Gestalten geformt gedacht hatten, das sehen wir jetzt verinnerlicht. Die inneren Strebungen und Kampfstimmungen, welche die Menschheit selbst durchgemacht hat, sehen wir mit griechischem Gestaltengeist, mit griechischer Kunststimmung und Schönheit an die Wände des päpstlichen Palastes gezaubert. Wie sich die Griechen vorstellten, daß die Götter auf die Welt wirkten, das gossen sie aus über ihre Statuen. Wie die Menschen es erlebt hatten, daß sie fortschreiten zu den Gründen der Dinge, das tritt uns in dem Bilde entgegen, das so oft die «Schule von Athen» genannt wird. Wie die Menschenseele gelernt hat die griechischen Götter anzuschauen, das tritt uns in einer eigentümlichen Neugestaltung der Götter Homers in dem «Parnaß» vor die Seele. Das sind nicht die Götter der Ilias und Odyssee, sondern das sind die Götter, wie sie eine Seele anschaute, die bereits durch die Epoche der Verinnerlichung durchgegangen war!

An der anderen Wand sehen wir das Bild, das jedem, gleichgültig, welchem religiösen Bekenntnisse er angehören mag, unvergeßlich bleiben muß — so wenig man jetzt noch eine Vorstellung davon bekommen kann -, das Bild, auf dem ein Innerstes dargestellt wird, die «Disputa». Während die anderen Bilder darstellen, wozu man sich durch ein gewisses philosophisches Streben hindurchringt, aber in griechischer Formenschönhett, tritt uns in dem gegenüberliegenden Bilde das Tiefste entgegen, was die Menschenseele erleben kann. Und wie wir nicht an ein enges christliches Bewußtsein zu denken brauchen, das zeigt sich uns hier, wenn wir das Brahma-, Vishnu-, Shiva-Motiv in einer ganz anderen Art ausgedrückt finden. Wir sehen als die Dreieinigkeit uns entgegentreten, was die menschliche Seele innerlich erleben kann, jede Seele, welchem Bekenntnisse sie auch angehört. Es tritt uns entgegen, aber nicht bloß symbolisch dargestellt, in der Symbolik der Dreieinigkeit in dem oberen Teile des Bildes. Es tritt uns weiter entgegen in jedem Antlitz der Kirchenväter und der Philosophen, in jeder Handbewegung, in der ganzen Verteilung der Gestalten, in der wunderbaren Farbengebung. Es tritt uns entgegen in der Totalität des Bildes, welches uns ein Innerliches der Menschenseele gibt in der schönen, vom griechischen Geiste durchzogenen Form. So sehen wir die Innerlichkeit, welche die Menschenseele im Verlaufe von anderthalb Jahrtausenden erlebt hat, als äußere Offenbarung wieder auferstehen. Wir sehen das Christentum nicht als das Heidentum der römischen Päpste und Kardinäle, sondern als das schöne, herrliche Gestalten schaffende griechische Heidentum — und doch Christentum - in den Bildern Raffaels wiedererstehen.

So steht diese Raffael-Seele an der Wende, gleichsam an der Wasserscheide der Zeiten, hinweisend auf ihre Vorzeit, heraufholend, was sich bis zum Christentum in der Schönheit der äußeren Offenbarungen entwickelt hat, und zugleich hingewendet zu dem, was sich in der Menschheitsentwickelung herausgebildet hat als das, was man die «Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts» nennt und was die wiedererstehende Seele zeigt, als die Verinnerlichung dieser Menschenseele. Daher stehen wir vor diesen Bildern Raffaels, vor diesen Wunderwerken einer einzigartigen Kunst so, daß sie uns wie ein Zusammenfluß zweier Zeitalter erscheinen, die klar und deutlich voneinander geschieden sind: das vorhergehende nachgriechische Zeitalter, das Zeitalter des Außenerlebens und das des Innenerlebens.

Aber wir stehen vor diesen Bildern so, daß sie uns zugleich eine Perspektivein die Zukunft hinein eröffnen. Denn wer von denen, die das erfühlen, was im Zusammenfluß von äußerer Schönheit und innerem weisheitsvollen Drange der Menschenseele werden konnte, sollte nicht die Hoffnung und die Gewähr dafür empfinden, trotz aller Außerlichkeit, die sich auch im Fortgange der Menschheit immer weiter und weiter entwickeln muß, daß diese Verinnerlichung im Laufe der Entwickelung fortschreiten muß, daß die Menschenseele immer innerlichere Perioden in den folgenden Leben finden muß?

Man kann verstehen, was einem in der Literatur entgegentritt, freilich nur entgegentritt, wenn man nicht als Kunstgelehrter oder als bloßer Leser an die Werke eines Geistes wie Herman Grimm herangeht, der mit ganzer Seele das Wirken der menschlichen Phantasie darzustellen versuchte, man kann es verstehen, wenn man gerade an einer gewissen Stelle von Herman Grimms Raffael-Werk Worte findet, die einem dann zu etwas ganz Besonderem werden, wenn man mit innigem Anteil einen solchen Geist wie Herman Grimm betrachtet und sieht, wie dieser selber wieder mit so innigem Anteile vor Raffaels Schöpfungen stand. Aber man muß es empfinden an jener Stelle des Raffael-Werkes, was Herman Grimm durch die Seele gezogen ist, als er ein Wort gebrauchte, das er nur keusch andeutet, schon auf den allerersten Seiten seines Buches, an der Stelle, bei der sein Blick auf das Herauswachsen Raffaels aus alten Zeitaltern fällt. Man sieht eigentlich aus dem Äußeren der Darstellung des Raffael-Werkes bei Herman Grimm nicht recht ein, woher dieser Gedanke stammt. Mitten unter weiten historischen Betrachtungen, in die Raffael hineingefügt wird, geht Herman Grimm der Gedanke auf und wird hingeschrieben, keusch hingeschrieben: «Es stehen mir Entwicklungen der Menschheit vor den Augen, die mitzumachen mir versagt sein wird, die mir aber als so glänzend schön erscheinen, daß es um ihretwillen wohl der Mühe wert wäre, das menschliche Leben noch einmal zu beginnen.»

Merkwürdig, diese Sehnsucht nach «Wiederverkörperung» in der Einleitung zu seinem Raffael-Buche bei Herman Grimm, tief bezeichnend für ein seelisches Fühlen bei einem Menschen, der sich ganz hineinzufühlen versuchte in die Seele Raffaels und in den Zusammenhang Raffaels mit den anderen Zeitaltern. Fühlt man da nicht etwas, was man etwa so ausdrücken kann: Solche Werke wie die von Raffael sind nicht nur ein Ergebnis. Sie führen nicht nur zu einer Betrachtung, die uns sagen läßt, wie dankbar wir sein müssen gegenüber dem, was uns die Vergangenheiten bis zu unserem Zeitalter gegeben haben, sondern solche Werke können noch eine ganz andere Empfindung in uns erstehen lassen, die Empfindung der Hoffnung, weil sie uns befestigen in dem Glauben an die fortschreitende Menschheit, und weil wir uns sagen müssen, daß diese Werke nicht so sein könnten, wenn die Menschheit nicht eine Wesenhafligkeit wäre, der das Fortschreiten Natur ist. So wird uns Sicherheit, so wird uns Hoffnung, wenn wir Raffael im richtigen Sinne auf uns wirken lassen, und dann dürfen wir sagen: Raffael hat durch das, was er künstlerisch geschaffen hat, zur Menschheit gesprochen!

