The Arts and Their Mission
GA 276
8 June 1923, Dornach
Lecture V
I should like to supplement last week's lectures on art. Often I had to emphasize that the spiritual evolution of mankind has proceeded from the unity of science, art and religion. In present-day spiritual life we have science, art and religion separated, yet can look back into the time when these three streams flowed from a common source. That source is seen most clearly if we go back four or five thousand years to poetry during the primeval ages; or, rather, to what would today be called poetry. To fathom the poetry of the bearers of ancient culture (it is nonsense, our looking for this culture in present-day primitive peoples) we must study the spiritual development of mankind in those ancient times through the Mysteries.
Let us examine the times when human beings did not look to the earth, but out into the cosmos to find a content for their spiritual life, or to satisfy the deepest needs of their souls. At that period those with clairvoyant faculties, seeing the fixed stars and movements of the planets, considered everything on earth a reflection of events taking place in its cosmic environment. We need only remind ourselves how the ancient Egyptians measured by the rising of Sirius the significance for their lives of the river Nile; how they considered the Nile's influence a result of what could be fathomed only by studying the relationship between stars out there in the cosmos. To the Egyptians their interplay in cosmic space was mirrored, on earth, by the activity of the Nile. This is but one example among many. For the conception held sway that occurrences in definite locations on earth imaged forth the observable mysteries of the starry heavens. We must also be clear about the fact that in ancient times human beings beheld in the heavens things quite different from those now being investigated and calculated with so-called astro-mechanics and astro-chemistry.
Today we shall direct our attention to the way people expressed themselves through poetry during the period when they received spiritual content for their souls in the manner described.
I refer to an age when all the arts, except poetry, were but little developed. The other arts existed, to be sure, but in only a rudimentary state because the human beings of that time were deeply conscious of the fact that with the word, created out of their organisms' innermost secret, they could express something super-sensible, that language was fitted to express what appears in star-constellations and star-movements; far better fitted than the art-mediums using substances taken directly from the earth. For language originates in spiritual man—this they felt—and is therefore eminently adapted to what, from cosmic reaches, manifests here on earth. Poetry, then, was not an offspring merely of phantasy but of spiritual perception; and it was by this means that man learned what he in turn poured into the other arts. Poetry, which finds expression through words, was the medium by which man entered into soul-communion with the stars, the extra-earthly.
This soul-communion constituted the poetic mood. Through it man saw how thoughts not yet separated from objects gain pictorial expression in his vault-like head, a head resembling the firmament; how thought represents a spiritual firmament, a celestial vault; how thought is inherent throughout the cosmos. Individual thoughts were expressed through the relative positions of the stars, by the way the planets moved past each other. In those ancient times man—unlike the free man of a later age—did not think merely by virtue of his own inner force. In every thought-movement he felt the after-image of some star-movement, in every thought-form the after-image of a constellation. Thus his thinking transported him into stellar space. The sunlight which illumined the day, and which would seem to be blinding out in the cosmos, was not considered the guide to wisdom, not the guiding force of thought, but, rather, sunlight as reflected by the moon. The following is ancient Mystery wisdom: During the day we see light with the physical body, at night we do more; we see it gathered up by the silver chalice of the moon. And this sunlight, collected by the moon, was regarded as the soul's Soma drink. Enspirited thereby, the soul could conceive those thoughts which were the result, the image, of the starry heavens.
Thus man as thinker felt as though the force of his thinking were located not in his earthly organism, but out where the stars were circling and forming constellations; he felt his soul poured out into the entire universe. If he had investigated combinations and separations of thoughts, he would have looked, not for laws of logic, but for the paths and constellations of the stars in the nightly firmament. The laws and images of his thinking existed in the heavens.
When he became aware of his feeling, it was not the abstract feeling of which we speak today in our abstract time, but rather the concrete feeling closely united with such inner experiences as that of breathing and blood circulation, the vital interweaving of the interior of the human body. Thus he felt himself existing not only upon the physical earth, but in planetary space. He did not say: In the human organism millions of blood corpuscles circle, but rather: Mercury and Mars are crossing Sun and Moon. To repeat: he felt his soul poured out into the universe; felt that, while with his thoughts he abode among the fixed stars and their constellations, with his feelings he lived within the sphere of the moving planets. Only with his will did he feel himself on earth. Considering the terrestrial an image of the cosmic he said to himself: When the forces of Jupiter, Moon, Venus and Sun strike the earth and penetrate its soil in the solid, liquid and aeroform elements, then from these elements will impulses penetrate into the human being, just as thought impulses penetrate into him from the fixed stars, and feeling impulses from planetary movements.
By such awareness, man could transplant himself into the time of the beginnings of primeval art. What is primeval art? It is nothing other than speech itself (a fact little understood today). For our speech is fettered to the material-earthly; it no longer manifests what it was when human beings, feeling transported into the Zodiac, incorporated into themselves from zodiacal constellations the twelve consonants, and from the movements of the planets past the fixed-star constellations, the vowels. At that time human beings did not intend to express through speech what they experienced upon earth, but rather what the soul experienced when it felt transported into the cosmos; which is why, in ancient times, speech flowered into poetry. The last remnants of such poetry are contained in the Vedas and, more abstractly, in the Edda. These are after-images of what, in greater glory, in much greater sublimity and majesty, had arisen directly out of the formation of languages during those ages when human beings could still feel their own soul life intimately united with cosmic movement and experience.
What is felt of all this in present-day poetry?
Poetry would not be poetry—and in our time much poetry is no longer poetry—if certain aspects of man's communion with the cosmos had not been kept. What remains is whatever in speech-formation passes beyond the prose meanings of words into rhythm, rhyme and imagination. For true poetry never consists of what is stated literally. Into the prose content of a poem, whether written down or, better, recited or declaimed, there must sound rhythm, beat, imagination. This points to elements not contained in prose; to a background which, in every true poetic work, cannot be understood but must be guessed at, divined. It is only the prose content which can be understood by the mind. The fact that poetry conveys something lying outside its words, for which the words are but a means, the fact that poetry's aura of mood echoes cosmic harmony, melody, imagination, this fact, even today, makes poetry poetry. We still can divine what it meant for Homer when he said: “Sing, oh Muse, the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus.” It was not the poet singing; it was the soul which has communion with cosmic movements singing through him. In the planets live the Muses. The epic Muse lives in one particular planet. It was into this planet that Homer felt transported: Sing, oh Muse, resound for me, celestial melody of the planets; relate the deeds of earthly heroes, Agamemnon, Achilles, Odysseus, Idomeneus, Menelaus; sing of how events appear, not from the limited standpoint of earth, but when the gaze is directed from stellar space. Could one ever believe that the magnificent, comprehensive images of the Iliad stemmed from a “frog-perspective”? No, they have not even air-perspective; they have star-perspective. For that reason, the Iliad story could not be told as though man had solely to do with man, for the gods influence actions; side by side with human agents, they perform their deeds. This is not frog-perspective, this is the stellar-perspective to which the soul of the poet longed to rise when he said: “Sing, oh Muse, the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus.”
From all this it can be clearly seen that the earthly medium which art—in the present case, poetry—makes use of is only a means to an end. The artistic element comes from treating the medium in such a way that the spiritual background, the spiritual worlds, may be divined; word, color, tone, form, being but pathways. If we wish to reawaken in mankind the true artistic mood, we must, to a certain degree, transport ourselves back into those ancient times when the celestial, the poetic mood, lived in the human soul. Then we will receive an impression of how best to use other media to carry art to the world of the spirit; which is what must happen if art wants to be art. Today our feeling has coarsened; we no longer sense what, in the not so distant past, has made art what it is.
For example, say that we see a mother carrying a little child: an elevating sight. We are familiar with the fact that the immediate form impression received therefrom is fixed only for a moment. The very next moment the mother's head position changes, the child in the mother's arms moves. What we have before us in the physical world is never still very long. Now let us look at Raphael's Sistine Madonna: the Mother and Child. Now, an hour from now, a year from now, it remains what it was; nothing has changed, neither child nor mother move. The moment has been fixed. That which in the physical world is still only a moment is here, so to speak, paralyzed. But it only seems so. Today we no longer feel what Raphael most certainly felt, asking, Am I allowed to do that? to fix with my brush a single moment? It is not a lie to convey an impression that the mother holds her child in the same manner today as yesterday? Is it right to impose upon anybody a prolongation of one particular moment? At present such a question appears paradoxical, even nonsensical. But Raphael asked it. And what answer arose in him? This artistic obligation: You must atone in a spiritual way for your sin against reality, must lift the moment out of time and space, for within time and space it is a palpable untruth; must, through what you paint on the plane of your canvas, bestow eternity, arouse feelings which transcend the earthly plane.
This is what is called today, abstractly, Raphael's idealistic painting. His idealism is his justification for so unnaturally fixing the moment. What he invokes through the depths of his colors, through color harmony, he attains by precluding—spiritualizing—the third dimension. His use of colors elevates to the spiritual what is otherwise seen, materialistically, in the third dimension. Thus that which is not on but behind the plane through blue, not on but in front of the plane through red, that which steps out of the plane in a spiritual way (whereas the third dimension steps out of the plane only in a material way), bestows eternity on the moment. Which is precisely what must be bestowed upon the moment. Without the eternal, art is not art.
