The Ideas Behind the Building of the Goetheanum
GA 289
30 December 1921, Dornach
10. The Living Organic Style II
Art: A Revelation of the Secret Laws of Nature
Translated by Peter Stewart
Allow me today to add something about the architectural idea of Dornach to what I said a few days ago. I have tried to interpret the sequence of columns and column capitals. The question can be raised: Why are there progressively seven columns on each side of the building? And one can think of all kinds of nebulous mysticism in relation to the number seven - just as anthroposophy is generally accused of bringing up all kinds of such things, which one thinks are rooted in all kinds of superstition. But to interpret the seven columns in any other than an artistic way would contradict what lay at the basis of the model's elaboration, of the original work. If one proceeds in such a way that the individual capitals emerge from one another, that is, each successive capital emerges from the previous one, as I described last time, then one concludes that in a certain respect a kind of conclusion is reached with the seventh column. This simply corresponds to the successive feelings in the creation of the form. If one wanted to make an eighth column, one would have to repeat the form - albeit on a higher level. And since everything in an organic building must be based on connecting with the creative forces of nature and of the world-being in general, it is only understandable that that number should emerge which is, so to speak, the leading number for manifold natural phenomena.
We have seven tones in the musical scale. The octave is the repetition of the prime. If we place the phenomenon of light in front of us in the familiar way, we have seven colours in the well-known colour scale where the light shades into colour. The newer chemistry sets up the so-called periodic system, which is also a structure of the atomic weights and properties of the chemical elements according to the number seven. And one who follows organic life finds these numbers everywhere. It is not some superstitious prejudice, but the result of deep observation. And if one's feeling is such that one simply surrenders oneself to observation, dreaming nothing, mystifying nothing, then one will also be able to find the right relationship to the sevenfold-ness of the columns. Everything here has been attempted in such a way that the principle of the organic has been firmly established.
Here you see how the organ has been placed within the whole building in such a way that it does not stand in a corner, but that it has grown out of the forms with the building, so to speak, so that the architecture and sculpture of the building approach the forms created by the arrangement of the organ pipes, do not encompass them, but let them grow out of themselves, so to speak.
What must be considered in such architecture and sculpture is the feeling for the material. It is absolutely a question of the fact that, especially when working in wood, this feeling for the material is perceived on the one hand as something connected with the specific quality of the material in which one is working. But then in wood, because one has essentially a soft form in which one works, one has at the same time, that which makes it easiest to overcome the form as such, and which makes that which is to be revealed, that which is to be revealed artistically, emerges most in such a way that when one works in wood one must directly enter into the secrets of the world's existence.
I just want to draw attention to the following. Assume that one wants to sculpt the human figure in wood. The building will finally be completed here in the east by the fact that under this motif, which is painted in the middle, there will be a wooden sculpture of the same motif.1See the illustration in Der Baugedanke der Goetheanum. Published by Philos.-Anthrop. Verlag. There you will also see the figure of the Christ in connection with Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings. So, it was a question of creating a thoroughly idealised and spiritualised human figure out of the wood. With the prerequisites I have just described, it is quite different to work on the head of the human form than on the rest of the organism. These things cannot be approached with abstract knowledge.
The shaping, the forming, is of course just as much within the laws of nature as everything else that in some way arranges nature according to number, measure and the like. When one forms the human head, one has the feeling everywhere: one must work out the form from within, one must try to base it on the feeling that the head is formed from the centre outwards. With the rest of the human organism one has the feeling that one must enter from the outside and, as it were, form the outer surfaces from the outside. One has the feeling that in the case of the head the essential surface is that which lies below, which is therefore inside, which gives itself its curves, its surfaces, from the inside outwards; whereas in the case of the rest of the organism one must consider the outer surfaces as the most important.
By feeling such things, one comes close to the secrets of nature, especially in art. And it must be emphasised again and again that what is called knowledge today cannot lead at all to a real unveiling of the secrets of nature, that in a living comprehension of the ideas which are given to one in laws of nature and the like, one always feels the necessity of ascending from these ideas to that which can only be grasped in an artistic contemplation. And basically, one must not think of the mysteries of the world in any other way than in such a way that so-called scientific knowledge is a stage, but that it must rise to a living artistic comprehension of the world if one really wants to come close to the mysteries of the world. We must not think as we often think today, that art has nothing to reveal of the mysteries of the world, that everything must be left to science.
The only real natural view is the one on which Goethe's conception of the world was based, and which I have already characterised from various sides, - the one that led Goethe to say: art is a revelation of the secret laws of nature, - which would not reveal themselves without the very existence of art.
And so, one could say: In a building like this, a kind of extract of the world's secrets is at the same time presented to the human being. For this reason, many artistic problems arose during the construction of this building. They arose as something self-evident, above all the problem of painting.
On the one hand, it was necessary to express the feelings that could recognise a portrayal of certain mysteries of the world, but on the other hand, one had to direct attention to the artistic means of expression. You do not see in the paintings of the large dome anything symbolic or fantastically speculative, however much some people might believe that. If you look at the painting here at the west end, you will see that there is something in the compositions of colours that looks peculiar.
Now you all know that when you close your eyes, you see something like a mysterious shadow-eye opposite the eye. That which every human being can have before them in this way when the eye is closed, like a kind of shadow-eye, can, however, when one’s inner seeing is particularly formed, come before the soul in a much more elaborate, much more substantial way. It is then, however, no longer as robust, as coarse as the two eyes which one sees as shadow-eyes when one's real eyes are closed, but it contains that which, in a certain way, can be seen spiritually when one's inner attention is directed towards that part of the periphery of the human being which is situated towards the eyes. It is that which then appears to this inspired inner gaze, one might say - a whole world. And the sensation already arises: by looking, as it were, into one's own power of vision, into one's own visual space with one's eyes closed as a human being, one sees before oneself something that is like the beginning of creation.