Wenn wir die Fresken in der «Camera della Segnatura» betrachten, dann fühlen wir wohl die Vergänglichkeit des äußeren Werkes, und daß wir aus den oft übermalten Werken keine Vorstellung mehr von dem bekommen können, was Raffael einst dort auf die Wand gezaubert hat. Wir fühlen, daß einst eine Menschheit auf der Erde leben wird, die nicht in der Lage sein wird, die Originalwerke auf sich wirken zu lassen. Aber wir wissen, daß die Menschheit immer weiterschreiten wird.

Im Grunde genommen haben die Werke Raffaels erst ihren Siegeszug genommen, als mit Hingabe und Liebe von diesen Werken unzählige Bilder und Stiche und Nachbildungen hergestellt worden sind. Sie wirken fort, diese Werke Raffaels, bis in die Nachbildungen hinein. Man kann es verstehen, wenn wiederum Herman Grimm erzählt, er habe sich einmal eine große Phototypie der «Sixtinischen Madonna» in sein Zimmer gehängt, und es sei ihm, wenn er dieses Zimmer betrat, dann immer so gewesen, als ob er nicht recht hineingehen dürfe, als ob es wie ein Heiligtum der Madonna, dem Bilde gehöre. Wohl mancher wird es schon erlebt haben, wie die Seele eigentlich ein anderes Wesen wird als sie sonst im gewöhnlichen Leben ist, wenn sie einem Raffaelschen Bilde wirklich hingegeben sein kann, auch einer bloßen Nachbildung. Gewiß, die Originale werden einstmals nicht mehr sein. Aber sind denn die Originale auf anderen Gebieten vorhanden?

Wahr ist es, was Herman Grimm in seinem HomerBuche gesteht: Wir können auch die Originale des Homer nicht mehr richtig genießen, weil wir imgewöhnlichenLeben, ohne höhere geistige Kräfte, nicht mehr in der Lage sind, in alle Fügungen und Wendungen der griechischen Sprache, in ihre Schönheit und Gewalt uns hineinzuvertiefen, wenn wir jetzt Homer in seiner «Ilias» und «Odyssee» auf uns wirken lassen. Die Originale haben wir auch da nicht mehr; dennoch sprechen die Dichtungen Homers zu uns. Aber was Raffael äußerlich gegeben hat, das wird auch dann noch als ein lebendiges Zeugnis dafür leben, daß es einmal in der Entwicklung der Menschheit eine Zeit gegeben hat, in der man sich im weitesten Umkreise nicht in Gedrucktes und Geschriebenes vertiefen konnte — denn das war damals bei weitem nicht gang und gäbe -—, in der aber in den Schöpfungen Raffaels die Geheimnisse des Daseins zu den Augen der Menschen gesprochen haben. Das Zeitalter Raffaels war ein solches, welches weniger las, dafür aber mehr sah. Zeugnis von diesem Zeitalter, das anders geartet war, das aber fortwirken wird in alle kommenden Zeiten, weil die Menschheit ein ganzer Organismus ist, Zeugnis dafür wird das sein, wasRaffael immerdar der Menschheit zu sagen haben wird. So wird Raffaels Schöpfung fortleben im Gange der Menschheitsentwickelung, fortleben auch innerlich in den aufeinanderfolgenden Leben, die der Geist Raffaels zu durchleben und in denen er der Menschheit immer Größeres und immer Verinnerlichteres zu geben hat.

So weist die Geisteswissenschaft sozusagen auf ein doppeltes Fortleben hin: auf jenes Fortleben, das in den bereits gehaltenen Vorträgen geschildert ist und noch weiter besprochen werden wird, und auf ein anderes Geistesleben, das wir ja immer anstreben, das zu unserm Erzieher wird, wenn wir in immer neuen Epochen dieses Erdendasein durchlaufen. Und richtig ist es, was Herman Grimm mit Worten gesagt hat, in die er zusammenfaßte, was sich in seinem Gefühl, in seiner Empfindung ergeben hat aus seiner Gesamtbeschreibung Raffaels: Wenn auch einmal Raffaels Werk längst verblichen, vernichtet sein wird, dann wird Raffael der Menschheit doch leben; denn in ihm ist der Menschheit etwas geworden, was dem Geiste dieser Menschheit in jeglicher Beziehung eingepflanzt ist, was immerdar keimen und Früchte tragen wird.

Das wird die Menschenseele empfinden, welche sich genügend in Raffael vertiefen kann. Im Grunde genommen haben wir Raffael erst ganz verstanden, wenn wir eine Empfindung, von der sich Herman Grimm durchdrungen fühlte — wir haben das letztemal dargestellt, wie nahe er der Geisteswissenschaft stand -, als er Raffael immer wieder betrachtete, wenn wir diese Empfindung auch geisteswissenschaftlich erhöhen und vertiefen können. Wir verstehen uns selber in unserem Verhältnis zu Raffael, wir verstehen, wie solche Betrachtungen, wie sie heute an der Anschauung Raffaels darzustellen versucht worden sind, als Keime aufgehen können, wenn wir zum Schluß zusammenfassen, was eigentlich heute hat gesagt sein wollen, in Sätze Herman Grimms: «Von Raffael werden die Menschen immer wissen wollen. Von dem jungen schönen Maler, der alle anderen übertraf. Der früh sterben mußte. Dessen Tod ganz Rom betrauerte, Wenn die Werke Raffaels einmal verloren sind, sein Name wird eingenistet bleiben in das Gedächtnis der Menschen.»

So Herman Grimm, als er begann, in seiner Art Raffael zu beschreiben. Wir verstehen es. Und wieder verstehen wir ihn, wenn er am Schlusse seines Raffael-Werkes seine Betrachtung in die Worte ausklingen läßt: «Von der Lebensarbeit eines solchen Menschen wird jeder wissen wollen. Raffael ist zu einem der Elemente geworden, auf dem die höhere Bildung des menschlichen Geistes beruht. Wir möchten ihm näher treten, weil wir seiner zu unserem Wohlsein bedürfen.»

