Raphael's Mission in the Light of the Science of the Spirit
GA 62
30 January 1913, Berlin
Translated by Peter Stebbing
Raphael belongs to those figures in mankind's spiritual history that appear all at once, like a star, who are simply there, so that one has the feeling, they arise quite suddenly from indeterminate substrata of humanity's spiritual development—disappearing again after deeply impressing their being upon this spiritual history. Closer observation reveals that such individualities, of whom one had at first assumed, they light up like a star and disappear again, actually incorporate themselves into cultural life as a whole, as into a great organism. One has this feeling quite especially with Raphael.
Herman Grimm11828–1901, the eminent art historian, of whom I was able to speak here last time, attempted to trace Raphael's influence, his renown, through the times that follow Raphael's own age, up to our own day. He was able to show that Raphael's creations worked on after his death like a living, unified stream of spiritual development that continues beyond his death, reaching to the present. If Herman Grimm was able to show this, one would like to say on the other hand: The preceding age leaves us with the impression that it already points in a certain respect to Raphael's later entry into world evolution, just as a limb is an integral part of an organism.
In calling to mind a saying of Goethe's, one would like to transpose it, as it were, from the realm of space to the realm of time. Goethe once made the following significant utterance: “How can the human being relate himself to the infinite, other than by gathering together all his spiritual forces, drawn from many directions, asking himself: Is it permissible to think of yourself as the centre of this eternally existing universal order, when it leads at the same time to a persistent circling around an absolute mid-point?”2From: Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, Vol. 1, Chapter 10.
In applying this saying to temporal evolution, one would like to add: in a certain respect the gods of Homer, described by him in such a grandiose manner almost a thousand years before the founding of Christianity, would lose something for us, in looking back into pre-historic times, if we were not able to see them as they re-emerged in the soul of Raphael. Only there do they attain a certain completion in the powerful visual expression of Raphael's creations. Thus, what Homer brought forth long before the advent of Christianity joins itself for us to an organic whole through what arose from Raphael's soul in the sixteenth century.
And, by the same token, if we direct our gaze to the biblical figures of which the New Testament tells us and then contemplate the works of Raphael, we have the sense that something would at once be lacking for us if the creative power in Raphael's Madonnas and similar pictures, arising from biblical tradition and legends, had not been added to the descriptions of the Bible. One would like to say, Raphael not only lives on in the centuries that follow him; what preceded him joins with his own creative activity to form an organic whole—even if this becomes evident only from a later historical viewpoint.
Thus, an expression that Lessing3Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, 1729-1781 made use of in an important connection, in referring to “the education of the human race,” appears in a special light. We see how a uniform spiritual element flows through humanity's development and how this shines forth quite especially in such outstanding figures as Raphael. What we have often been able to emphasize from a spiritual scientific standpoint in regard to the development of humanity—concerning the repeated earth-lives of the human being—takes on further significance in contemplating what has been said. We become aware of the significance of the fact that the human spirit appears again and again in repeated earth-lives throughout the various epochs of humanity, bearing from one age to another what is to be implanted in mankind's spiritual development. Spiritual science seeks meaning and significance in human evolution. It does not want merely to present what happens sequentially in an ongoing straight line of development, but rather to assign an overall meaning to single periods. In appearing again and again in earth-lives that follow each other, the human soul comes onto this earth so as to be able to experience something new each time. Thus, we can really speak of an education the human soul undergoes in passing through various earth-lives; an education by means of all that is cultivated and achieved by the common spirit of humanity.
What is put forward here from a spiritual scientific standpoint concerning Raphael's relation to the general development of humanity over the last centuries is not meant as a philosophical, historical construct. It arises rather as a natural outcome of considering Raphael's creative activity from all manner of viewpoints. These reflections are not the result of an urge to elaborate on humanity's spiritual life philosophically. What is said has arisen for me after contemplating Raphael's creations from many points of view—crystallizing quite naturally into what I wish to present. However, it will not be possible to enter into particular works of Raphael as such, since this would require showing such works at the same time. But the total works of Raphael also coalesce in feeling to an overall impression. Having studied Raphael, one bears something of a total impression in one's soul. And then one may ask: How does it stand with this overall impression as regards the development of humanity?
Our attention is necessarily drawn to an important age with which Raphael is intimately connected, the age that coincides with the development of the ancient Greek culture. What the Greeks attained and what they experienced out of their inherent nature presents itself as a kind of middle epoch in the development of humanity. What precedes Greek culture, which is concurrent in a certain respect with the founding of Christianity, presents a quite different aspect from what follows it. If we consider the human being in the time prior to Greek culture, we find that the soul and spirit were much more intimately connected with the external bodily nature than was the case in subsequent periods. What we may call the “internalizing” of the human soul, the withdrawal of the human soul in turning to the spirit, in wanting to contemplate what underlies the spiritual in the world—this did not exist in the same measure as it does today for the times preceding the Greek period. For human beings of that earlier time it was rather that in making use of their bodily organs, the spiritual secrets of existence illuminated their souls simultaneously. A detached view of the sense world, such as we find in today's conventional science, did not exist in those older times. The human being beheld objects with his senses, sensing at the same time, in having the impression before him, what lives and weaves in things of a soul-spiritual nature. The spiritual resulted for human beings from the things themselves, from making use of their sense organs. A withdrawal from sense impressions, in giving oneself over to inner experience, so as to arrive at the spiritual in the world, was not necessary in older times.