I have known people—artists, mainly—who hated Raphael. Why? Because they could not understand what is stated above; because they wanted to stop short with an imitation of what the moment presents but which, the next moment, is gone. Once I became acquainted with a Raphael hater who saw the greatest progress in his own painting in the fact that he was the first who had dared to stop sinning against nature; that is, had dared to paint all the hairy spots of the naked body really covered with hair. How inevitable that a man who considered this great progress should have become a Raphael hater. But the episode also shows how badly our time has forsaken the spirit-borne element in art, the element which knows why painting is based on the plane. Spatial perspective must be comprehended; it was necessary in our freedom-endowed fifth post-Atlantean period to learn to understand spatial perspective, that which conjures up on the plane not the pictorial, but the sculptural. The real thing, however, is color-perspective which over-comes the third dimension not by foreshortening and focusing, but by a soul-spiritual relationship between colors, say, between blue and red, or blue and yellow. Painting must acquire a color-perspective which overcomes space in a spiritual fashion. Thus can the artistic be brought back to what it was when it linked man directly to spiritual worlds.
At that time man felt the harmony between science, religion and art. This perception must again be aroused. An echo of it lived in Goethe; that was what made him so great. True, man in his freedom had to experience those three as separated: science, art, religion. But the division has made him lose the profundity of all three; above all, he has lost communion with the cosmos.
One need only exaggerate today's relation between art and science, between poetry and science. You may say I need not carry the problem to extremes to show the contemporary mis-relationship between poetry, art and science. But in a radical case the whole mis-relationship becomes clear. So I cite a radical case:
Once, in a certain city, there took place a meeting of scientists to discuss some great materialistic problems. You know the tremendous seriousness with which such meetings deal with scientific problems; a seriousness so great, no individual dares to approach it with his personality. He therefore places a lectern in front of him, lays his manuscript on it, and reads a paper; or rather, one scientist after another reads a paper. Personality is shoved aside. So strongly does this seriousness act, it is withdrawn from the individual and placed on the lectern; extremely serious! At such meetings every face looks grave. To be sure, they look like reflections of the lectern; but very serious indeed! At this particular meeting the chairman turned to a group of poets with the request that they create, out of their art, poems which could be launched, between courses, at the banquet to follow. Thus the gentlemen—perhaps there were also ladies—went from this serious meeting to a dinner party where poems were presented making fun, satirically, of the various sciences. You see the misrelation between science and art. First the scientists dealt very seriously with the position of a June bug's mandible, or the chromosomes of a June bug's sperm; then, between meat and dessert, poems were read which satirized this very research. First the gentlemen went to extremes of seriousness, then laughed. There was no inner relationship. You might criticize my citing so extreme an example of our civilization. I cite it because it is characteristic, because it shows in a radical manner the present-day relationship between cognition and art, namely, no relationship at all. The gentlemen who made poems for the banquet understood nothing of the scientific papers. It is not quite possible to state the reverse, namely, that the worthy scientists did not understand the poems, although the poets assumed this, for they considered their work profound. But there is not much to be understood in such poetry and it may, therefore, be inferred that even the illustrious gathering understood it in some degree.
It is highly important for our time to observe how a homogeneous human spiritual life has been split into three parts which have fallen away from each other. For there is now a most urgent necessity to recompose the whole. If a philosopher speculates today about unity and doubleness, monism and dualism, he does so with a neutral mind, marshaling abstract concepts in defence of the one or the other. Both viewpoints can be proved equally well. In the ages whose relationship to art has just been sketched, a discussion of unity or duality, of the one with or without the other, aroused all the forces of men's soul. Whether the world sprang from an undivided source, or whether, on the contrary, good and evil are two divided original powers, the battle between monism and dualism was in bygone ages an artistic-religious concern which aroused all the forces of the human soul, and upon which man felt that his welfare, his bliss, depended. Though in former times he considered these questions closely bound up with his salvation, today he speaks of them with indifference. If we do not acquire a breath of the artistic-religious-cognitional soul mood which once held sway, there will be no impulse toward the truly great in art.
Still another feeling lived in those ages. People spoke of the Soma drink, of sunlight poured into the silver moon-chalice, the reality with which they filled their souls in order to understand the secrets of the cosmos. Speaking of the Soma drink, they felt themselves in direct soul communion with the cosmos. Soul experiences took place simultaneously on earth and in the cosmos. People felt that the gods revealed themselves through fixed stars and orbiting planets. By forming images of themselves on earth, the fixed star constellations and planetary movements made it possible for the soul to experience a cosmic element. If it drank the Soma drink and carried out sacrifices in a ritualistic-artistic-cognitional manner, the soul gave back to the gods, in the rising smoke to which it entrusted the religious-artistic-poetic, word, what the gods needed for continued world creation. For the gods did not create man in vain; he exists on earth in order that something which can be achieved only by man may be used by the gods for further world creation. Man is on earth because the gods need him. He is on earth so that he may think, feel and will what lives in the cosmos. If he does it in the right way, the gods can take this changed thing and implant it into the configuration of the world.
Thus man—if in sacrifice and art he gives back what the gods gave him—cooperates in building the cosmos. He has a soul-connection with cosmic evolution.
If we permeate ourselves with a conception of this relationship within spiritual-physical cosmic evolution, we can apply it to the present world. There we see a cognition which wishes only to fashion matter, and which applies earthly laws and calculations even to astro-chemistry and astronomy; a cognition—the so-called scientific one—which holds good only for earth evolution. But this cognition will cease to be of significance to the degree that the earth is transformed into Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan. To repeat: today “science” has only an earthly meaning; its purpose is to help human beings to become free here on earth; but the gods cannot use this science for the continued cosmic creation.
Abstract thoughts are the ultimate abstraction, the corpse of the spirit world. What is carried out scientifically has meaning only for the earth. Having acted on earth as thought, it is shattered, buried; it does not live on.
In truth, what Ursula Karin, grandmother of the poet Adalbert Stifter, told him about the sunset glow belongs more intensively to the cosmos than what is to be read today in scientific books. Take everything in those books about the way sunlight acts on clouds to produce the evening glow, collect everything described there as natural laws: it has an earthly significance only. The gods cannot gather it up from earth to use it in the cosmos. Adalbert Stifter's grandmother said to the boy: “Child, what is the evening glow? Child, when it appears, the Mother of God is hanging out her clothes; she has so many to hang out on the heavenly dome.”
This is an utterance on which the gods can draw for the further development of the world. Modern science tries to describe in precise concepts what exists now. But this will never become future; it is of the present. But Adalbert Stifter's grandmother, having preserved much of what lived in ancient souls, said something about which a modern scientist could only smile. He might consider it beautiful, but would have no inkling of the fact that her words are of greater significance for the cosmos than all his vaunted science. From whatever is useful in this sense, from whatever creates not space-and-time thoughts but eternally-active thoughts, all true art has arisen. Just as the imagination of Adalbert Stifter's grandmother, which made him a poet, is related to a dry materialistic conception, so Raphael's Sistine Madonna, which transcends the moment, which seizes the moment for the eternal, is related to any mother with her child seen here on the physical earth.
This is what I wished to add to our previous considerations, hoping to deepen them.
Fünfter Vortrag
Ich möchte heute noch einiges zu den Betrachtungen über die Kunst, die in den Vorträgen der vorigen Woche gepflogen worden sind, hinzufügen. Öfter schon mußte ich betonen, wie die Gesamtgeistesentwickelung der Menschheit von etwas ausgegangen ist, das Wissenschaft, Kunst und Religion in einem war, so daß, wenn wir heute innerhalb unseres Geisteslebens auf der einen Seite Wissenschaft haben, Kunst auf der anderen Seite, Religion auf der anderen Seite, wir gewissermaßen in eine Zeit zurückblicken können, in der diese drei Strömungen des menschlichen Geisteslebens eine gemeinsame Mutter hatten. Es zeigt sich wohl am intensivsten, wie diese gemeinsame Mutter geartet war, wenn man zurückgeht auf dasjenige, was in uralten Zeiten der Menschheitsentwickelung, sagen wir vielleicht vor vier, fünf Jahrtausenden die Dichtung war, besser gesagt, dasjenige war, was wir heute als Dichtung bezeichnen. Wenn wir ergründen wollen, was Dichtung nicht bei den primitiven Völkern, bei denen man heute ganz unsinnigerweise diese Urkultur sucht, sondern bei den Kulturvölkern der alten Zeiten war, dann müssen wir unsere Zuflucht nehmen zu dem, was die Geistesentwickelung der Menschheit in diesen alten Zeiten durch die Mysterien geworden ist.