Raphael's Mission in the Light of the Science of the Mind

Raphael is one of those figures in the history of human thought who appear like stars, who are simply there, so that one has the feeling that they suddenly emerge from the undefined depths of humanity's intellectual development and then disappear again after engraving their essence into this intellectual history of humanity through their powerful creations. On closer inspection, however, the inquiring eye discovers that such a human being, whom one first assumed to shine like a star and then disappear again, fits into the whole of human spiritual life like a limb into a large organism. One has this feeling especially with Raphael.

Herman Grimm, the important art critic, whom I had the opportunity to discuss here last time, attempted to trace Raphael's influence and fame through the ages that followed Raphael's own era, right up to the present day. He was able to show that what Raphael created continued to have an effect after his death as if it were alive, that a unified stream of spiritual development continued from Raphael's life beyond his death and extends right up to the present day. If Herman Grimm has shown how the subsequent development of humanity lives on through Raphael's work, then on the other hand, from the perspective of spiritual history, one might say: previous times can also give one the impression that, in a certain respect, they already pointed to Raphael, who only later entered the world's development, just as a limb is part of a whole organism.

One is reminded of a statement once made by Goethe, and one might apply it, so to speak, from the world of space to the world of time. Goethe once made the significant statement: “How can man stand against the infinite, except by gathering all his spiritual powers, which are drawn in many directions, in his innermost, deepest being, when he asks himself: can you even think of yourself in the midst of this eternally living order, unless there is also something persistently moving within you, revolving around a pure center?”

Applying this statement to the development of time, one might say that, in a certain sense, the gods of Homer, so magnificently described by Homer almost a millennium before the founding of Christianity, would lose something in our eyes looking back at ancient times if we could not see how they were resurrected in the soul of Raphael and only then, in a certain sense, experienced a special perfection through the powerful pictorial expression they found in Raphael's creations. Thus, what Homer created long before the emergence of Christianity is combined with what sprang from Raphael's soul in the sixteenth century to form an organic whole.

And again: if we turn our gaze to the biblical figures described in the New Testament and then look at Raphael's paintings, we have the feeling, the sensation, that something would be missing if the descriptive power of the Bible were not complemented by the creative power of Raphael's Madonnas and similar paintings, which sprang from biblical tradition and legend. Therefore, one might say that Raphael not only lives on in the centuries that followed him, but that what preceded him is integrated with his own work to form an organic whole and, as if to receive its completion through him, already points to him, even if this only becomes apparent in later historical reflection.

Thus, a phrase that Lessing used in a significant passage, the phrase “the education of the human race,” appears in a special light when we see how a unified spiritual being flows through the development of humanity in this way, and how this unified being shines particularly brightly in such outstanding figures as Raphael. And what we have often been able to emphasize from a spiritual scientific point of view in relation to the spiritual development of humanity, namely the repeated earthly lives of human beings, can be felt in a very special way when one takes what has just been said into the spiritual eye. Only then does one perceive how it makes sense that this human being appears again and again in repeated earthly lives throughout the epochs of humanity, carrying from one age to another that which is to be implanted in the spiritual development of humanity. Spiritual science seeks meaning and significance in the development of humanity. It does not merely want to present what has happened in succession as if in a straight line of development, but wants to assign an overall meaning to the individual ages, so that when the human soul appears again and again in successive earthly lives, it enters this earth in such a way that it can experience something new again and again. So that we can truly speak of an education that the human soul undergoes through its various earthly lives, an education through everything that is created and developed by the common spirit of humanity.

What is to be presented here from a spiritual scientific point of view about Raphael's relationship to the entire development of humanity over the last centuries is not intended to be a philosophical construction of history, but something that has emerged naturally through various observations of Raphael's work. And it is not because it might be a kind of impulse, so to speak, to construct the spiritual life of humanity philosophically that what constitutes this evening's reflection is to be said, but because everything that has emerged for me after various viewings and reflections on Raphael's various creations has quite naturally crystallized into what I would like to present. However, it will be impossible to go into individual creations by Raphael. That would only be possible if one were able to show Raphael's paintings to the audience at the same time by some means. But Raphael's entire oeuvre also imposes itself on the senses as an overall impression. When one has studied Raphael, one carries, so to speak, something of an overall impression in one's soul. And then one may well ask: How does this overall impression compare to the development of humanity?

When one allows Raphael to work his magic, one's gaze falls on a significant era with which he is intimately connected, an era that is particularly characteristic of humanity in that it coincides with the development of the Greek people. And indeed, when we look at the development of humanity over the last millennia, what the Greeks not only created but also experienced with their whole being stands out as a kind of middle epoch in this development. What preceded Greek culture, which in a certain sense coincides with the founding of Christianity, presents itself to us with a completely different character than what followed this Greek culture. When we look at the people in the period that preceded Greek culture, we find that at that time the soul and spirit of human beings were much more intimately connected with everything physical, with the external body, than was the case in later times. What we today call the internalization of the human soul, the withdrawal of the human soul when it turns to the spirit, when it wants to reflect on what underlies the world as spirit, did not exist to the same extent in the times preceding the Greek era as it does today. At that time, when human beings used their physical organs, the spiritual mysteries of existence simultaneously shone into their souls. Such a closed contemplation of the sensory world, as is common in science today, did not exist in earlier times. Human beings looked at things with their senses and, while experiencing the sensory impression, simultaneously perceived what was living and weaving spiritually and soulfully in those things. Through the things and their observation by the senses, the spiritual was simultaneously revealed to human beings. In earlier times, it was not necessary to withdraw from sensory impressions or to devote oneself to the inner life of the soul in order to advance to the spiritual world.

If we go back very far in human development, we find that even what we call, in the best sense of the word, “clairvoyant observation of things” was a common good of humanity in primeval times, and that this clairvoyant observation was not achieved through separate states, but was there and was as natural as sensory observation. Then came Greek culture with its peculiar world, of which it can be said that although the internalization of spiritual life began with it, what the spirit experiences internally is still seen everywhere in connection with what is happening externally in the sensory world. In Greek culture, the sensory and the soul-spiritual are in balance. The spiritual was no longer as directly present as in pre-Greek times alongside sensory observation. In the Greek soul, the spiritual arose, as it were, as something inwardly separate, but as something that was felt when the senses were directed outward. Human beings became aware of the spiritual not in things, but through things. Thus, in pre-Greek times, the human soul was, as it were, poured out into physicality. In Greek culture, it had freed itself from physicality in a certain way, but the soul-spiritual still balanced the physical in Greek culture as a whole. This is why what the Greeks created appears just as spiritual as what they saw before their eyes, made possible by the senses. Then came the post-Greek era, a time when the human spirit became internalized, when it was no longer possible to perceive, through the senses, what lives and weaves in things as spiritual. These are the times in which the human soul had to withdraw into itself and, separated in a special inner life, had to experience its powers and its overcoming if it wanted to advance to the spiritual. Spiritual contemplation of things and sensory perception of things became, so to speak, two worlds that the human soul had to live through.