If we go very far back in the development of humanity, we find that what may be called, in the best sense of the word, “clairvoyant contemplation of things,” was a general property of the humanity of primeval times. This clairvoyant contemplation was not attained in separate states but was simply there and as natural as sense perception. Then came Greek civilization with its own characteristic world of which it can be said that, though the internalizing of spiritual life begins here, what the spirit experiences inwardly is still seen in connection with what goes on externally in the sense world. In Greece the sensory and the psycho-spiritual hold each other in balance. The spiritual was no longer given in such an immediate fashion together with sense perception as in the time preceding Greece. The spiritual welled up as it were in the Greek soul as something inwardly separate, but as something felt in directing the senses out into the world. The human being became aware of the spiritual, not in the things of the external world, but in connection with them. In the time preceding Greece, the human soul was poured, as it were, into the bodily nature. It had freed itself from the bodily nature to some extent in Greece, but the soul-spiritual held the bodily nature in balance throughout the time of ancient Greece. For that reason, the creations of the Greeks appear as fully permeated with spirituality as what presented itself to their senses.—Then came the times that followed Greece, times in which the human spirit internalizes—in which it was no longer granted it to receive the spiritual element that lives and weaves in things along with sense impressions. These are times in which the human soul had to withdraw into itself and experience its own forces through conscious effort, in advancing to the spiritual. The human soul had to experience spiritual contemplation of things and sensory observation as, so to speak, two worlds.
What has just been said becomes fully evident in considering a spirit such as St. Augustine,4354–430 who is barely separated farther in time from the advent of Christianity than we are from the Reformation. Humanity's progress becomes apparent in comparing what St. Augustine experienced and set forth in his writings, with what has come down to us from the Greek world. What St. Augustine expounds in his Confessions, what he shows us of the soul battles in turning inward, what he reveals of an inner being altogether withdrawn from the external world—how impossible does this seem with regard to the spirits of ancient Greece! There we see everywhere how what lives in the soul unites with what happens in the external world.
The historical development of humanity shows itself divided as though by a mighty incision. On the one hand we have the culture of ancient Greece in which humanity holds the balance with respect to the soul-spiritual and the external physical. On the other hand, we have the founding of Christianity, that proceeds from everything the human being experiences inwardly, by means of inner battles and conscious effort—turning not to the outer world in sensing the riddles of existence, but to what the spirit can ascertain when giving itself over to purely soul-spiritual forces. Altogether different are those beautiful, those majestic and so perfect Greek gods, Zeus and Apollo, as though separated by a deep chasm from the Crucified One, from inner depth and power, undistinguished by external beauty. This is already the outer symbol for the profound turning point represented by Christianity and the culture of ancient Greece in the development of humanity. We see this turning point in the spirits that follow the Greek period, taking effect as an ever greater internalizing of the soul.
The inner deepening that took place in this way is characteristic of the further development of humanity.—If one would comprehend the development of humanity, one has to become clear in one's mind that we are living in an age which implies a progressive internalization in the sense of what has been said—whether we view it in terms of the immediate past, or in looking to the future. Thus, we can foresee a time in which a still greater chasm will loom between everything that goes on in the external world, what happens in the more or less mechanical life of the outer world, and what the human soul aspires to in wanting to ascend to an understanding of spiritual heights—in attempting to take the inner steps that lead to the spiritual. We are advancing more and more toward an age of further internalization. A significant turning point in regard to this progress of humanity toward inwardness since ancient Greek times is what has come down to us in Raphael's creations.
As a quite unusual spirit, Raphael places himself as though at a watershed of mankind's development. What precedes him is in a quite special sense the beginning of the turn toward inwardness. And what follows him presents a new chapter in this internalization of the human soul. Some of what I have to say in today's presentation may sound like a kind of symbolic reflection. But it should not be taken as a mere symbolic mode of expression. On account of Raphael's towering greatness, the attempt here is to grasp what can otherwise only be clothed in trivial concepts, as far as possible in broader concepts and ideas.
Attempting a glance into Raphael's inner being, it strikes us above all how, in the year 1483, this soul appears as a veritable “spring-time birth,” undergoing an inner development and evolving brilliant creations. And when Raphael subsequently dies at thirty-seven, he is still young. So as to immerse ourselves in Raphael, in following the various stages of his development, let us turn our attention for the moment from historical events to Raphael's inner nature.