Betrachten wir diejenigen Zeiten, in denen die Menschen auf der Erde noch wenig das gesucht haben, was sie als den Inhalt ihres Geisteslebens ausdrücken wollten, in denen sie von der Erde hinweg nach dem Kosmos geschaut haben, wenn sie für die tiefsten Bedürfnisse ihres Gemütes einen Inhalt haben wollten. Betrachten wir die Zeiten, in denen die Menschen aus hellseherischen Fähigkeiten heraus die Lage der Fixsterne, die Bewegung der Planeten betrachtet haben und alles das, was auf der Erde ist, wie einen Abglanz dessen, was in der kosmischen Umgebung der Erde vor sich geht. Wir brauchen nur zu bedenken, wie die alten Ägypter dasjenige, was ihnen der Nil für ihr Leben geworden ist, nach der Erscheinung des Sirius bemessen haben, nach dem Heraufkommen eines gewissen Sternes, wie sie in dem, was ihnen der Nil aus ihrem Leben gemacht hat, das Ergebnis desjenigen gesehen haben, was sie nur ergründen konnten, wenn sie in den Kosmos hinausschauten und einen gewissen Stand eines Sternes im Verhältnis zum anderen Stern betrachten konnten. Was ein Stern mit dem anderen auszumachen hatte im Weltenraum draußen, spiegelte sich für sie auf der Erde in dem, was also zum Beispiel die Tätigkeit des Nil war. Das ist ein Beispiel für viele, denn so war einmal die Anschauung, daß auf der Erde sich nur das vollzieht, was an jedem einzelnen Orte ein Abbild ist von dem, was draußen im Kosmos an den Geheimnissen des Sternenhimmels beobachtet werden kann. Nur müssen wir uns natürlich darüber klar sein, daß in jenen alten Zeiten die Menschen am Sternenhimmel ganz andere Dinge gesehen haben als diejenigen, die heute mit der sogenannten Himmelsmechanik oder Himmelschemie errechnet oder ergründet werden. Aber es soll uns heute besonders interessieren, wie die Menschen in der Zeit, in der sie auf diese Art für ihre Seele, für ihr Gemüt den geistigen Inhalt bekamen, sich dichterisch, sagen wir ausgedrückt haben.
Wir weisen damit zugleich in eine Zeit zurück, in der andere Künste außer der Dichtung weniger entwickelt waren. Sie waren da, aber sie waren weniger entwickelt, weil der Mensch sich in jenen alten Zeiten bewußt war, daß er mit dem Worte, welches er aus dem innersten Geheimnis seiner Organisation schafft, etwas Übersinnliches zum Ausdruck bringen kann, so daß also das Wort am besten der Ausdruck für dasjenige werden konnte, was überirdisch durch Sternkonstellation und Sternbewegung erscheint, besser als wenn man sich eines anderen Stoffes in der Kunst bediente, der schließlich dem unmittelbaren Stoffgebiete der Erde entnommen sein mußte. Das Wort stammt aus dem Geistigen des Menschen heraus, so fühlte man in jenen alten Zeiten. Deshalb paßt es sich am intensivsten demjenigen an, was aus den kosmischen Weiten auf die Erde herunterschaut, sich herunter offenbart. Erst an der Dichtung, die in alten Zeiten ein unmittelbares Kind nicht der Phantasie allein, sondern des geistigen Schauens war, an dem Worte, an der Dichtung lernte man dann dasjenige, was auch in die anderen Künste hineingegossen worden ist. Aber das Dichterische, das durch Worte seinen Ausdruck fand, empfand man durchaus als etwas, von dem aus man sich eigentlich mit dem Außerirdischen in eine Seelengemeinschaft versetzte.
Dieses Sich-Versetzen in eine Seelengemeinschaft mit dem Außerirdischen, mit dem Sternenhaften war im wesentlichen die dichterische Stimmung. Durch diese Seelengemeinschaft fühlte man, wie der Gedanke, den man noch nicht von den Dingen trennte, in dem menschlichen Haupte, in der firmamentähnlichen Wölbung des oberen Hauptes einen bildhaften Ausdruck gewinnt, selber ein geistiges Firmament, ein geistiges Himmelsgewölbe darstellt. Dasjenige, was man als Gedanke fühlte, fühlte man hineinversetzt in den ganzen Kosmos. Die einzelnen Gedanken waren durch die Art und Weise ausgedrückt, wie die Sterne zu einander standen, wie die Sterne über einander hinweg sich bewegten. Man dachte in jenen alten Zeiten nicht bloß aus der inneren Kraft des Menschen selbst heraus. Das tat erst der freie Mensch der späteren Zeit. Man fühlte in jeder Gedankenbewegung ein Nachbild einer Sternbewegung, in jeder Gedankenfigur, Gedankenform ein Nachbild eines Sternbildes am Himmel. Wenn man dachte, fühlte man sich in den Sternenraum versetzt. Daher empfand man als das eigentlich zur Weisheit Weisende nicht das Sonnenlicht bei Tag welches blendet gegenüber dem, was im Kosmischen draußen das eigentlich Richtende und Orientierende der Gedanken ist -, als die eigentliche Leuchte zwar das Sonnenlicht, aber so, wie es vom Monde innerhalb der Sternenwelt erstrahlt wird. Man sagte sich, und das ist durchaus alte Mysterienweisheit: Bei Tag sieht man das Licht mit dem physischen Leibe, bei Nacht aber sieht man nicht nur das Sonnenlicht, sondern das Sonnenlicht wird von dem silbernen Becher des Mondes aufgefangen. Der Mond war der silberne Becher, der das Sonnenlicht zur Nacht auffing. Und dieses Licht der Sonne, das zur Nacht durch den silbernen Mondenbecher aufgefangen wurde, trank man als den Somatrank, das trank die Seele. Durchgeistigt mit diesem Somatrank konnte die Seele jene Gedanken fassen, die eigentlich das Ergebnis, das Abbild des bestirnten Himmels waren.
So fühlte der Mensch, indem er sich als Denkender fühlte, wie wenn die Kraft seines Denkens nicht in seinem auf der Erde wandelnden Organismus säße, sondern wie wenn diese Kraft des Denkens da wäre, wo die Sterne kreisen und sie Sternbilder bilden. Es fühlte sich der Mensch mit seiner Seele ausergossen in die ganze Welt. Und er würde nicht logische Gesetze gesucht haben, wenn er nach den Verbindungen oder Trennungen der Gedanken geforscht hätte, sondern er hätte die Wege der Sterne, die Bilder der Sterne am nächtlichen Firmamente gesucht, wenn er hätte wissen wollen, wie Gedanken sich verbinden, wie Gedanken sich trennen. Am Himmel suchte er die Gesetze und die Bilder für sein Denken.
Und dann, wenn er auf sein Fühlen schaute, wenn er seines Fühlens gewahr wurde, dann war das nicht jenes abstrakte Fühlen, von dem wir heute in unserer abstrakten Zeit sprechen, sondern es war jenes konkrete Fühlen, das mit dem, was wir heute abstrakt das Fühlen nennen, das innere Erlebnis des Atmens, das innere Erlebnis der Blutzirkulation, das ganze regsame Weben im Innern des menschlichen Leibes verband. Man empfand, wie mit der Verbindung von Blutzirkulation und Atem das Seelische in einem webte. Aber man fühlte sich auch da nicht bloß auf der physischen Erde, man fühlte sich da in dem Planetenraum. Man sagte nicht, Millionen von Blutkügelchen kreisen im menschlichen Organismus, sondern man sagte, Merkur und Mars kreuzen sich mit Sonne und Mond. Man fühlte sich auch in seinem Gemüte ergossen in das Weltenall, nur daß man, wenn man sich in seinen Gedanken fühlte, sich mehr bei den Fixsternen und ihren Bildern fühlte, während man im Fühlen sich mehr innerhalb der Sphäre des Planetarischen, bei den sich bewegenden Planeten fühlte. Nur mit seinem Willen fühlte man sich auf der Erde. Indem man das Irdische als Abbild des Kosmischen fühlte, sagte man sich, wenn die Kräfte des Jupiter, des Mondes, der Venus, der Sonne in die Erde einschlagen, den Erdboden durchdringen in seinem festen, in seinem flüssigen, in seinem luftförmigen Elemente, dann dringen aus diesem festen, aus diesem flüssigen, aus diesem luftförmigen Elemente in den Menschen geradeso die Willensimpulse, wie die Gedankenimpulse von den Fixsternen, die Gefühlsimpulse von den Planetenbewegungen in den Menschen dringen.