How vividly does what has just been said appear to us when we consider a spirit such as Augustine, who in the post-Christian era is hardly further removed from the founding of Christianity than we are from the Reformation. How characteristic does the progress of humanity appear to us when we compare what Augustine experienced and described in his writings with what has been handed down from the Greek world! What Augustine describes in his Confessions, what he shows us as the struggles of the internalized soul, what he shows us as a scene that is purely detached from the outside world and takes place in the inner soul—how impossible this seems to us in the case of the minds of Greece, where we see everywhere how what is present in the soul is connected to what is happening in the outside world.

It can be said that the history of human development is separated by a powerful divide. On the one hand, there is Greek culture, which shows us how humanity maintains a balance between the spiritual-soul and the external physical. On the other hand, the foundation of Christianity intervenes in this break, which initially set out to experiencing everything that the human soul could experience, as it were, inwardly, in inner struggles and conquests, turning one's gaze not to the sensory world in order to feel the mysteries of existence, but to what the spirit could intuitively perceive when it devoted itself purely to the spiritual and soul forces. How infinitely different and how deeply divided are the beautiful Greeks, the majestic and so perfectly beautiful Greek gods Zeus or Apollo, from Christ dying on the cross, carried by inner depth and inner greatness, but not by outer beauty. This is already the outward symbol of the deep incision that Christianity and Hellenism make in the development of humanity. We see this incision in the spirits that follow the Greek era, as an ever-increasing internalization of the soul takes effect.

This internalization that has taken place now characterizes the further course of human development. If we want to understand this human development from a spiritual scientific point of view, we must realize that we are living in an age which, the more we consider its immediate past and the prospects we can see for the future, presents itself to us more and more as a progressive internalization. So that we look to a future in which, in fact, an even deeper gulf than can already be imagined from observations of the past will arise between everything that goes on outside in the world, everything that takes place in the more or less mechanical, machine-like life of the outer world, and what the human soul tries to achieve when it wants to grasp the heights of the spiritual, which it wants to climb, which only open up when we try to take the steps inward that lead to the spiritual. More and more, we are moving toward an age of internalization. However, a significant turning point in relation to this progress of humanity toward internalization in the post-Greek era is what has been left behind for us in the creations of Raphael.

As a very special spirit, Raphael stands at a watershed in human development. What lies before him is, one might say, in a very special way, the beginning of human internalization. And what lies after him represents a new chapter in this human internalization. Even if some of what I have to say in today's reflection may sound like a kind of symbolic reflection, it should not be taken merely in a symbolic sense, but rather as an attempt to grasp what, because of Raphael's outstanding greatness, can only be clothed in trivial human concepts by forcing it into the broadest possible concepts and ideas.

When we try to take a look into Raphael's soul, we are struck above all by how this soul appears in 1483 like a springtime birth for the soul, then undergoes an inner development, develops brilliantly in brilliant creations, and dies when Raphael is thirty-seven years old, still young. In order to really immerse ourselves in Raphael's soul, so that we can follow its steps, we need to turn our gaze away from what else has happened in world history for a while and focus purely on the inner life of Raphael's soul.

Herman Grimm was the first to point out certain regularities in the inner development of Raphael's soul, and one might say that spiritual science has no reason to be ashamed when it points out certain cyclical laws laws of a regular spiritual path in every development, including individual human development, because a mind as significant as Herman Grimm's has itself been led to such a regular inner cyclical development for Raphael's soul, without even recognizing spiritual science. Herman Grimm points out that the work that delights us so much today in Milan, The Marriage of the Virgin, stands as a completely new phenomenon in the entire development of art and cannot be directly compared with anything that preceded it, so that one could say that Raphael's soul gave birth to something from the undefined depths of a human soul, something that emerged from these depths into the overall development of the spirit as something completely new.

If we get a sense of what was predisposed in Raphael's soul from birth, we can also feel with Herman Grimm when we continue to follow Raphael's soul, when we see Raphael's development progressing, how he enters certain stages in a regular course of development, stages of four to four years. Strangely, Raphael's soul progresses in cycles of four to four years. And when we look at such a four-year period, we see Raphael at a higher level for his soul. About four years after “The Marriage of the Virgin,” he painted “The Entombment,” another four years later the paintings of the “Camera della Segnatura,” and so on in stages of four to four years until that work which stood unfinished beside his deathbed, “The Transfiguration of Christ.”

Because everything in this soul progresses so harmoniously, one wants to consider it entirely on its own. But then one gets the impression that in Raphael's age, such inwardness had to develop in relation to the art of painting, and how that which urged itself into form in figures that only Raphael could create was born out of the depths of spiritual experiences, even though it appears in images of sensuality. And does it not stand out just as much as history itself?

After considering the inner life of Raphael's soul for a while, let us allow the time in which he lived and his surroundings to make an impression on us. We find, however, that while Raphael was still more or less a child growing up in Urbino, he was in an environment that had a stimulating effect on his emerging talents. A palace had been built in Urbino that caused quite a stir throughout Italy at the time. This was something that harmoniously complemented Raphael's early talents. But then we see him transplanted to Perugia, then to Florence, then to Rome. Raphael's life basically took place within a narrow circle. How close together these places seem to us today when we consider his entire life! Raphael's whole world was enclosed within this circle, as far as the sensory world was concerned. Only in spirit did he rise to other spheres.

But now we see how, in Perugia, where Raphael underwent that youthful development of the soul, bloody battles were the order of the day. The city was populated by a passionately agitated people. Noble families, who lived in strife and discord with one another, waged war against each other. Some drove others out of the city. After a short expulsion, the others tried to regain control of the city, and more than a few times the streets of Perugia were covered with blood and littered with corpses. A historian describes a strange scene, as indeed all the accounts given by historians of that period are quite peculiar. We see a nobleman of the city come to life through the words of a historian, who enters the city as a warrior to avenge his relatives. The historian describes him riding through the streets on horseback like the embodiment of the spirit of war himself, destroying everything that stands in his way, in such a way that the historian clearly had the impression that this nobleman was taking just revenge. And the image of that warrior forcing the enemy under his feet appears before the historian's mind. In one of Raphael's paintings, “St. George,” we can literally feel this image, which the chronicler sketches out, emerging from the depiction, and we immediately have the impression that it could not have been otherwise than that Raphael allowed this scene to have an effect on him, and that then, what must appear so terrible to us externally, arose internalized from Raphael's soul and became the starting point for his depiction of one of the greatest and most significant images of human development.

This is how Raphael saw humanity struggling around him. He was surrounded by confusion upon confusion, war upon war in the city where he was apprenticed to his first teacher, Pietro Perugino, and we have the impression that there were two worlds in the city at that time: one in which cruel and terrible things took place, and another world that lived internalized in Raphael's soul and which, in essence, had little to do with what was happening around him.