Herman Grimm has pointed out certain regular intervals in Raphael's development. Indeed, spiritual science has no need to be ashamed, in the face of disbelieving humanity, in pointing to certain cyclical laws, laws of a regular spiritual path, also of individuals, since a thinker of the calibre of Herman Grimm—without spiritual science—was led to recognize a regular cyclical development in Raphael. Herman Grimm refers to a work of Raphael that especially delights us in Milan, the Marriage of the Virgin, as a completely new phenomenon in the whole of art history, that cannot be set alongside any previous work. Thus, out of indeterminate depths, Raphael brought forth something that distinguishes itself as being entirely new in spiritual evolution.
Noting in this way what, from birth on, was a predisposition in Raphael, taking account of his progression, we can sense with Herman Grimm how he enters upon certain four-year periods. It is remarkable how Raphael advances in cycles of four years. And if we contemplate such a four-year period, we see Raphael at a higher level each time. About four years after the Marriage of the Virgin he painted The Entombment four years later the frescoes of the Camera della Segnatura and so on, in stages of four years, until the work that stood unfinished next to his deathbed, the Transfiguration of Christ.
Since everything in regard to Raphael's nature proceeds so harmoniously, we feel the need to consider it purely for itself. One then gains the impression that in the age of Raphael a quality of inwardness had to arise, quite especially in regard to the art of painting—an inwardness that had to realize itself in figures such as Raphael alone was able to bring about, born of profound soul experiences, though manifesting in sensory images. And does this not then in fact become part of history itself?
Having thus considered Raphael's inner nature, let us turn to the times and the surroundings into which he was placed. There we find that, while still a child growing up in Urbino, Raphael found himself in an environment that could have a stimulating and awakening effect on his decisive talents. A palace building had arisen in Urbino that aroused excitement throughout Italy. It could be said to have contributed to Raphael's initial harmonious disposition. However, we then see him transplanted to Perugia, to Florence and then to Rome. Basically, Raphael's life unfolded within a narrow circle. In viewing his life, how close in proximity do these places lie for us today. Raphael's entire world was circumscribed within a relatively narrow region, so far as the sense world was concerned. Only in spirit did he raise himself to other spheres.
In Perugia, where Raphael underwent his youthful development, bloody battles were the order of the day. The city was populated by a passionately aroused citizenry; noble families that lived in strife and discord, waged war on each other. One faction drove the other from the city. After a brief expulsion, the others attempted to seize the city again. And not a few times, the streets of Perugia were covered in blood and strewn with corpses. A history writer5Astorre Baglione. See: Francesco Matarazzo: Cronache della Città di Perugia. describes a peculiar scene, as do other reports of that time that are indeed quite odd. In lively fashion, we see a member of the city's nobility emerge, who, to avenge his relatives, storms into the city as a warrior. The writer describes how he rides on horseback through the streets, the embodiment of the spirit of war, massacring all in his way. But the description is such that the writer clearly had the impression: it is a matter of a justified vengeance being taken by the nobleman. The image in the historian's mind is of a warrior subjugating the enemy beneath his feet. In one of Raphael's pictures, the St. George, we can sense this image the chronicler indicates. We have the immediate impression, it could not be otherwise than that Raphael let this scene work on him. What must appear outwardly so frightful for us, resurrects inwardly in Raphael's soul and becomes the starting point for one of the greatest and most significant pictures in the development of humanity.
Thus, Raphael witnessed a quarrelling, battling population around him. Confusion and chaos, war and strife reigned all around him in the city in which he pursued his apprenticeship with his first teacher, Pietro Perugino. We have the impression that two distinct worlds coexisted in the city: The one in which cruel and horrible things occurred, and another that lived inwardly in Raphael, having little to do with what went on around him.
Then in the year 1504 we again see Raphael transplanted, now to Florence. How did matters stand with Florence when Raphael entered the city? First of all, by their conduct the inhabitants made the impression of being tired people, having undergone inner and outer states of agitation, of satiation and fatigue.—What all had not befallen Florence! Internal battles as in Perugia, bloody vendettas among patrician families, as well as battles with outside forces. But, roiling every soul in the city, there had also been the incisive experience of Savonarola6Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498), prior of the Monastery of San Marco, burned at the stake at the instigation of Pope Alexander VI. who had died a martyr's death not long before Raphael arrived in the city. We have the strange figure of Savonarola of the fiery tongue, lashing out against the deplorable state of affairs, the acts of cruelty on the part of the Church, against secularization, against the paganism of the Church. The stormy words of Savonarola reverberate in us if we give ourselves over to them; words with which he captivated all of Florence, so that people not only hung on every word, but worshipped him as though a higher spirit stood before them in that ascetic body.
As a kind of religious reformer Savonarola had transformed the city of Florence. His preachings pervaded not only religious ideas, but the entire city-state. Florence stood wholly under the influence of Savonarola, as though a divine republic of some sort were to be founded. And we then see Savonarola fall prey to the powers he had spoken out against, morally and religiously. The moving scene arises of Savonarola being led with his companions to the martyr's pyre. From the gallows he turned to look down upon the people gathered there, who had for so long been enthralled by him, having once hung on his every word. This was in May of the year 1498. Having now forsaken him, they viewed him as a heretic. However, in a few among them, including artists, the words of Savonarola still echoed on. After Savonarola had suffered a martyr's death, a painter of that time assumed the monk's habit, so as to continue working in his spirit, in his order.7Fra Bartolomeo, who became a Dominican in 1500.