Wenn man in dieser Weise fühlte, dann konnte man sich noch durch solches Gefühl in jene Zeit zurückversetzen, in der die Urkunst der Menschheit entstanden ist. Die Urkunst, was ist sie? Nichts anderes ist die Urkunst als die menschliche Sprache selber. Das fühlt man heute nur noch wenig, wie die Sprache die eigentliche Urkunst ist, denn unsere Sprache ist an das Materiell-Irdische gefesselt. Unsere Sprache zeigt nicht mehr dasjenige, was sie einmal war, als die Menschen sich in den Tierkreis versetzt fühlten und in der Empfindung der Tierkreisbilder die zwölf Konsonanten, in dem Bewegen der Planeten an den Fixsternbildern vorbei die Vokale sich einverleibten. Und wenn sie nicht ausdrücken wollten, was sie auf der Erde erlebten, sondern wenn sie durch die Sprache dasjenige ausdrücken wollten, was die Seele erlebte, welche sich von der Erde in den Kosmos hinaus entrückt fühlte, dann wurde die Sprache zu dem, was in der alten Zeit die Dichtung war. Dann entstand im Menschen durch die Sprache das Abbild dessen, was er in Seelengemeinschaft mit dem Geistkosmos erlebte. Aus diesem Erleben der Seelengemeinschaft mit dem Geistkosmos ist eigentlich alle alte Dichtung entstanden. Die letzten Überreste, die von solcher Dichtung da sind, sind dasjenige, was etwa in den Veden enthalten ist, dasjenige, was, aber schon sehr verabstrahiert, in der Edda enthalten ist. Das sind noch Nachbildungen von dem, was aber in viel größerer Glorie, in viel größerer Erhabenheit und Majestät in denjenigen Zeiten unmittelbar aus der Gestaltung der Sprachen selbst heraus entstanden ist, in denen die Menschen ihr eigenes Seelenleben zusammen in inniger Gemeinschaft mit dem kosmischen Bewegen und Erleben haben fühlen können.
Was ist der Dichtung in der Gegenwart noch von jenen uralten Zeiten geblieben? Die Dichtung würde nicht mehr Dichtung sein — und in unserer Zeit ist ja viele Dichtung nicht mehr Dichtung —, wenn ihr nicht doch etwas von jenem gemeinsamen Leben des irdischen Menschen mit dem Kosmos verbliebe. Das, was ihr geblieben ist, ist das Hinausgehen über die Prosabedeutung des Wortes in den Rhythmus, in den Reim, in die Imagination, in die Gestaltung des Sprachlichen, die wir immer hinter der Prosabedeutung des Wortes suchen müssen. Denn eigentlich ist nur das eine wahre Dichtung, das nicht aus dem besteht, was in Worte abgefaßt ist. Da ist das Gedicht, das wir als niedergeschriebenes oder besser als rezitiertes oder deklamiertes haben, in seinem Prosawortlaut. Da muß in den Prosawortlaut Rhythmus oder Takt oder Imagination hineintönen. Da wird auf etwas verwiesen, was in dem Prosawortlaut nicht enthalten ist, auf einen Hintergrund, der bei jeder wahren Dichtung geahnt, erraten werden muß, nicht verstanden werden kann, denn man versteht, was in dem Prosagehalt der Worte liegt. Daß die Dichtung etwas hat, was nicht in den Worten liegt, wozu die Worte gewissermaßen nur das Mittel sind, daß die Dichtung einen Stimmungshintergrund, einen Hintergrund hat, der gewissermaßen ein Nachklang der Weltenharmonie und der Weltenmelodie ist und der Weltenimagination, das macht auch heute die Dichtung noch zur Dichtung. Bei Homer kann man es noch ahnen, was es für ihn bedeutet: Singe, o Muse, vom Zorn mir des Peleiden Achilleus. - Nicht seine Seele singt, diejenige Seele singt in ihm, die Gemeinschaft mit den Bewegungen des Kosmos hat. ‘In den Planeten leben die Musen. Die epische Muse lebt in einem der Planeten. Entrückt zu diesem Planeten empfindet sich Homer: Singe, o Muse, ertöne mir, Himmelsmelos des Planeten, sprich dasjenige, was Menschen auf Erden verrichtet haben, Agamemnon, Achilleus, Odysseus, Idomeneus, Menelaos, singe mir so, wie es angeschaut werden kann, wenn der Blick nicht von einem Punkt hier auf der Erde darauf gerichtet wird, sondern wenn der Blick von der Sternenwelt darauf gerichtet wird, wenn der Blick von außerhalb der Erde darauf gerichtet wird. Glaubt man denn im Ernste jemals, daß jene umfassend großartigen Bilder, die in der Iliade entworfen sind, Froschperspektive haben? Nein, sie haben nicht einmal bloß Luftperspektive, sie haben Sternenperspektive. Daher kann auch das, was von der Sternenperspektive in der Iliade erzählt wird, nicht so erzählt werden, daß da der Mensch mit Menschen zu tun hat, sondern da spielen die Götter hinein, treten fortwährend unter den handelnden Personen zu gleicher Zeit die Götterhandlungen auf. Das ist nicht die Froschperspektive der Erde, das ist die Sternenperspektive des Himmels, zu der sich hinaufschwingen wollte die Seele des dichtenden Menschen, indem er andeutete: Singe, o Muse, vom Zorn mir des Peleiden Achilleus!
Damit ist aber in intensiver Weise ausgesprochen, daß das irdische Mittel, dessen man sich zur Kunst bedienen kann, in diesem Falle zur Dichtung, nur ein Mittel ist, daß das eigentlich Künstlerische darinnen liegt, was in der Behandlung des Mittels geahnt werden kann von einem geistigen Hintergrunde, von geistigen Welten, in die das Wort, in die aber auch nur Farbe und Ton und die Form hineinführen können. Man muß sich etwas, wenn man die eigentlich künstlerische Stimmung in der Menschheit wiederum erwecken will, schon zurückversetzen in jene alten Zeiten, wo Dichterstimmung Himmelsstimmung in der menschlichen Seele war. Und dann, wenn man das tut, bekommt man einen gewissen Eindruck davon, wie man sich anderer Kunstmittel bedienen kann, um die Kunst so an die geistige Welt heranzutragen, wie sie herangetragen werden muß, wenn sie wirklich Kunst sein will. Sehen Sie, unser Empfinden ist heute so grob geworden, daß man dasjenige, was einmal vor verhältnismäßig gar nicht so langer Zeit die Kunst zur Kunst gemacht hat, gar nicht mehr recht empfindet.
Wir sehen in unserer unmittelbaren physischen Umgebung eine Mutter, die ein Kind trägt, ein kleines Kind im Arm hat. Gewiß, ein ungeheuer erhebender Anblick auf der Erde. Aber wir sind gewöhnt, wenn wir die Mutter mit dem Kinde sehen, daß der unmittelbare Formeindruck, den wir empfangen, nur eine kurze Spanne Zeit, man möchte sagen einen Augenblick festgehalten wird. Wir sind gewöhnt, wenn wir in der physischen Welt stehen, daß die Kopfhaltung der Mutter im nächsten Momente eine andere ist als im vorhergehenden Momente. Wir sind gewöhnt, daß das Kind im Arm der Mutter irgendwelche Bewegungen macht, wir sind gewöhnt, daß sich in jedem Augenblicke in dem, was wir da in der physischen Welt vor uns haben, etwas ändert. Wir richten den Blick auf Raffaels Sixtinische Madonna. Wir schauen da die Mutter mit dem Kinde. Wir schauen sie jetzt, wir schauen sie in einer Stunde, wir schauen sie in einem Jahre — nichts hat sich verändert. Der Augenblick ist festgehalten, nicht das Kind bewegt sich, nicht die Mutter bewegt sich. Dasjenige, was wir gewöhnt sind, in der Erdenwelt einen Augenblick festzuhalten, das scheint, aber es scheint nur erstarrt zu sein im Augenblick. Wir empfinden heute nicht mehr, was Raffael ganz gewiß empfunden hat: Darf ich denn das? Darf ich einen einzigen Augenblick mit meinem Pinsel festhalten? Ist das nicht eine Lüge in der Welt, einen einzigen Augenblick festzuhalten? Darf ich denn so unwahr sein, nach einem Tag den Eindruck noch hervorzurufen, daß die Mutter das Kind ebenso hält, wie sie es am Tage zuvor gehalten hat? Darf ich irgend jemandem zumuten, daß er sich diesen Augenblick durch eine lange Zeit hindurch vorsetzen läßt? — Paradox, vielleicht unsinnig erscheint dem Menschen der Gegenwart diese Frage. Raffael hat sie ganz gewiß empfunden. Was entstand in Raffael gegenüber dieser Empfindung? In Raffael entstand gegenüber dieser Empfindung eine künstlerische Verpflichtung: Das, was du da sündigst gegen die Wirklichkeit, mußt du auf geistige Art sühnen. Du mußt dasjenige, was ein Augenblick hat, aus Zeit und Raum herausheben. Du darfst es nicht in Zeit und Raum lassen, denn in Zeit und Raum ist es Unwahrheit. Du mußt diesem Augenblick Ewigkeit verleihen. Du mußt durch dasjenige, was du auf die Fläche hinmalst, etwas ahnen lassen, was gar nicht auf der Fläche sein kann.