Then again, we see Raphael transplanted to Florence in 1504. What was Florence like when Raphael entered the city? At first, the inhabitants gave the impression of being weary people who had gone through internal and external turmoil and lived with a certain weariness and fatigue. What had happened to Florence! There had been battles, just as in Perugia, bloody persecutions of various families, and also battles with the outside world; but then there was the dramatic experience of Savonarola, who had died a martyr's death shortly before Raphael entered the city, stirring the souls of all the city's inhabitants. There he stands before us, this peculiar figure of Savonarola, railing with fiery words against the abuses of the time, yes, against the cruelties of the Church, against secularization, against the paganism of the Church. As we contemplate him, we hear echoes of Savonarola's stormy words, with which he captivated the whole of Florence, so that the people not only hung on his every word, but revered him as if a higher spirit stood before them in this ascetic body.

Savonarola's words had transformed the city of Florence, as if a kind of religious reformer had immediately permeated the religious ideas and the entire city, including its government. As if a kind of theocracy had been established, Florence was under Savonarola's influence. And then we see how Savonarola succumbs to the very powers against which he had fought morally and religiously. The moving image appears before our eyes of Savonarola being led with his companions to the martyr's fire, and how he turned his eyes down from the gallows from which he was to fall onto the pyre — it was in May 1498 — to the people who had once hung on his every word, who had now abandoned him and looked with disdain upon the man who had inspired them for so long. Few remained, including artists, in whom Savonarola's words still resonated. There was a painter of that time who, after Savonarola had suffered martyrdom, donned the monk's habit himself in order to continue his work in his order and in his spirit.

One can imagine the weary atmosphere that hung over Florence. Into this atmosphere we see Raphael transported in 1504, bringing with him the breath of spring through his creative work, which brought a spiritual fire to this city, albeit of a very different kind than Savonarola could have provided. When we see Raphael's soul, so unlike the mood of this city, appearing to us in its isolation, when we see it, united with artists and painters, creating in lonely workshops in Florence or elsewhere, another image immediately appears before us, one that one might say, still vividly shows us how Raphael's soul was something inwardly separate even from the external world with which it was in direct contact. There appear the figures of the Roman popes, Alexander VI, Julius II, Leo X, the entire papal system against which Savonarola had directed his words of wrath, against which the reformers had turned. But it appears in such a way that we see Raphael's protector in this papal system, that we see Raphael's soul in the service of the papacy, that we see that his soul truly had little in common with what we see, for example, in his protector, Pope Julius II, who said that he appeared to people as someone who had a devil inside him and always wanted to bare his teeth at his enemies.

These popes were great figures, but they were certainly not what Savonarola or his like-minded comrades would have called “Christians.” The papacy had transitioned into a new form of paganism, but not in the old sense. There was not much Christian piety to be found in these circles, but there was plenty of splendor, lust for power, and desire for domination, both among the popes and those around them. We see Raphael as the servant of this paganized Christianity. But how? We see him as someone who creates something from his soul, through which Christian ideas often appear in a new form. We see the most intimate, the most lovely aspects of the Christian world of legends emerging in the Madonna paintings and other works by Raphael. What a contrast between the spiritual interiority of Raphael's work and what was going on around him when he became the external servant of the popes in Rome! But how was all this possible? We see how dissimilar the external is to the internal at his first place of learning in Perugia, then in Florence, and we see this particularly in Rome, where he created his world-dominating paintings in the midst of a — for Savonarola, for example, who was certainly no different — unprecedented economy of cardinals and priests. And yet, one must consider Raphael and his environment in this way if one wants to create a true picture of what lived in his soul.

Let us allow Raphael's images to work their magic on us! Of course, we cannot do this in detail this evening, but at least one of the better-known paintings can be highlighted so that we can understand the very peculiar soulfulness of Raphael's soul. It is the “Sistine Madonna,” which is so close to us, located in Dresden, and which almost everyone knows from the numerous reproductions that are spread throughout the world. How it confronts us as one of the most magnificent, noble works of art in human development, how the mother with the child appears to us, floating on cloud heights that cover the globe, from the indeterminate, one might say, spiritual supernatural world, surrounded and enveloped by clouds that form themselves into human-like figures, one of which, as if condensed, resembles the child of the Madonna. As she appears there, she evokes very special feelings in us, feelings that we can say, when they permeate our soul, we could forget all the legendary ideas from which the image of the Madonna has grown, and forget all the Christian traditions that tell us about the Madonna.

I do not wish to characterize this in a dry manner, but rather to characterize as broadly as possible what we can feel towards the Madonna. Anyone who views human development in a spiritual scientific sense goes beyond all materialistic views. According to the scientific view, lower life forms developed first, and then development progressed up to the human being. From a spiritual scientific perspective, however, we must see in human beings an essence that transcends everything below them in the natural kingdoms. When we encounter a human being, from a spiritual scientific point of view, we see in them something that is much older than all the beings that are more or less close to them in the various natural kingdoms.

From a spiritual scientific perspective, human beings existed before the beings of the animal, plant, and even mineral kingdoms. Looking back over a long period of time, we see that what is now our innermost being was already there, and that it was only later incorporated into the kingdoms that now stand below human beings. Thus we see human beings floating up from a supernatural world, and we see that we can only truly understand this human being when we rise above all that the earth can create and produce from itself to something extraterrestrial, something even pre-earthly. We can know through spiritual science: if we allow all the forces, all the essential beings connected with the earth itself to work on us, we cannot gain a picture of the whole essential human being from all this, but we must lift our gaze from everything earthly to supernatural regions and see this human being floating up from them. If we want to speak in parables, we must feel how something floats up to the earthly, for example when we turn our gaze to a sunrise in the morning, especially in a region such as the one in which Raphael lived, to the golden sunrise, and there we can get a feeling of how, even in natural existence, something must be added to what is earthly, forces that work into the earthly, forces that we must always associate with the sun. Then, out of the golden glow, the symbol of what is floating up to clothe itself in the earthly rises before our soul.

In Perugia in particular, one can have the feeling that the eye is allowed to see the same sunrise that Raphael once experienced, and that in the natural phenomena of the rising sun one can get a feeling of what is supernatural in human beings. From the clouds shining through the golden sun, the image of the Madonna and Child may arise—or at least one may feel as if it appears—as a symbol of the eternally supernatural in human beings, which approaches the earth from the extraterrestrial and still has beneath it, separated by clouds, everything that can only come from the earthly. Our feelings can be lifted to the highest spiritual heights when we can devote ourselves, not theoretically, not abstractly, but with our whole soul, to what Raphael's Madonna has on us and allow ourselves to be permeated by it. It is a natural feeling that we can have when standing before the world-famous Dresden painting. And to prove that it has had this effect on some people, I would like to quote the words that Goethe's friend Karl August, then still Duke of Weimar, wrote about the Sistine Madonna after a visit to Dresden:

"With Raphael, who adorns the collection there, I felt as if I had climbed the Gotthard Pass all day long, passed through the Urseler Loch, and suddenly saw the blossoming and verdant valley. Every time I looked at it and then looked away, it was always just like an apparition before my soul; even the most beautiful Correggios were only human images to me; their memory, like the beautiful forms, was sensually palpable. But Raphael always remained for me merely like a breath, like one of the apparitions that the gods send us in female form to make us happy or unhappy; like the images that appear to us again in our sleep, awake or dreaming, and whose gaze, once met, looks at us eternally, day and night, and moves our innermost being."