It is not difficult to imagine the tired atmosphere that lay over Florence. We see Raphael transposed into this atmosphere in the year 1504—bringing, with his creative activity, the spirit's “breath of spring” that introduced into the city a spiritual fire, so to speak, though of a quite different kind from what Savonarola had been capable of. Taking account of the contrast between the mood of this city and Raphael's soul in its isolation (joining other artists and painters working in solitary workshops or elsewhere in Florence) a picture emerges that once again shows how Raphael stood inwardly apart from the external circumstances in which he found himself. We see the Roman popes, Alexander VI, Julius II, Leo X and the whole papal system that Savonarola had railed against and the reformers had opposed. But it transpires that in this papal system we have at the same time Raphael's patrons. We see Raphael in the service of this papacy. Inwardly, his soul has in truth little in common with what meets us, for example, in his patron Julius II. The latter admitted to appearing to people as someone who “had the devil within him,” and generally had the impulse to bare his teeth in confronting his enemies.
Nominally great figures, these popes were certainly not what Savonarola or his like-minded comrades would have called Christians. The papacy had passed over into heathenism, not in the old, but in a new sense. There was not much trace of Christian piety in these circles, though certainly of the desire for splendour and lust for power. Raphael becomes the servant of this heathenized Christendom. But such that something is created out of his soul by which the Christian ideas appear in many respects in a new form. We see the most heartfelt, the most delightful content of the world of Christian legends arise in the Madonna pictures and other works of Raphael. What a stark contrast there is between the inwardness of soul in Raphael's works and all that went on around him in Rome, when he became the outer servant of the popes. How was all this possible? Already, with his apprenticeship in Perugia, and then his time in Florence, we see how disparate were the actual circumstances and Raphael's inner nature. This was quite especially the case in Rome, where he created pictures of worldwide renown. Yet Raphael and his surroundings have to be taken into account if we are to acquire a proper idea of what lived within him.
Let us allow the pictures of Raphael to work upon us. For the moment, this cannot be done with individual pictures, though one of his best-known paintings may be singled out, so as to come to an understanding of the characteristic soul quality in Raphael. It is the Sistine Madonna in nearby Dresden, which almost everyone knows from the numerous reproductions found throughout the world. This shows itself to be one of the noblest, most magnificent works of art in the history of mankind. We see the Mother and Child float toward us over the clouds that cover the globe—out of an indeterminate realm of the spiritual-supersensible—enveloped and surrounded by clouds that seem naturally to take on human form. One of them as though condenses to become the Child of the Madonna. She calls forth a quite particular feeling in us. In permeating us inwardly, this enables us to forget all legendary ideas from which the image of the Madonna derives, as well as all Christian traditions that tell of the Madonna.
I should like to characterize, not in a dull manner, but as large-heartedly as possible what we are able to feel in regard to the Madonna. In considering human evolution in the sense of spiritual science we transcend the materialistic view. According to the natural scientific view, the lower creatures evolved first, ascending as far as the human being. However, from the standpoint of spiritual science we have to see the human being as having an existence over and above the lower kingdoms of nature. With the human being we have, in spiritual scientific terms, what is much older than all the creatures that stand in relative proximity to him in the kingdoms of nature.
For spiritual science the human being existed before the animal, the plant or even the mineral kingdom came into being. We look back into far distant perspectives of time in which what is now our innermost nature was already there, only later to unite itself with the kingdoms that stand below the human being. Thus, we see the essential being of Man descend, that in truth can only be comprehended in raising ourselves to the supersensible, to what is pre-earthly. By means of spiritual science we come to recognize that no adequate conception of the human being is to be gained from forces connected only with the earth. We must raise ourselves to super-terrestrial regions to see the approach of the human being. To speak metaphorically, we must feel how something floats toward the earthly—in turning our gaze, for instance, to the sunrise in a region such as that in which Raphael lived, to the gold-gleaming sunrise. There, even in natural existence, we can come to feel how something must be added to what is earthly, of forces that we can connect with the sun. Then there arises for us, out of the golden lustre, the symbol of what floats down in order to take on the vesture of the earthly.