Sehen Sie, das ist es, was man heute abstrakt Raffaels idealistisches Malen nennt. Dieses Raffaelische idealistische Malen ist seine Rechtfertigung, daß er den Augenblick festhält. Was er durch die Tiefe seiner Farbengebung, seiner Farbenharmonik erreicht, ist dadurch erreicht, daß auf der Fläche von vorneherein für die Malerei die dritte Raumdimension ausgeschlossen, aber vergeistigt ist, so daß er dasjenige, was man sonst materialistisch in der dritten Dimension sieht, durch die Farbengebung ins Geistige heraufgehoben hat. Also das, was nicht auf der Fläche ist, was hinter der Fläche ist durch die blaue Farbe, vor der Fläche ist durch die rote Farbe, was heraustritt aus der Fläche auf geistige Art, während die dritte Raumdimension sonst in der Welt auf materielle Art heraustritt, das ist dasjenige, was dem Augenblick Ewigkeit gibt. Und dem Augenblicke muß Ewigkeit gegeben werden. Das Ewige muß wirken aus der Kunst heraus, sonst ist die Kunst keine Kunst. Ich habe Menschen kennengelernt in meinem Leben, die Raffael gehaßt haben, Künstler namentlich kennengelernt, die Raffael gehaßt haben. Warum? Weil sie durchaus das nicht verstehen konnten, weil sie stehen bleiben wollten in dem unmittelbaren Imitieren dessen, was der Augenblick darbietet, aber im nächsten Augenblicke nicht mehr da ist. Ich habe einen solchen Raffaelhasser kennengelernt, der den größten Fortschritt seiner eigenen Malerei darinnen gesehen hat, daß er es, wie er sagte, als der erste gewagt hat, an dem nackten Menschen alle Haarstellen auch behaart zu malen, um ja nichts gegen die Natur zu sündigen. Man kann begreifen, wie ein Mensch, der das als den großen Fortschritt darstellt, ein Raffaelhasser werden konnte. Aber es bezeugt dieses, wie stark unsere Zeit von dem eigentlich geisttragenden Elemente in der Kunst verlassen ist, von demjenigen geisttragenden Elemente, das zum Beispiel in der Malerei weiß, warum man in der Fläche die Grundlage, die erste Grundlage für das Malen sehen muß. Und die Raumperspektive muß man verstehen. Das ist in unserer freiheitbegabten Zeit einmal notwendig gewesen, daß man in der fünften nachatlantischen Zeit die Raumperspektive, die eigentlich das Plastische auf die Fläche hinzaubern möchte, nicht das Malerische, versteht. Aber das Wirkliche ist die Farbenperspektive, die nicht durch Verkürzungen und dergleichen und durch Fernpunkte die dritte Dimension überwindet, sondern durch das geistig-seelische Verhältnis zwischen Blau und Rot oder zwischen Blau und Gelb überwindet. Die Farbenperspektive, die den Raum auf geistige Weise überwindet, muß gerade in der Malerei erobert werden. Durch solche Dinge kommt man im Künstlerischen wiederum zu dem, was dieses Künstlerische einmal war, etwas, was die Menschheit unmittelbar an die geistigen Welten heranbrachte.
Damals, als das so empfunden wurde, konnte man schon jene Harmonie zwischen Wissenschaft, Religion und Kunst auch empfinden. Diese Empfindung muß der Menschheit wiederum werden. Es war wirklich etwas von einem Nachklang dieser Empfindung in Goethe. Und das war das Große an Goethe, daß etwas von einem Nachklang dieser Empfindung in ihm war. Gewiß, der Mensch in seiner Freiheit mußte die drei Kinder getrennt erleben: Wissenschaft, Kunst und Religion. Aber dadurch ist ihm die Tiefe aller drei verloren gegangen, vor allen Dingen ist ihm das Gemeinschaftsleben mit dem Kosmos verloren gegangen. Man braucht sich nur einmal die heutige Beziehung zwischen Kunst und Wissenschaft, Dichtung und Wissenschaft im Extrem anzusehen. Sie werden vielleicht sagen, ich brauchte nicht so ins Extrem zu gehen, um die heutige Beziehung, das heutige sozusagen mißverwandtschaftliche Verhältnis von Dichtung, also Kunst und Wissenschaft Ihnen darzustellen. Aber in diesen radikalen, extremen Ausgestaltungen zeigt sich das ganze mißverwandtschaftliche Verhältnis.
Sehen Sie, da war einmal in einer Stadt eine Naturforscher-Versammlung. Bei dieser Naturforscher-Versammlung haben die Leute von den großen materialistischen Problemen der Wissenschaft sehr seriös geredet. Sie wissen ja, mit welchem ungeheuren Ernst auf solchen Versammlungen von den wissenschaftlichen Problemen gesprochen wird, mit solch einem Ernst, daß ihn der Mensch meistens so groß empfindet, daß er ihn gar nicht mit seiner Persönlichkeit erreichen kann, daß er sich gar nicht mit seiner unmittelbaren Persönlichkeit an diesen Ernst heranwagt. Daher stellt er ein Pult vor sich hin; da legt er sich das Manuskript darauf, und da liest er dann, oder eigentlich lesen dann, wenn es sich um eine Versammlung handelt, die Leute der Reihe nach diese ernste Wissenschaft sich vor. Das Persönliche wird nicht objektiv. Der Ernst wirkt so stark, daß man ihn aus der Persönlichkeit heraus wirft und auf die Pulte hinlegt, ungeheuer ernst. Und diesen Ernst sieht man auf allen Gesichtern in solchen Versammlungen. Nur allerdings kommen einem die Gesichter wie die Spiegelbilder der Pulte vor, aber die sind recht ernst. Nun, bei dieser Naturforscher-Versammlung, von der ich spreche, wandte sich nun auch, ich weiß schon nicht wer, wahrscheinlich der amtierende Sekretär an ein Dichterkollegium der Zeitgenossenschaft. Die sollten dann aus ihrer dichterischen Kunst heraus die Dichtungen formen, die man während des Festmales dieser Naturforscher-Versammlung so zwischen den einzelnen Gängen loslassen wollte. Nun waren die Herren, vielleicht waren auch schon Damen dabei, von ihrer ernsten NaturforscherVersammlung weggegangen, und später zwischen den einzelnen Gängen wurde nun die ganze Geschichte vorgebracht, lauter Spottgedichte immer jedes einzelnen auf eine einzelne Wissenschaft! Sehen Sie, das war die mißverwandtschaftliche Beziehung zwischen Wissenschaft und Kunst. Die Herren nahmen erst erkenntnismäßig die Stellung der Zange des Maikäfers mit ungeheurer Seriosität durch oder die Chromosomen der Maikäfersamen, und dann kam zwischen Fleisch und — was weiß ich — ein Spottgedicht auf solche Forschung. Zunächst ergingen sich die Herren in ungeheurem Ernst, nachher lachten sie. Ja, man kann nicht sagen, daß ein inneres Verhältnis da ist. Gewiß, Sie können sagen, ich sollte nicht solche Extreme aus unserer Zivilisation anführen. Aber ich kann es doch anführen, denn es ist charakteristisch. Es tritt nur in radikal extremer Weise hervor, was heute überhaupt als Beziehung zwischen dem Erkenntnismäßigen und Künstlerischen ist, nämlich gar keine. Die Herrschaften, welche die Lieder für das Tischmahl gedichtet haben, haben natürlich nichts verstanden von dem, was sich die Herren während der Naturforscher-Versammlung vorgelesen haben. Das Umgekehrte ist vielleicht nicht ganz möglich zu sagen, daß auch die werten Naturforscher nichts von den Dichtungen verstanden haben. Das werden zwar die Dichter angenommen haben. Ich glaube es ganz bestimmt, weil sie sie für sehr tief gehalten haben. Aber an solchen Dichtungen ist meistens nicht viel zu verstehen, und so kann man voraussetzen, daß selbst diese erlauchte Versammlung diese Dichtungen meist verstanden haben wird, wenigstens bis zu einem gewissen Grade!
Aber das ist gerade das Allerwichtigste für unsere Zeit, daß man beachtet, wie das einheitliche menschliche Geistesleben gespalten worden ist in eine Dreiheit, und wie diese Dreiheit sogar heute auseinandergefallen ist. Es ist eben die allerdringendste Notwendigkeit vorhanden, wiederum zu der Einheit hinzuschauen. Wenn heute ein Philosoph über Einheit und Zweiheit, Monismus und Dualismus spekuliert, da wird, möchte man sagen, mit einem ziemlich neutralen Gemüte diskutiert. Man bringt abstrakte Begriffe, mit denen man das eine behauptet, das andere behauptet. Man kann beides mit ganz gleichem Rechte beweisen. Wenn in jenen Zeiten, von denen ich Ihnen heute als so zur Kunst stehend sprach, wie ich es Ihnen skizziert habe, von Einheit und Zweiheit zum Beispiel, wie es ein Wortlaut ist in jener Zeit, oder von dem einen ohne ein zweites, und von dem einen mit einem zweiten gesprochen worden ist, da gingen alle Seelenkräfte auf. Jener alte Streit, ob die Welt einer einheitlichen Gestaltung verdankt ist, oder ob Gutes und Böses zwei prinzipiell von einander geschiedene Mächte sind, jener Streit zwischen Monismus und Dualismus war in alten Zeiten eine künstlerisch-religiöse Angelegenheit, die alle Kräfte der Menschenseele durcheinanderwühlte, an denen der Mensch sein Heil und seine Seligkeit hängen fühlte. An dasjenige, worüber heute der Mensch ganz gleichgültig spricht, fühlte er einstmals sein Heil und seine Seligkeit geknüpft. Aber ohne daß in unsere Zeit wiederum ein Hauch von jener künstlerisch-religiös-erkenntnismäßigen Seelenstimmung hereinkommt, die einmal vorhanden war, erreichen wir nicht einen wirklichen Impuls zum Künstlerischen hin, nicht zum wahrhaft großen Künstlerischen hin!