And strangely enough, when one follows the literature of those who, out of their own feelings, are able to express a profound impression at the sight of the Sistine Madonna, but also of other Raphael paintings, one repeatedly encounters comparisons with light, with the sun, with illumination, and with springtime when people try to characterize what they feel.

Here we can glimpse into Raphael's soul as it converses with the eternal mysteries of becoming human from the conditions of his environment described above. We sense how unique Raphael's soul is, not growing out of his surroundings, but pointing to an immense human past. There is no need to speculate. Such a soul, which looks out into the world and expresses the mystery of existence not in ideas, but in feelings and in such an image, such a soul then presents itself as something quite natural, through such inner perfection, as the most mature soul, which truly carries within its disposition something of the powers of humanity, a soul that must have passed through other epochs of human development, and especially through some of those epochs that poured great and powerful things into this soul, so that it can reappear in what we call the life of Raphael. But how does it emerge?

We see what lives in Christian legends and traditions appearing in Raphael's paintings in the midst of a time when Christianity had become pagan and was devoted entirely to outward form and outward splendor, much as Greek paganism was represented in its gods and was worshipped above all by the beauty-intoxicated Greeks. We see Raphael shaping these figures of Christian tradition in an age when what had been buried for centuries under rubble and debris on Roman soil was being excavated again. We see that Raphael himself was among those doing the excavating. This Rome, into which Raphael was transported at that time, seems strange to us.

What preceded this period? We first see the centuries in which Rome emerged, built entirely on the egoism of individuals who were primarily concerned with establishing a human community, a community in the external physical world, based on what it meant to be a citizen of a state. Then, when Rome had reached a certain height, when the imperial era had dawned, we see how it absorbed Greek culture, as Greek culture flowed into Roman intellectual life, and we experience how Rome politically overwhelmed Greece, but how Greece spiritually overwhelmed Rome. Greek culture then lived on in Roman culture. We see how Greek art, insofar as it was absorbed by Rome, lives on in the Roman essence, and we see Rome completely permeated by the Greek essence.

But why did this Greek essence not remain a characteristic feature of Italy's development in the following centuries? Why did something completely different emerge? Because soon after this Greek culture had poured into the Roman world, something else came along that left a stronger mark on what developed as intellectual life on Italian soil: Christianity, the internalization of Christianity, that which was now to speak to humanity not in the same way as the external sensuality of the Greek cities, Greek sculptures, or Greek philosophy, but that which was to speak to the inner human soul, that which was to enter this soul in a formless way, that which was to grasp this human soul only in inner struggles. That is why we see figures such as Augustine emerge, figures who are entirely inward-looking.

But then, because everything in development proceeds cyclically, goes through cycles, after the internalization of these people who have undergone this internalization and have lived in their souls for a long time, as it were, without connection to beautiful They see the inner life again in the outer world. It is significant when we see the internalized life of Francis of Assisi appear before our eyes in Assisi through Giotto, when we see the inner experiences speaking in Giotto's paintings, which, so to speak, Christianity can bring about in the human soul. And even if we still feel—if I may say so—that the inner life of the human soul is expressed somewhat awkwardly and imperfectly in Giotto's paintings, we nevertheless see a straight ascent to that point where the most inner, the most sublime and noble in external form confronts us in Raphael and his contemporaries. Here we are again drawn to a peculiarity of Raphael's soul.

If we try to empathize with the way Raphael himself must have felt, we must say to ourselves: Yes, when we see such works of art as, for example, the “Madonna della Sedia,” we are struck by how the Madonna with the Child, and before them the child John, stand before us in such a way that, when we look at them, we could forget the rest of the world, and above all we could forget that this child, who is held by the Madonna, may one day be connected with those experiences which we know as the experiences on Golgotha. Before Raphael's painting, we forget everything that followed as the “life of Christ Jesus.” We are completely absorbed in the moment captured here. We simply see a mother with a child, of whom Herman Grimm said that it is the most noble mystery that can confront us in the outer world. We look at this moment with a calmness as if nothing could precede or follow it. We become completely absorbed in the relationship between the Madonna and her child, tearing it away for ourselves from everything else with which it is connected. And so, complete in themselves, always showing us the eternal in a moment, Raphael's creations appear.

Yes, how must a soul feel that creates in this way? It cannot feel like the soul of Savonarola, who, seized by an inner fire, feels the whole tragedy of Christ within himself when he speaks his words of wrath, or even when he speaks his religiously uplifting, pious words to listeners of Christian devotion. We cannot imagine that Raphael's soul had the same impetus as Savonarola's or a similar spirit; we cannot imagine that the so-called Christian fire would have raged in Raphael's soul. Nevertheless, if we can allow the essence of a human soul to affect us to some extent, we must not imagine that, in such inwardness, in such inner perfection, what Christian ideas are could appear pictorially before us through Raphael if this soul had been as completely alien to the Christian fire as it appears alien to us when it creates such images in a completely objective manner.

One cannot create figures objectively and comprehensively if one is imbued with the fire of Savonarola, if one is carried by the whole tragic mood of Christ in one's soul and feels inspired by it. A completely different calm and a completely different feeling must have flowed into the soul in Christian sentiment. Nevertheless, what is expressed in Raphael's paintings could not have come out of the soul if the deepest nerve of Christian inwardness had not lived in this soul. Is it not then almost natural when we say to ourselves: Yes, here we have before us a soul which brought with it into physical existence, which it entered as the painter Raphael, that fire which we perceive in Savonarola as having an effect on us? When we see it, brought into existence through birth from previous earthly lives, we understand how it could be so serene, so inwardly complete, that this fire does not appear to us as something consuming and disturbing enthusiasm, but rather as the serenity of pictorial creation. One might say that one senses something in Raphael's predispositions that seems to live in them as if he had been able to speak with the same fire in a previous life as Savonarola did later. And one need not be surprised to find in Raphael's soul a resurrected soul from a time when Christianity was not perceived as pictorial, as standing in art, but as standing directly at its foundation, when it had at its starting point the great impulse through which it then worked over the centuries.

Perhaps it is not too bold to bring something like what has just been said to bear on the understanding of a soul such as Raphael's. For those who have learned, through ever-renewed immersion in Raphael's works, to revere this soul in its depths, to see it in its depths as it appears unfathomably deep, cannot help but make themselves understood through such far-reaching feelings, to make themselves comprehensible, to understand what speaks to us where Raphael poured his soul into his marvels.