In Perugia quite especially, one can have the sense that the eye beholds the same sunrise seen by Raphael and that the natural phenomenon of the rising sun grants us a feeling of what is celestial in the human being. Out of the clouds shone through by the sun-gold there can arise for us—or it can at least appear so—the image of the Madonna and Child as a symbol of the eternally celestial in the human being, that wafts down to the earth out of the extraterrestrial. And below, separated by clouds, we have everything that only proceeds from the earthly. Our feeling-perception can rise to the most exalted spiritual heights, if—not theoretically and not abstractly but with our whole soul—we abandon ourselves to what affects us in Raphael's Madonna. It is a quite natural feeling one can have in regard to the world-famous picture in Dresden. And I should like to provide an example showing how it has had such an effect on some people, in quoting words written by Goethe's friend, Karl August, Duke of Weimar, concerning the ,i>Sistine Madonna, following a visit to Dresden:
With the Raphael adorning the collection there, it was for me as when, having climbed the heights of the Gotthard all day and traversed the Urseler Loch, one all of a sudden looks down on the blossoming, green valley below. As often as I saw it and looked away again, it always appeared only like an apparition. To me, even the most beautiful Corregios were only human pictures; in memory, their beautiful forms palpable to the senses.—Raphael, however, remained always like a mere breath, like one of those appearances the gods send us in female form, in our happiness or sorrow; like pictures that present themselves to us again in sleep, upon awakening or in dreaming, and having once seen, appear to us day and night ever afterwards, moving us in our inmost soul.8Karl August to his friend Knebel, 14th October, 1783.
And it is remarkable, what is to be found in following up the literature of those able to express something of a profound nature in viewing the Sistine Madonna, as also other Raphael pictures. Again and again we find comparisons with light, with the sun, with what is luminous and what is spring-like in nature.
This affords us a glimpse into Raphael's soul. We see how, despite the conditions that prevailed around him, he holds converse with the eternal secrets of human development. We sense that, in his uniqueness, Raphael does not grow out of his surroundings, but points to a tremendous past. One does not then need to speculate. Such a soul looks out into the world's circumference and does not express the secrets of existence in ideas, but forms them into a picture. By virtue of its inner completeness such a soul is self-evidently mature in the highest degree and truly bears special forces of humanity in its whole disposition,—one that must have gone through epochs that poured tremendous things into the soul, so as to reappear in what we call the life of Raphael. How, we may ask, does this re-emerge?
We see the living content of Christian legends, of Christian traditions, arise in Raphael's pictures at a time in which Christianity had become pagan and given over to external pomp and outer splendour. Greek paganism was represented in its gods and venerated by the Greeks in their intoxication with beauty. We see Raphael giving form to the figures of Christian tradition in an age in which Greek treasures that had been buried for centuries under rubble and debris on Roman soil were being dug up again. We see Raphael among those excavating. Indeed, this Rome into which Raphael was transposed makes a remarkable impression.
What precedes this time? We see, first of all, the centuries in which Rome emerges, built on the egoism of individuals whose aim is to found a community in the external world based on what the human being signifies as the citizen of a state. When Rome had attained a certain height with the time of the Caesars, we see it absorb the Greek element into its spiritual life. We see Rome, though it had overwhelmed Greece politically, now overcome by Greece spirituality. Thus, the Greek element lived on in Rome. Greek art, to the extent it was absorbed by Rome lives on in what is Roman. Rome becomes permeated through and through by the Greek element.
But why does this Greek element not remain a characteristic feature of Italy's development over the following centuries? Why did something altogether different in fact make its appearance? Because, not long after this Greek element had poured itself into the Roman world, something else came, impressing its signature more strongly on what had developed on the soil of Italy: Christianity, the internalizing of Christianity. Something was now to speak to humanity, not as had the external sensory element of Greek cities, of Greek works of art, or Greek philosophy, but by addressing itself to the inner human being, taking hold of this human soul in inner battles. Hence, we see such figures arise as St. Augustine, personalities of a quite inward disposition.
But then, since all development runs its course cyclically, we again see a yearning for beauty arise, after human beings had undergone this internalizing and had lived for a long time without the same connection to external beauty. In the “outer” we once again see what is inward. In this regard, it is of significance when in Assisi the inwardly deepened life of Francis of Assisi. Francis of Assisi appears in the works of Giotto, in which Christianity is able to speak directly to the human soul.—Even if we sense at the same time—the expression is permissible—something awkward and imperfect in Giotto's pictures, in bringing the inner nature of the human being to expression. We nonetheless have a direct line of ascent to the point where the most inward, the most impressive and noblest becomes manifest in outer form in Raphael and his contemporaries.
Entering in feeling into the way in which Raphael himself must have felt, we have to say to ourselves: In looking at a picture such as the Madonna della Sedia it strikes us, in contemplating the Madonna with the Child, along with the Child John, that we forget the rest of the world—forget above all that this Child held by the Madonna could be linked with what we know as the Golgotha experience. With Raphael's picture we forget everything that followed as the life of Christ-Jesus. We give ourselves over entirely to the moment seen here. We have simply a Mother and Child, of which Herman Grimm said, it is the most exalted mystery to be met with in the outer world. We view the moment in serenity, as though nothing could connect onto it, either before or after. We are wholly taken up by the relationship of the Madonna and Child, separated from everything else. Thus, in always showing us the eternal in a given moment, Raphael's creations appear fundamentally complete in themselves.