Aber noch etwas fühlten jene Zeiten. Sehen Sie, man sprach vom Somatrank, von demjenigen, was man als das Sonnenlicht wußte, das von dem silbernen Mondenbecher aufgefangen wird, mit dem der Mensch sich seelisch durchdringt, um die Geheimnisse des Kosmos durch den Somatrank zu verstehen. Man sprach von diesem Somatrank, und man wußte, da hat man eine unmittelbare Seelengemeinschaft mit dem Kosmos. Das erlebt die Seele auf der Erde, aber sie lebt zu gleicher Zeit im Kosmos, ist zu gleicher Zeit im Kosmos darinnen, wenn sie solches erlebt. Und deshalb fühlte man: Ja, die Götter offenbaren sich durch die Sterne, durch die Fixsterne, die in Ruhe verharren, durch die Planeten, die sich bewegen. Durch die Abbilder, die auf der Erde von Fixsterngestaltungen und Planetenbewegungen sich bilden, erlebt die Seele ein Kosmisches. Wenn sie den Somatrank trinkt, das Opfer kultischkünstlerisch-erkenntnismäßig verrichtet, gibt die Seele den Göttern mit dem hinaufströmenden Opferrauch, dem sie das religiös-künstlerisch-dichterische Wort anvertraut, wieder zurück, was die Götter brauchen, um die Welt weiterzugestalten. Denn der Mensch ist von den Göttern nicht umsonst geschaffen, sondern er ist da auf der Erde, damit dasjenige, was nur in ihm fertig bereitet werden kann, wiederum von den Göttern zur weiteren Weltenbildung zurückgenommen werden kann. Ja, der Mensch ist auf der Erde, weil die Götter den Menschen brauchen, daß in ihm gedacht, gefühlt, gewollt werde, was im Kosmos lebt. Dann, wenn der Mensch in der richtigen Weise denkt, fühlt und will dasjenige, was im Kosmos lebt, nehmen das die Götter wiederum hinauf und pflanzen es weiter der Weltengestaltung ein, so daß der Mensch an dem ganzen Kosmos mitbaut, wenn er im Opfer und in der Kunst wiederum zurückgibt, was die Götter ihm sich offenbarend durch Sternenwelten bieten. So steht der Mensch in Beziehung zum Weltengange, indem er seelenverwandtschaftlich diesen Weltengang erlebt.
Durchdringt man sich mit dieser Anschauung des Menschen von der Seelenverwandtschaft des Menschen mit dem göttlich-geistigphysischen Weltengange, dann kann man allerdings diese Anschauung auch auf die Gegenwart anwenden. Ja, dann schauen wir uns die heutige Erkenntnis 'an, welche nur dasjenige ergründen will, was auf der Erde ist, und selbst die Himmelschemie nur nach der Erde richtet, die Berechnungen der Sterne bloß nach den Rechnungsoperationen anstellt, die man auf der Erde erkennen gelernt hat. Diese Erkenntnis, die heute als die wahrhaft wissenschaftliche gilt, ist wertvoll nur für den Gang der Erde selber. Sie hört auf, eine Bedeutung zu haben in dem Maße, als sich die Erde weiter zu Jupiter, Venus und Vulkan hinüberbilden soll. Was man heute Wissenschaft nennt, hat nur eine irdische Bedeutung, ist nur da, damit der Mensch auf der Erde frei werden könne, aber die Götter können es nicht zur kosmischen Weiterbildung der Welt brauchen.
Wir sind bei der äußersten Abstraktion, bei dem Leichnam der Geisteswelt in unseren abstrakten Gedanken angekommen. Dasjenige, was wissenschaftlich ausgeführt wird, hat nur für die Erde Bedeutung, wirkt auf die Erde als Gedankenmäßiges, wird zertrümmert, begraben, lebt nicht weiter. Und man muß sagen, wenn die Großmutter des Dichters Adalbert Stifter, Ursula Kary, zu dem jungen Stifter etwas über die Abendröte gesagt hat, so gehörte das intensiver zu dem Kosmos als das, was heute erkenntnismäßig über die Abendröte in Büchern wissenschaftlicher Art gelesen werden kann. Nehmen Sie all das zusammen, was in wissenschaftlichen Büchern heute von den Strahlen der Sonne gesagt wird, die sich so und so in den Wolken benehmen sollen, um die Abendröte hervorzubringen, nehmen Sie all das, was da an Naturgesetzen beschrieben wird, zusammen, so hat es nur eine irdische Bedeutung. Die Götter schöpfen es nicht wieder von der Erde, um es im Kosmos zu verwenden. Adalbert Stifters Großmutter sagte zu dem Knaben: Kind, was ist die Abendröte? Kind, wenn die Abendröte erscheint, dann hängt die Gottesmutter ihre Kleider heraus, denn sie hat viele solche Kleider, um sie allabendlich auszuhängen am Himmelsgewölbe.
Die Großmutter Adalbert Stifters unterrichtete den Knaben davon, daß die ausgehängten Kleider der Gottesmutter die Abendröte sind. Das ist eine Rede, aus der Götter für die weitere Fortbildung der Welt schöpfen können. Die heutige Wissenschaft sucht so genau wie möglich dasjenige in Begriffe zu fassen, was jetzt ist. Aber das soll niemals Zukunft werden, das ist Gegenwart. Adalbert Stifters Großmutter, die noch viel von dem bewahrte, was in den alten Seelen lebte, sagte etwas, worüber selbstverständlich der Wissenschafter der Gegenwart nur ein Lächeln hat. Er wird es vielleicht schön finden, aber er weiß nichts davon, daß es für den Kosmos eine größere Bedeutung hat als alle seine Wissenschaft, wenn die Großmutter von Adalbert Stifter das Kind so unterwies, daß die Abendröte die ausgehängten Kleider der Gottesmutter sind. Denn das schöpfen die geistig-göttlichen Mächte, um damit die Gegenwart des Kosmos in die Zukunft hinein weiterzubilden. Und aus dem, was in dieser Weise brauchbar ist, was nicht aus Zeit und Raum heraus Vorstellungen schafft, sondern was ewig-tätige Vorstellungen schafft, ist alle wirkliche Kunst entstanden. Geradeso, wie sich zur trockenen materialistischen Anschauung diese Aussage von Adalbert Stifters Großmutter verhält, die ihn zum Dichter gemacht hat, geradeso verhält sich das, was Raffael in der Sixtinischen Madonna über den Augenblick hinaus geschaffen hat, indem er den Augenblick als Ewiges erfaßt hat, zu dem, was wir sehen, wenn wir auf dem physischen Erdenrund die Mutter mit dem Kinde dasitzen sehen.
Das wollte ich Ihnen noch sagen, um zu den vorigen Betrachtungen hinzuzufügen, was diese Betrachtung vielleicht noch ein wenig vertiefen konnte.
Fifth Lecture
Today, I would like to add a few more thoughts to the reflections on art that were shared in last week's lectures. I have often emphasized how the overall spiritual development of humanity originated from something that was science, art, and religion in one, so that when we look at our spiritual life today, with science on one side, art on another, and religion on yet another, we can look back, as it were, to a time when these three currents of human spiritual life had a common mother. The nature of this common mother is most clearly revealed when we go back to what poetry was in the ancient times of human development, say perhaps four or five millennia ago, or rather, what we today call poetry. If we want to explore what poetry was, not among primitive peoples, among whom we now quite absurdly seek this primordial culture, but among the civilized peoples of ancient times, then we must take refuge in what the spiritual development of humanity became in those ancient times through the mysteries.
Let us consider those times when people on earth still sought little of what they wanted to express as the content of their spiritual life, when they looked away from the earth to the cosmos if they wanted to find content for the deepest needs of their minds. Let us consider the times when people used their clairvoyant abilities to observe the position of the fixed stars, the movement of the planets, and everything on Earth as a reflection of what was happening in the cosmic environment of the Earth. We need only consider how the ancient Egyptians measured what the Nile had become for their lives by the appearance of Sirius, by the rising of a certain star, how they saw in what the Nile had made of their lives the result of what they could only fathom when they looked out into the cosmos and could observe a certain position of one star in relation to another. What one star had to do with another in outer space was reflected for them on earth in what was, for example, the activity of the Nile. This is one example of many, for such was once the view that only what is a reflection of what can be observed in the cosmos in the mysteries of the starry sky takes place on earth in each individual place. Of course, we must be clear that in those ancient times, people saw very different things in the starry sky than those that are calculated or explored today with so-called celestial mechanics or celestial chemistry. But today we are particularly interested in how people in those times, when they received spiritual content for their souls and minds in this way, expressed themselves poetically, so to speak.