Thus, Raphael's mission only appears to us in the right light when, to use Goethe's expression, we search for the Christian fire in a “life lived,” which then appears to us in a later life as the serenity in his Raphael existence. Then we also understand how this soul had to place itself so isolated in the world, and we also comprehend how that soul, which we have just attempted to characterize, which perhaps had something “Savonarola-like” in an earlier existence, only to a greater degree, could perceive something new that had now reappeared in the spiritual development of Italy at the time of Raphael.

If, as has been described, Hellenism had played a role in Roman development at the time when the Empire was approaching and then came into being, and if an internalization had then taken place, we now see in the age of Raphael, the Renaissance, we see, on the one hand, this ancient Greek culture, which had been buried under rubble and debris, reemerging; we see Rome being repopulated with the remnants of Greek culture; we see the emergence of what had once adorned and beautified the city as the Greek spirit; we see the eyes of the Roman population turning once again to the forms that the Greek spirit had once created. On the other hand, however, we also see in this age how the spirit of Plato, the spirit of Aristotle, the spirit of the Greek tragedians penetrates Roman life. Once again we see the conquest of the Roman world by Greek culture. Perhaps it was precisely for such a spirit, which had once been devoted in a one-sided way to the moral-religious views of Christianity and had devoted its soul entirely to these moral-religious impressions in a previous life, that Greek culture had to have a fertilizing, renewing effect, just as it had emerged from the rubble and ruins to appear on the Italian peninsula.

If one sees the moral and religious impulse of Christianity as lying in Raphael's predispositions, one sees what was not yet there in these predispositions appear before his eyes in the resurrected Greek culture. As in no other soul, the statues resurrected from the rubble and ruins and the Greek intellectual products recovered from the rediscovered manuscripts had an effect on Raphael's soul. What emerged from his predispositions, from his Christian sensibility, combined with a super-spiritual devotion to the cosmic, worked together with what was resurrected from his age as the Greek spirit. These were the two things that combined in his soul and caused us to encounter in Raphael's works the inner life created by the post-Greek era, the inner life that Christianity poured into human development, and which found expression in, one might say, complete external revelation in a pictorial world of figures, from which the purest Greek spirit speaks everywhere.

Thus we see the remarkable phenomenon that, through Raphael, Greek culture is resurrected in Christianity. Thus we see in Raphael a Christianity emerging at a time that, in a certain sense, represents the antichrist around him. We see that he represents a Christianity that went far beyond all the narrowness of previous Christianity and rose to a broad view of the world of that time. And yet we see a Christianity that does not point vaguely to infinite spheres of the purely spiritual, but unites itself, as the Greeks once united their ideas of the gods in artistic form with that which, formless, lives through and interweaves the world, and forced it into the forms from which it simultaneously delights our senses.

This is what comes before our soul when we try to form an overall picture, when one or another of Raphael's creations flows into our soul, when we allow ourselves to be affected by everything that can affect us in the highest perfection—and yet in the most wonderful abundance of youth, for Raphael died at the age of 37. Not for the sake of some gray theory, and certainly not for the sake of a philosophical construction of history, but arising from the immediate sensation that Raphael's works give us, it must be said: in a spirit as outstanding as Raphael's, the laws governing the course of human spiritual life appear so clearly.

Anyone who imagines this progression of spiritual life as a straight line, where effect always follows cause, is truly out of touch with reality. It is so easy to come up with a saying that certainly belongs to the golden sayings of humanity: that life and nature do not make leaps. Certainly, but in many respects life and nature constantly make leaps. We can see this in the development of a plant from a green leaf to a flower, from a flower to a fruit. Here we see how everything “develops,” but how leaps are in fact the natural order of things.

It is the same in the spiritual life of humanity, and this is linked to many mysteries. One of these mysteries is that a later epoch must always draw on an earlier epoch. One might say that just as the male and female must work together, so too must the different spirits of the times work together, fertilizing each other, in order for further development to take place. Thus, around the time of the emperors, Roman culture had to be fertilized by Greek culture in order for a new spirit of the times to emerge. And so this spirit of the times that emerged had to be fertilized by the Christian impulse in order for the internalization that we then see in Augustine and others to become possible. Later, the human soul, which had advanced so much inwardly, had to be inspired by Greek culture, which had been buried twice and yet emerged again, which had been withdrawn twice: from view in the works of art that lay covered by earth in the soil of Italy, and from the souls in the buried literary works that shaped the Greek spirit. These centuries of the first Christian millennium in Italy were little, extremely little, touched by what lived in Greek philosophy and Greek poetry.

Greek culture was doubly buried, waiting, as it were, in a realm beyond, for a time when it could once again fertilize the human soul, which had meanwhile passed through a new religion. Buried, hidden from the outer eyes of men, and buried again for the souls who did not suspect that it would continue to develop, that it was there, while it only flowed away like a river that sometimes flows a long way under a mountain, hidden from view, and then comes back to the surface. Buried, outwardly for the senses, inwardly for the depths of the soul, was this Greek culture. Now it emerged again. For the sensual perception, it was dug out of the soil of Italy in artistic works; for spiritual perception, it was dug up not only by bringing it out of the old manuscripts, but by beginning again to feel in the Greek sense how the spirit lives in everything sensual, how everything sensual is the revelation of the spiritual. People began again to feel what Plato and Aristotle had once thought.

But the one on whom this could have the most fertilizing effect, because his soul had processed the Christian impulses most deeply in its dispositions, was Raphael. In him, this twice-buried and twice-resurrected Greek culture now had such an effect that he was able to embody the entire development of humanity in figures. How wonderfully he was able to do this in the paintings of the Camera della Segnatura, where we see the old spiritual struggle resurrected in the paintings, the struggle of those spirits that developed during the period of internalization, which were not there in the time of Greek culture. The entire period of internalization was necessary for them to be viewed in this way at the time of Raphael. Now we see this internalization painted on the walls of the papal chambers.

What the Greeks had only thought of in terms of figures, we now see internalized. The inner strivings and moods of struggle that humanity itself has gone through, we see conjured up on the walls of the papal palace with Greek creative spirit, with Greek artistic mood and beauty. The Greeks poured their ideas of how the gods influenced the world into their statues. The way people experienced progressing toward the reasons behind things is presented to us in the painting so often called “The School of Athens.” How the human soul learned to view the Greek gods is revealed to us in a peculiar reimagining of Homer's gods in “Parnassus.” These are not the gods of the Iliad and the Odyssey, but rather the gods as seen by a soul that had already gone through the era of internalization!