What must a soul feel in creating in this manner? It cannot be seized inwardly by the burning fervour of Savonarola that feels the whole Christ tragedy within itself, in speaking its words of fury, or in addressing its hearers in uplifting, pious words. We cannot imagine that Raphael could have anything to do with Savonarola's spiritual orientation; or that so-called Christian fire could have held sway in Raphael. Nevertheless, we should not think that the Christian ideas could appear to us so vividly through Raphael—a human soul of such inwardness and completeness—if Christian fire had been altogether foreign to it.
One cannot create figures in an objective and well-rounded fashion if one is imbued with Savonarola's fire, borne along by the whole tragic mood of Christ, feeling oneself spurred on by this. A certain tranquillity and quite different Christian feelings must first have arisen in the soul. Even so, what has come to expression in Raphael's pictures could not have arisen if the very “nerve” of Christian inwardness had not lived in him. Is it not then reasonable to suppose: In the painter Raphael we have a soul that must already have brought that fire with it into physical existence that we perceive at work in Savonarola. If we see Raphael as bringing this fire along with him from earlier earth-lives, then we comprehend how he could be so inwardly serene, so inwardly complete, that this fire does not meet us as a consuming fire, destructive of enthusiasm, but as the tranquil element of creative activity. At his point I should like to say, one senses something in Raphael's natural abilities by means of which, in an earlier life, he could have spoken with the same fire as Savonarola. And it need not astonish us if Raphael's soul were to have re-arisen from a time in which Christianity was not yet present in the form of art, but received that mighty impulse at its immediate inception by which it became effective in the course of the centuries that followed.
Perhaps it is not too audacious, in attempting to understand Raphael, to put forward something like what has been said. For, whoever has learned, in immersing himself again and again in Raphael's works, to revere this individual in all its depths, to view it in its unfathomableness, is only able by means of such extended feelings to comprehend what speaks to us out of the miraculous works into which Raphael poured his soul.
Raphael's mission only appears to us in the right light when we seek, in the sense of Goethe's expression, “in a completed life” [in einem abgelebten Leben], the Christian fire that later manifests as serenity in Raphael. Then we come to understand why he had to place himself into the world in such an isolated manner. And we comprehend how the Raphael we have attempted to characterize—having experienced something “Savonarola-like” in an earlier life (only in an enhanced measure)—now became the Raphael we know from Renaissance Italy.
As already mentioned, in the time in which the Roman Empire drew near, in the Roman period of Greece, an internalizing of the soul had taken place. In the Renaissance, in Raphael's time, we see the ancient Greek culture, buried under rubble, reappearing. Rome was gradually filled with relics of Greece, with what had once beautified the city. The Roman population directed its attention once again to the forms the Greek spirit had created. In this period, we also see how the spirit of Plato, the spirit of Aristotle, the spirit of the Greek tragedians infuses Roman life. We see the Roman world conquered once again by Greek culture. For a spirit that had previously given itself over to the moral-religious view of Christianity, devoting itself in a prior life completely to such moral-religious impressions, Greek culture may be said to have had a renewing, fructifying effect, in appearing out of the rubble and ruins on the Italian peninsula.
Thus, if we see the moral-religious impulse of Christianity as integral to Raphael's innate faculties, what was not there in his disposition appeared in the Greek artefacts then being excavated before his eyes. The statues reappearing out of the rubble, products of the Greek spirit, the manuscripts that were recovered, had their effect on Raphael's soul as on no other. What united itself in this way as a result of his inner disposition—Christian feeling, combined with an especially spiritual devotion to what is cosmic—all this worked together with what was then re-emerging of the Greek spirit. These two things united in Raphael's soul, bringing it about that in his works we have what the time following Greece had generated—the inwardness with which Christianity had imbued the development of humanity—now finally brought to full expression in a world of forms, of pictures in which the purest Greek spirit speaks to us.
We see the remarkable phenomenon, that through Raphael the Greek element arises again within Christendom. In Raphael we see a Christianity appear in an age that, all around him, presents what is actually anti-Christian. In Raphael there lives a Christianity that goes far beyond the narrowness of the Christianity that had gone before, raising itself to a far-reaching conception of the world. However, this is a Christianity that does not merely point vaguely to infinite realms of the spiritual, but assumes artistic form—much as the ancient Greeks had united their idea of the gods with what lives and weaves formlessly in the universe, pressing this into figures that delight our senses.
In letting one or another of Raphael's creations work on us, in attempting to form an overall picture of his works in their exalted, perfect forms, they appear to us as possessing a wonderful excess of youth, for Raphael died at 37 years of age. Not for the sake of a grey theory, nor as a philosophical-historical “construct,” but out of immediate feeling deriving from Raphael's works, it may be said: The lawful continuum of mankind's spiritual life presents itself to us most clearly with such a towering figure as Raphael.
Imagining the progress of spiritual life as a straight line in which cause and effect follow upon each other is truly not in accord with the facts. There is a saying that seems obvious, belonging to the “golden” pronouncements of humanity, namely, that life and nature make no leaps. However, in many respects life and nature make leaps all the time. We see this in the development of the plant, from the green leaf to the blossom, from the blossom to the fruit. There we see everything develop, yet we see that leaps are inevitable.