We are thus referring back to a time when other arts besides poetry were less developed. They existed, but they were less developed because people in those ancient times were aware that they could express something supernatural with the words they created from the innermost mystery of their being, so that the word could best become the expression of what appears supernaturally through star constellations and star movements, better than if one used another material in art, which ultimately had to be taken from the immediate material realm of the earth. The word comes from the spiritual realm of man, as people felt in those ancient times. That is why it is most intensely suited to what looks down on the earth from the cosmic expanses, revealing itself. It was only through poetry, which in ancient times was a direct child not of imagination alone but of spiritual vision, through words, through poetry, that people learned what was also poured into the other arts. But poetry, which found its expression in words, was definitely felt to be something from which one actually entered into a soul community with the extraterrestrial.
This entering into a soul community with the extraterrestrial, with the starry, was essentially the poetic mood. Through this soul community, one felt how the thought, which was not yet separated from things, gained pictorial expression in the human head, in the firmament-like vault of the upper head, itself representing a spiritual firmament, a spiritual vault of heaven. What one felt as thought was felt to be transferred into the whole cosmos. Individual thoughts were expressed by the way the stars stood in relation to each other, how the stars moved across each other. In those ancient times, people did not think solely from the inner power of the human being itself. Only the free human being of later times did that. In every movement of thought, one felt an afterimage of a star movement; in every thought figure, thought form, an afterimage of a constellation in the sky. When one thought, one felt transported into the space of the stars. Therefore, one did not perceive the sunlight during the day, which dazzles in comparison to what actually guides and orients the thoughts in the cosmic outside, as the true source of wisdom, but rather the sunlight as it shines from the moon within the world of the stars. It was said, and this is ancient mystery wisdom: during the day, one sees the light with the physical body, but at night, one not only sees the sunlight, but the sunlight is caught by the silver cup of the moon. The moon was the silver cup that caught the sunlight at night. And this light of the sun, which was caught at night by the silver cup of the moon, was drunk as the somatrank, which the soul drank. Imbued with this somatrank, the soul was able to grasp those thoughts that were actually the result, the image of the starry sky.
Thus, feeling himself to be a thinking being, man felt as if the power of his thinking did not reside in his organism walking on earth, but as if this power of thinking were where the stars revolve and form constellations. Man felt his soul poured out into the whole world. And they would not have sought logical laws when searching for the connections or separations of thoughts, but would have sought the paths of the stars, the images of the stars in the night sky, if they had wanted to know how thoughts connect and how thoughts separate. They sought the laws and images for their thinking in the heavens.
And then, when he looked at his feelings, when he became aware of his feelings, it was not that abstract feeling that we speak of today in our abstract times, but it was that concrete feeling that connected with what we today abstractly call feeling, the inner experience of breathing, the inner experience of blood circulation, the whole lively weaving within the human body. One felt how the soul wove within oneself through the connection between blood circulation and breath. But one did not feel oneself merely on the physical earth; one felt oneself in planetary space. One did not say that millions of blood globules circle in the human organism, but rather that Mercury and Mars intersect with the sun and moon. One also felt oneself poured out into the universe in one's mind, except that when one felt oneself in one's thoughts, one felt more at home with the fixed stars and their images, while in one's feelings one felt more at home within the sphere of the planetary, with the moving planets. Only with one's will did one feel oneself on Earth. Feeling the earthly as an image of the cosmic, one said to oneself that when the forces of Jupiter, the Moon, Venus, the Sun strike the Earth, penetrate the ground in its solid, liquid, and gaseous elements, then the impulses of will penetrate into human beings from these solid, liquid, and gaseous elements in just the same way as the impulses of thought penetrate from the fixed stars and the impulses of feeling from the movements of the planets.
If one felt in this way, then one could still transport oneself back to the time when the primordial art of humanity arose. What is primordial art? Primordial art is nothing other than human language itself. Today, we hardly feel anymore how language is the true primordial art, because our language is bound to the material and earthly. Our language no longer shows what it once was, when people felt themselves transported into the zodiac and, in their perception of the zodiac images, incorporated the twelve consonants and, in the movement of the planets past the fixed constellations, the vowels. And when they did not want to express what they experienced on earth, but wanted to express through language what the soul experienced, which felt itself transported from the earth into the cosmos, then language became what poetry was in ancient times. Then, through language, the image of what they experienced in soul communion with the spirit cosmos arose in human beings. All ancient poetry actually arose from this experience of soul communion with the spirit cosmos. The last remnants of such poetry are what is contained in the Vedas, for example, and what is contained in the Edda, albeit in a very abstract form. These are still reproductions of what arose in much greater glory, in much greater sublimity and majesty, directly from the formation of languages themselves in those times when human beings were able to feel their own soul life together in intimate communion with cosmic movement and experience.
What remains of those ancient times in poetry today? Poetry would no longer be poetry — and in our time much poetry is no longer poetry — if it did not retain something of that shared life of earthly human beings with the cosmos. What remains is the going beyond the prosaic meaning of the word into rhythm, into rhyme, into imagination, into the shaping of language, which we must always seek behind the prosaic meaning of the word. For in fact, only that which does not consist of what is expressed in words is true poetry. There is the poem that we have as written down, or rather as recited or declaimed, in its prose wording. Rhythm or meter or imagination must resonate in the prose wording. It refers to something that is not contained in the prose wording, to a background that must be sensed, guessed at in every true poem, but cannot be understood, because one understands what lies in the prose content of the words. The fact that poetry has something that is not contained in the words, for which the words are, in a sense, only the means, that poetry has a background of mood, a background that is, in a sense, an echo of the harmony and melody of the world and of the imagination of the world, is what still makes poetry poetry today. In Homer, one can still sense what it means to him: Sing, O Muse, of the wrath of Peleus' son Achilles. It is not his soul that sings, but the soul within him that is in communion with the movements of the cosmos. 'The muses live in the planets. The epic muse lives in one of the planets. Homer feels himself transported to this planet: Sing, O Muse, sound forth to me, heavenly melody of the planet, speak of what men have done on earth, Agamemnon, Achilles, Odysseus, Idomeneus, Menelaus, sing to me as it can be seen, not when the gaze is directed at it from a point here on earth, but when the gaze is directed at it from the world of the stars, when the gaze is directed at it from outside the earth. Does one seriously believe that those comprehensively magnificent images depicted in the Iliad have a frog's-eye view? No, they do not even have an aerial perspective, they have a stellar perspective. Therefore, what is told from the star perspective in the Iliad cannot be told in such a way that man has to do with man, but rather the gods play a part, and the actions of the gods continually occur among the characters at the same time. This is not the frog's-eye view of the earth, it is the starry perspective of the heavens, to which the soul of the poet wanted to soar by suggesting: Sing, O Muse, of the wrath of Peleus' son Achilles!
This expresses in an intense way that the earthly means that can be used for art, in this case for poetry, is only a means, that what is truly artistic lies in what can be sensed in the treatment of the means from a spiritual background, from spiritual worlds into which the word, but also only color and sound and form, can lead. If one wants to reawaken the truly artistic mood in humanity, one must transport oneself back to those ancient times when the mood of the poet was the mood of heaven in the human soul. And then, when one does that, one gets a certain impression of how one can use other artistic means to bring art closer to the spiritual world, as it must be brought closer if it is to be true art. You see, our sensibilities have become so coarse today that we no longer really feel what once, not so long ago, made art what it is.
In our immediate physical surroundings, we see a mother carrying a child, a small child in her arms. Certainly, a tremendously uplifting sight on earth. But when we see the mother with the child, we are accustomed to the immediate impression of form that we receive being captured only for a brief span of time, one might say for a moment. When we are in the physical world, we are accustomed to the mother's head posture being different in the next moment than in the previous moment. We are accustomed to the child making some kind of movement in the mother's arms; we are accustomed to something changing every moment in what we see before us in the physical world. We turn our gaze to Raphael's Sistine Madonna. We see the mother with the child. We see them now, we see them in an hour, we see them in a year — nothing has changed. The moment is captured, the child does not move, the mother does not move. What we are accustomed to capturing in a moment in the earthly world seems to be frozen in time. Today, we no longer feel what Raphael certainly felt: Am I allowed to do this? Am I allowed to capture a single moment with my brush? Isn't it a lie to capture a single moment in the world? May I be so untrue as to evoke the impression, after a day, that the mother is holding the child just as she held it the day before? May I expect anyone to allow themselves to be presented with this moment over a long period of time? — This question seems paradoxical, perhaps nonsensical, to people of the present day. Raphael certainly felt it. What arose in Raphael in response to this feeling? In Raphael, this feeling gave rise to an artistic obligation: what you sin against reality, you must atone for in a spiritual way. You must lift what a moment has out of time and space. You must not leave it in time and space, for in time and space it is untruth. You must give this moment eternity. Through what you paint on the surface, you must give a glimpse of something that cannot be on the surface at all.