On the other wall we see the picture that must remain unforgettable to everyone, regardless of their religious beliefs — as little as one can still imagine it now — the picture that depicts an innermost being, the “Disputa.” While the other images depict what one struggles to achieve through a certain philosophical endeavor, but in Greek formal beauty, the image opposite confronts us with the deepest thing the human soul can experience. And we need not think of a narrow Christian consciousness, for here we find the Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva motif expressed in a completely different way. We see as the Trinity confronting us what the human soul can experience inwardly, every soul, whatever creed it may belong to. It confronts us, but not merely symbolically, in the symbolism of the Trinity in the upper part of the picture. It further confronts us in every face of the Church Fathers and philosophers, in every hand movement, in the entire distribution of the figures, in the wonderful coloring. It confronts us in the totality of the image, which gives us an insight into the inner life of the human soul in a beautiful form imbued with the Greek spirit. Thus we see the inner life that the human soul has experienced over the course of a millennium and a half resurrected as an external revelation. We see Christianity not as the paganism of the Roman popes and cardinals, but as the beautiful, glorious, form-creating Greek paganism—and yet Christianity—resurrected in Raphael's paintings.

Thus, this Raphael soul stands at the turning point, as it were, at the watershed of time, pointing to its past, bringing up what has developed in the beauty of external revelations up to Christianity, and at the same time turning to what has emerged in human development as what is called the “education of the human race” and what the resurrected soul shows as the internalization of this human soul. Therefore, we stand before these paintings by Raphael, before these marvels of a unique art, in such a way that they appear to us as a confluence of two ages that are clearly and distinctly separated from each other: the preceding post-Greek age, the age of external experience, and that of internal experience.

But we stand before these paintings in such a way that they simultaneously open up a perspective into the future for us. For who among those who feel what could become of the confluence of outer beauty and the inner wisdom-filled urge of the human soul should not feel the hope and assurance that despite all externalities, which must continue to develop further and further in the progress of humanity, that this internalization must progress in the course of development, that the human soul must find ever more internal periods in subsequent lives?

One can understand what one encounters in literature, but only if one does not approach the works of a mind such as Herman Grimm, who tried with all his soul to portray the workings of the human imagination, as an art scholar or mere reader. One can understand it when, at a certain point in Herman Grimm's work on Raphael, one finds words that then become something very special, when one considers a mind such as Herman Grimm's with deep sympathy and sees how he himself stood before Raphael's creations with such deep sympathy. But one must feel, at that point in the work on Raphael, what went through Herman Grimm's soul when he used a word that he only hints at chastely, already on the very first pages of his book, at the point where his gaze falls on Raphael's emergence from ancient times. Looking at Herman Grimm's external presentation of Raphael's work, it is not really clear where this thought comes from. In the midst of broad historical observations into which Raphael is inserted, the thought occurs to Herman Grimm and is written down, chastely written down: “I see developments in humanity before my eyes that I will be denied the opportunity to participate in, but which appear to me so brilliantly beautiful that for their sake it would be worth the effort to begin human life once again.”

Strange, this longing for “reincarnation” in the introduction to his book on Raphael by Herman Grimm, deeply indicative of the emotional feelings of a man who tried to empathize completely with Raphael's soul and Raphael's connection to other eras. Doesn't one feel something that can be expressed as follows: Works such as those of Raphael are not just a result. They do not only lead to a contemplation that tells us how grateful we must be for what the past has given us up to our own age, but such works can also give rise to a completely different feeling in us, the feeling of hope, because they strengthen our belief in the progress of humanity, and because we must tell ourselves that these works could not be what they are if humanity were not an entity for which progress is natural. Thus, we gain certainty, we gain hope, when we allow Raphael to influence us in the right way, and then we can say: Raphael spoke to humanity through his artistic creations!

When we look at the frescoes in the “Camera della Segnatura,” we feel the transience of the external work, and that we can no longer get any idea of what Raphael once conjured up on the wall from the often overpainted works. We feel that one day there will be a humanity living on earth that will not be able to let the original works work their magic on them. But we know that humanity will always continue to progress.

Basically, Raphael's works only began their triumphant advance when countless pictures, engravings, and reproductions were made of them with dedication and love. These works by Raphael continue to have an effect, even in their reproductions. It is understandable when Herman Grimm recounts that he once hung a large phototype of the “Sistine Madonna” in his room, and that when he entered this room, it always felt as if he were not really allowed to enter, as if it belonged to the Madonna, to the image, like a sanctuary. Many will have experienced how the soul becomes a different being than it is in ordinary life when it can truly devote itself to a Raphael painting, even a mere reproduction. Certainly, the originals will one day be no more. But are the originals available in other areas?

It is true what Herman Grimm admits in his book on Homer: We can no longer truly enjoy Homer's originals because, in our ordinary lives, without higher spiritual powers, we are no longer able to immerse ourselves in all the twists and turns of the Greek language, in its beauty and power, when we now allow Homer's “Iliad” and “Odyssey” to work their magic on us. We no longer have the originals either; yet Homer's poems still speak to us. But what Raphael gave us externally will continue to live on as a living testimony to the fact that there was once a time in the development of humanity when it was not possible to immerse oneself in printed and written works in the widest sense — for that was by no means common practice at the time — — but in which the secrets of existence spoke to people's eyes in Raphael's creations. Raphael's age was one in which people read less but saw more. Testimony to this age, which was different in nature but will continue to have an effect in all ages to come because humanity is a whole organism, will be what Raphael will always have to say to humanity. Thus, Raphael's creation will live on in the course of human development, and will also live on inwardly in the successive lives that Raphael's spirit has to live through, and in which he has ever greater and ever more inward things to give to humanity.

Spiritual science thus points to a double survival, so to speak: to the survival that has already been described in the lectures and will be discussed further, and to another spiritual life that we always strive for, which becomes our educator as we pass through ever new epochs of this earthly existence. And what Herman Grimm said in words summarizing what his feelings and impressions had yielded from his overall description of Raphael is true: Even when Raphael's work has long since faded and been destroyed, Raphael will still live on for humanity; for in him something has become humanity that is implanted in the spirit of this humanity in every respect, something that will always germinate and bear fruit.

This is what the human soul will feel if it can immerse itself sufficiently in Raphael. Basically, we will only have fully understood Raphael when we can elevate and deepen this feeling, which Herman Grimm felt so strongly—we described last time how close he was to spiritual science—when he looked at Raphael again and again. We understand ourselves in our relationship to Raphael; we understand how such reflections, as have been attempted today in the contemplation of Raphael, can sprout as seeds when we summarize what actually needs to be said today in the words of Herman Grimm: "People will always want to know about Raphael. About the young, beautiful painter who surpassed all others. Who died too young. Whose death was mourned by all of Rome. Even when Raphael's works are lost, his name will remain embedded in people's memories."

So said Herman Grimm when he began to describe Raphael in his own way. We understand this. And we understand him again when, at the end of his work on Raphael, he concludes his reflections with the words: “Everyone will want to know about the life's work of such a man. Raphael has become one of the elements on which the higher education of the human spirit is based. We want to get closer to him because we need him for our well-being.”