It is no different with the spiritual life of humanity, and this is connected with various evolutionary secrets. One of these is that a later epoch always has to reach back to an earlier one. Hence, just as the masculine and the feminine have to work together, so must the various Time Spirits work together, mutually fertilizing each other, so that further development can take place. Thus, the Roman period around the time of the Caesars had to be fertilized by the Greek element, for a new age to arise. And in the same way, the Time Spirit that then arose had to be fertilized by the Christian impulse, in order to make the internalizing possible that we see in St. Augustine and others. Similarly, more recently, such an inwardly advanced soul as Raphael had to be fertilized, made productive by the Greek element. Doubly buried though Greek culture then was, it yet reappeared, being doubly “extracted:” for the eyes in that the sculptures had been covered over by the soil of Italy; and for the souls, in the buried works of literature that revealed the Greek spirit. The centuries of the first Christian millennium, on the other hand, had been extraordinarily little touched by what lived in Greek philosophy, in Greek poetry.
Having been doubly buried, Greek culture waited, as it were, in a “beyond” for a later point in time when it could fertilize the human soul that had meanwhile been imbued with a new religion. Buried, withdrawn for outer eyes and buried likewise for souls that had no notion that it would develop further, it actually flowed on like a river that sometimes continues underground, out of sight, far below a mountain, returning afterwards to the surface. This Greek culture was buried outwardly for the senses, inwardly for the substrata of the soul. Now it reappeared. For spiritual sight it was excavated not only in that it was fetched from old manuscripts, but also in that people began to experience the world in the Greek manner once again, sensing how the spirit lives in everything material, how everything that is material is the revelation of the spiritual. People began to connect once more with what Plato and Aristotle had thought.
But Raphael was the individual on whom this could take effect most of all, since in his whole disposition he had fully assimilated the Christian impulses. With him this twice buried and twice resurrected Greek culture now brought it about that he was in a position to recreate the evolution of humanity in figures. How marvellously was he able to accomplish this in the pictures of the Camera della Segnatura. There we see the old spiritual contests arise again in pictures—the struggle of those spirits that had developed in the time of internalizing, that had not been there in the Greek period. That they could be viewed in this way in Raphael's time—for that, the whole period of internalizing was needed. We now see this internalizing painted on the walls of the papal rooms.
What the Greeks had conceived and formed into figures we now see internalized. The inner strivings and inner battles humanity had undergone we see infused with the Greek creative spirit, with the Greek artistic mood and sense for beauty, conjured onto the walls of the papal palace. The Greeks poured into their statues their conception of the way in which the gods worked upon the world. How human beings felt in approaching the secrets of existence presents itself to us in the picture often referred to as the School of Athens How the human soul had learned to view the Greek gods meets us in the remarkable recreation of the gods of Homer in the Parnassus. These are not the gods of the Iliad and the Odyssey but the gods as seen by a soul that had already gone through the epoch of internalization.
On the other wall we see the picture that must remain unforgettable to everyone, of whatever religious confession—as little as one can still gain an idea of it—the Disputa in which something most inward is depicted. The other picture presents what is attained by means of a certain philosophical striving, but in Greek beauty of form. In the picture opposite, the “Disputa,” we encounter the most profound content the human being can experience. And the fact that we do not need to think in terms of a narrow Christian consciousness becomes evident here in that we find the Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva motifs expressed in a quite different way. We have before us what the human soul can experience inwardly of the Trinity—every soul, no matter what confession it belongs to. This appears to us not merely symbolically, in the symbolism of the Trinity in the upper part of the picture. It appears to us further in each countenance of the Church fathers and philosophers, in every motion of the hands, in the whole distribution of the figures, in the wonderful colour composition. It appears to us in the picture's totality. In the beautiful forms permeated with the Greek spirit we are presented with the human soul in its entire inwardness. The inwardness experienced in the course of one-and-a-half millennia arises once again, as outer revelation. In Raphael's pictures we see Christianity, not in the form of the paganism of the Roman popes and cardinals, but as the ancient Greek paganism, capable of creating beautiful, splendid figures.
Thus, Raphael stands at a turning point, at a watershed, pointing both to an earlier age that had preceded Christianity in the beauty of outer revelation, and to what may be seen as inherent in the “education of the human race,” the internalizing of the human soul. Hence, in standing in front of these pictures of Raphael, these miraculous, unique works of art, they appear to us as the confluence of two ages clearly separate and distinct from each other: an age of outer experience and one of inner experience.
Yet, at the same time, in standing before these pictures, they open up a perspective into the future. For, with a feeling for what has been said, who does not sense that—in spite of all the externality that has still to evolve further in humanity's future—this internalizing must necessarily also progress further in the course of evolution? Indeed, the human soul will need to find periods of ever greater inwardness in subsequent lives.