You see, this is what is now abstractly called Raphael's idealistic painting. This Raphaelesque idealistic painting is his justification for capturing the moment. What he achieves through the depth of his coloration, his color harmony, is achieved by the fact that the third spatial dimension is excluded from the surface for painting from the outset, but is spiritualized, so that he has elevated what one otherwise sees materialistically in the third dimension into the spiritual realm through his use of color. So what is not on the surface, what is behind the surface through the blue color, in front of the surface through the red color, what emerges from the surface in a spiritual way, while the third dimension of space otherwise emerges in the world in a material way, that is what gives the moment eternity. And eternity must be given to the moment. The eternal must work out of art, otherwise art is not art. I have met people in my life who hated Raphael, artists in particular who hated Raphael. Why? Because they could not understand this at all, because they wanted to remain in the immediate imitation of what the moment presents, but which is no longer there in the next moment. I met one such hater of Raphael who saw the greatest progress in his own painting in the fact that, as he said, he was the first to dare to paint all the hairs on the naked human body, so as not to sin against nature. One can understand how a person who presents this as great progress could become a hater of Raphael. But this testifies to how strongly our time has been abandoned by the truly spirit-bearing element in art, the spirit-bearing element that, for example, in painting knows why one must see the surface as the foundation, the first foundation for painting. And one must understand spatial perspective. In our freedom-loving age, it was once necessary to understand spatial perspective in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, which actually seeks to conjure up the plastic on the surface, not the painterly. But what is real is color perspective, which overcomes the third dimension not through foreshortening and the like and through vanishing points, but through the spiritual-soul relationship between blue and red or between blue and yellow. Color perspective, which overcomes space in a spiritual way, must be conquered in painting in particular. Through such things, one returns in art to what art once was, something that brought humanity directly into contact with the spiritual worlds.
At that time, when this was felt, one could already sense the harmony between science, religion, and art. Humanity must regain this feeling. There was truly something of an echo of this feeling in Goethe. And that was the great thing about Goethe, that there was something of an echo of this feeling in him. Certainly, human beings in their freedom had to experience the three children separately: science, art, and religion. But in doing so, they lost the depth of all three, and above all, they lost their community life with the cosmos. One need only look at the extreme relationship between art and science, poetry and science, today. You may say that I did not need to go to such extremes to illustrate the relationship today, the so to speak incongruous relationship between poetry, that is, art and science. But it is in these radical, extreme manifestations that the whole incongruous relationship is revealed.
You see, there was once a gathering of natural scientists in a city. At this naturalists' meeting, the people talked very seriously about the great materialistic problems of science. You know how tremendously seriously scientific problems are discussed at such meetings, with such seriousness that people usually feel it is so great that they cannot reach it with their personality, that they do not dare to approach this seriousness with their immediate personality. Therefore, they place a lectern in front of them, lay their manuscript on it, and then read, or rather, in the case of a meeting, the people read this serious science in turn. The personal does not become objective. The seriousness has such a strong effect that it is thrown out of the personality and placed on the lecterns, immensely serious. And this seriousness can be seen on all faces at such gatherings. However, the faces appear to be mirror images of the desks, but they are quite serious. Now, at this naturalist gathering I am talking about, I don't know who, probably the acting secretary, turned to a group of contemporary poets. They were then to use their poetic art to compose poems that would be recited between the individual courses during the banquet of this naturalists' gathering. Now the gentlemen, and perhaps there were also ladies present, had left their serious naturalists' gathering, and later, between the individual courses, the whole story was presented, a series of satirical poems, each one about a single science! You see, that was the misalliance between science and art. The gentlemen first examined the position of the May beetle's pincers with tremendous seriousness, or the chromosomes of the May beetle's seeds, and then between the meat and — what do I know — a satirical poem about such research. At first the gentlemen indulged in tremendous seriousness, afterwards they laughed. Yes, one cannot say that there is an inner relationship. Certainly, you may say that I should not cite such extremes from our civilization. But I can cite it, because it is characteristic. It only emerges in a radically extreme way, which today is generally considered to be the relationship between the cognitive and the artistic, namely none at all. The gentlemen who wrote the songs for the dinner party naturally understood nothing of what the gentlemen read to each other during the naturalists' meeting. The reverse is perhaps not entirely possible to say, that the esteemed naturalists also understood nothing of the poems. The poets will have assumed that. I believe this to be true, because they considered them to be very profound. But such poems are usually not easy to understand, and so we can assume that even this illustrious gathering will have understood most of these poems, at least to a certain extent!
But it is precisely this that is most important for our time, that we observe how the unified human spiritual life has been divided into a trinity, and how this trinity has even fallen apart today. There is an urgent need to look toward unity again. When a philosopher today speculates about unity and duality, monism and dualism, one might say that the discussion is conducted with a fairly neutral mind. Abstract concepts are used to assert one thing or the other. Both can be proven with equal validity. In those times, which I have described to you today as being so closely related to art, when people spoke of unity and duality, for example, as it was expressed in those days, or of the one without the second, and of the one with the second, all the powers of the soul were awakened. That old dispute, whether the world owes its existence to a unified design, or whether good and evil are two powers fundamentally separate from each other, that dispute between monism and dualism was in ancient times an artistic-religious matter that stirred up all the powers of the human soul, on which man felt his salvation and bliss depended. What people today talk about with complete indifference was once felt to be linked to their salvation and bliss. But without a hint of that artistic-religious-cognitive mood of the soul that once existed entering our time again, we cannot achieve a real impulse toward the artistic, toward the truly great artistic!
But there was something else that people felt in those times. You see, they spoke of the somatrank, of what was known as the sunlight caught by the silver moon cup, with which people imbued their souls in order to understand the mysteries of the cosmos through the somatrank. People spoke of this somatrank, and they knew that they had a direct spiritual communion with the cosmos. The soul experiences this on earth, but at the same time it lives in the cosmos, it is in the cosmos at the same time when it experiences this. And that is why people felt: Yes, the gods reveal themselves through the stars, through the fixed stars that remain at rest, through the planets that move. Through the images formed on earth by fixed star formations and planetary movements, the soul experiences something cosmic. When it drinks the somatrank, performs the sacrifice in a ritualistic, artistic, and cognitive manner, the soul gives back to the gods, with the rising sacrificial smoke to which it entrusts the religious, artistic, and poetic word, what the gods need to continue shaping the world. For man was not created by the gods in vain, but is here on earth so that what can only be prepared within him can in turn be taken back by the gods for further world formation. Yes, man is on earth because the gods need man to think, feel, and will within him what lives in the cosmos. Then, when human beings think, feel, and will in the right way what lives in the cosmos, the gods take it up again and plant it further into the shaping of the world, so that human beings help to build the whole cosmos when they give back in sacrifice and art what the gods offer them through the starry worlds. In this way, human beings are connected to the world process by experiencing this world process through soul kinship.
If one permeates oneself with this view of human beings, of the soul kinship of human beings with the divine-spiritual-physical world process, then one can certainly apply this view to the present. Yes, let us look at today's knowledge, which seeks to fathom only what is on Earth, and even judges the chemistry of the heavens only in relation to Earth, performing calculations of the stars merely according to the mathematical operations that we have learned to recognize on Earth. This knowledge, which is considered truly scientific today, is valuable only for the course of the Earth itself. It ceases to have any meaning as the Earth continues to evolve toward Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan. What we call science today has only an earthly meaning; it exists only so that human beings on Earth can become free, but the gods cannot use it for the cosmic further development of the world.
We have arrived at the utmost abstraction, at the corpse of the spiritual world in our abstract thoughts. That which is scientifically explained has meaning only for the earth, acts on the earth as thought, is shattered, buried, does not live on. And it must be said that when the grandmother of the poet Adalbert Stifter, Ursula Kary, told the young Stifter something about the evening glow, it belonged more intensely to the cosmos than what can be read today about the evening glow in scientific books. Take everything that is said in scientific books today about the rays of the sun, which are supposed to behave in such and such a way in the clouds to produce the evening glow, take everything that is described there in terms of natural laws, and it has only an earthly significance. The gods do not draw it back from the earth to use it in the cosmos. Adalbert Stifter's grandmother said to the boy: Child, what is the evening glow? Child, when the evening glow appears, the Mother of God hangs out her clothes, for she has many such clothes to hang out every evening on the vault of heaven.
Adalbert Stifter's grandmother taught the boy that the clothes hung out by the Mother of God are the evening glow. This is a discourse from which gods can draw inspiration for the further development of the world. Today's science seeks to grasp as precisely as possible what is now. But that should never become the future; it is the present. Adalbert Stifter's grandmother, who still preserved much of what lived in the old souls, said something that, of course, the scientist of the present can only smile at. He may find it beautiful, but he knows nothing of the fact that it has greater significance for the cosmos than all his science when Adalbert Stifter's grandmother taught the child that the evening glow is the clothes hung out to dry by the Mother of God. For this is what the spiritual-divine powers create in order to continue developing the present of the cosmos into the future. And from what is useful in this way, what does not create ideas out of time and space, but what creates eternally active ideas, all real art has arisen. Just as as this statement by Adalbert Stifter's grandmother, who made him a poet, relates to the dry materialistic view, so too does what Raphael created in the Sistine Madonna beyond the moment, by grasping the moment as eternal, relate to what we see when we see the mother sitting with her child on the physical globe.
I wanted to add this to my previous observations, as it might deepen this reflection a little further.