If we turn to literature and study, not as an art scholar or mere reader, the works of a spirit such as Herman Grimm, who spared no effort in portraying the workings of human phantasy, we can understand the profound empathy with which he contemplated Raphael's creations. It becomes comprehensible, when, at a certain point in his work on Raphael we find words that take on special meaning. We see how he stood before Raphael's creations with heartfelt interest. One has to take account of what passed through Herman Grimm's soul at a certain point in his work on Raphael, in the first few pages where, in casting a glance at Raphael's emergence from ancient times, he only modestly touches on something. It is not evident, really, from where this thought comes.—In the middle of wider historical considerations into which Raphael is placed, a thought occurs to Herman Grimm and is written down: “I see before me developments of humanity, participation in which will be denied me, but that appear to me so radiantly beautiful that, on their account, it would be worth the trouble of beginning human life all over again.”9In Herman Grimm: Das Leben Raphaels, (The Life of Raphael), p. 4.
This yearning of Herman Grimm for “reincarnation” in the introduction to his Raphael book is remarkable and profoundly indicative of a particular feeling living in a human being who attempted to come to terms with Raphael and his connection to other epochs. Does one not sense what can be expressed more or less in saying: Works such as those of Raphael are not only an end-result. They lead us to acknowledge not only how grateful we have to be in regard to what past ages have given us. Such works call forth feelings in us such as the feeling of hope, since they strengthen us in our belief in the progress of humanity. We can say to ourselves, these works would not be as they are if humanity were not a unified being whose nature it is to advance. Thus, certainty and hope arise for us if we allow Raphael to work on us in the right way. And we can then say: Through what he created artistically, Raphael has spoken to humanity!
In contemplating the frescoes in the Camera della Segnatura>, we do of course sense the transience of the external work. From these works, frequently painted over, we can gain little idea of what Raphael once conjured onto the wall. We sense that at some point in the future human beings will no longer be able to experience the original works. But we know, humanity will progress ever further.
Fundamentally, the works of Raphael first embarked on their triumphal march when, with love and devotion, innumerable engravings, photographs and reproductions of his works were made. Their effect continues right into the reproductions. One can understand Herman Grimm when he relates that he once hung a large collotype10Phototypie of the Sistine Madonna in his room and on entering, it was always as though he were not fully permitted to enter—as though the room now belonged to the picture as a sanctuary of the Madonna. Some will already have experienced how the soul actually becomes a different being than it otherwise is in ordinary life, when truly able to give itself over to a picture by Raphael—even a mere reproduction. Certainly, the originals will some day no longer exist. But, do the originals not still exist in other realms?
Herman Grimm frankly states in his book on Homer:11See Herman Grimm: Homer's Iliad; 2nd edition, Stuttgart and Berlin 1907, p. 473. We can also no longer fully enjoy the original works of Homer, since in ordinary life, without higher spiritual forces, we are no longer in a position to enter into all the nuances and expressions of the Greek language in their full beauty and power, in taking in Homer's “Iliad” and “Odyssey”. There too we no longer have the originals. Even so, Homer's poetic works speak to us. But, what Raphael gave to humanity will live on as evidence of the fact that there was once a time in the development of humanity when, in the widest circles people were unable to immerse themselves in thoughts and written works, since that was far from being the norm at that time. However, in Raphael's creations the secrets of existence spoke to the eyes of human beings. The age of Raphael was one that read less, but that looked more. This makes it clear that that age was differently constituted. But what Raphael created will continue to have an effect in all future times. Confirmation of this will be what Raphael will continue to say to humanity. Thus, Raphael's creations will live on in the further course of human evolution, live on inwardly in lives that follow upon each other. In undergoing future lives, Raphael's spirit will have ever greater things, of an ever more inward nature, to impart to humanity.
Thus, spiritual science points to a further life in a two-fold sense; a living-on of a kind described in lectures that have been given and that will be spoken of further, becoming our guide in going through earthly existence in ever new epochs. It can be said to be entirely true, what Herman Grimm states in words summarizing what resulted for him from his overall study of Raphael: Even if Raphael's works will eventually have faded or been destroyed, Raphael will still live on. For, with him something has been implanted in the spirit of humanity that will forever germinate and bear fruit.
Every human soul sufficiently able to deepen itself in Raphael will come to feel this. Only in entering into a sense with which Herman Grimm was imbued—heightening and deepening this by means of spiritual science—do we come to understand Raphael fully. We indicated recently how close he stood, in contemplating Raphael ever and again, to spiritual science.—We can understand our relation to Raphael and such thoughts as have been ventured today can grow in us, if we conclude by summarizing what has been said in words of Herman Grimm:
Human beings will always want to know about Raphael; about the beautiful young painter who surpassed all others; who was fated to die early. Whose death all Rome mourned. When the works of Raphael are finally lost, his name will remain engraved in human memory.12From Herman Grimm: Das Leben Raphaels, p. 1.
Thus, did Herman Grimm express himself in beginning his discourse on Raphael. We understand these words; and we understand him again in concluding, at the end of his work on Raphael:
All the world will want to know about the life-work of such a human being, for Raphael has become one of the pillars upon which the higher culture of the human spirit is founded. We would fain draw nearer to him, since we have need of him for our well-being.13Ibid., p. 334.
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.”