The beginning of creation is what confronts you here at the west end of the large dome.2See the designs for the painting of the large dome in the first Goetheanum, picture 2 and 3. And it is not a mere figment of the imagination that up there is the Tree of Paradise, above it a kind of Father-God, that then these two eye-shaped forms appear. All this is something that definitely comes before the inner eye, before the soul's eye with a deepened inner feeling.
In the same way, what you see in the large dome at the eastern end is a kind of impression of the self. This I, which is, if one may say so, a kind of trinity, also reveals itself in these inner perceptions in such a way that it goes on the one hand to the luminous clarity and transparency of the thinking I, on the other hand, at the other pole, as it were, to the will side, to the willing I, and in the middle to the feeling I. At first, this can be expressed abstractly as the thinking, feeling, willing I, as I have just said it, but it is to be felt concretely as a human being who is able to look with love at the colours of nature, who is able to look with devoted love at everything that confronts them in nature for all the senses. When one experiences the I in such a way that at the same time one lets it flow out into the whole of nature, one is aware of the following perceptions:
If you look at a plant in its green colour, in the colour of its blossom, then what you bring before your soul as an image of the plant is basically what you also find when you look, as it is called, into your own inner being. That which is spread out in nature as a carpet of colour, colours itself in that you look into your inner being. And if you, as a human being who loves the world, turn your gaze outwards, turn towards the vastness of the daylight, which stretches into infinite expanses of space, then you feel connected with these expanses of space. By connecting the colours and sounds of these expanses of space with yourself, and by feeling all the configurations that present themselves to you, you feel something that you cannot translate into a symbol with your intellect, but which you can also directly paint artistically and intuitively.
And again, when you let your gaze wander in the direction of the earth's surface, this horizontal plane, let it wander over trees that cover the earth, over all that which expresses itself in the moving trees when the wind rushes through them, then you feel your feeling I, and you get the impulse not to construct this I an abstract design, but to paint it in colours.
If you direct your gaze downwards, so that you feel connected with all that is fruitful on earth, you then feel the need to express your willing I in a colour that imposes itself on you quite naturally.
One must think of the configuration of the ceiling as having been expressed in this way. And because in this way the mystery of the world, which expresses itself in the relationship of the human being to the world, as it can be felt, has been brought here to the ceiling, it was natural that onto this ceiling was also painted some of that which can be felt out of these mysteries of the world.
You will therefore find individual areas covered with that which results from a spiritual cognition of world evolution. These figures that you see here on the left and on the right, which seem to represent mythological figures, they are meant to represent approximately the situation as it was before the great Atlantean catastrophe.
The materialistic theory of evolution is not at all correct in the light of spiritual observation. If we go back in the evolution of humanity, we first come back to the Greek-Latin period, which begins around the eighth century BC. We then come back to the Egyptian-Chaldean period, which begins around the turn of the fourth and third millennia before Christ. We return to older periods, and finally we come back to a time which, in terms of spiritual science, must be called the time of the Atlantean catastrophe. There was a great rearrangement of the continents. We gaze back in contemplation to a time in the evolution of the earth when that which is now covered by the Atlantic Ocean was covered by land. But at the same time, one comes back to a period of earthly evolution in which the human being could not yet have existed in the form in which they now exist, in a form shaped in the same way as the muscles and bones of today. If, for instance, you take sea creatures, jellyfish, which you can hardly distinguish from their surroundings, then you come to the material form in which the human being once was on earth, during the old Atlantean time, in which the earth was still covered everywhere with a permanent, dense fog, in which the human being lived and was therefore also had a completely different organic nature. And to the contemplative gaze, the clairvoyant gaze, there arise - if the word is not misunderstood - precisely these forms which are painted here on the left and right of the ceiling.
Something else has been attempted, I would like to say, as a painterly venture. Here you see a head.3See Rudolf Steiner's designs for the large dome in the first Goetheanum (an art portfolio executed by Alinari in Florence), Plate VI: The Indian. (Philos.-Anthropos. Verlag) It is not true that when one paints naturalistically, a head must be closed off at the top because that is simply the way naturalistic human heads are. Here the head is not closed off at the top, for the soul and spirit of the ancient Indian, the first civilised human being after the Atlantean catastrophe, is painted here on the wall. And it was necessary to take the risk of not closing off the top of the head, but to leave it open, because in fact, when the Indian is grasped in their time, they present themselves in such a way that they feel in touch with the heavens through their primeval wisdom, that for them, I would like to say, the physical top of the head is lost in the unconscious, and they feel their soul to be reaching out into the vastness of the heavens. That is captured here in painterly form. And this ancient Indian felt connected with the so-called seven Rishis, who poured into them the wisdom of the world in seven rays.
Such things have been tried to be captured here on the ceiling of the auditorium through colours. You can see the truly artistic element that was to be attempted here in this building with regard to painting in the small dome here.
Attempts have been made to create what I would like to call - albeit in an as yet imperfect form - painting out of colour itself. And that seems to me to be connected with the future of the art of painting in general. On the one hand, in the further progress of humanity, we will come closer and closer to the spirit, and on the other hand we will strive more and more to find the spiritual in outer sensory reality.
Then, however, one will be compelled to penetrate oneself inwardly with that which is particularly needed in art: an intense sense of reality. With an intense sense of truth, artistically conceived, one is led to see the true essence of painting in that which is coloured. Is the line a truth? Is the drawing a truth: actually, it is not. Let us look at the line of the horizon: it is there when we capture in colours the blue sky above and the green sea below. If we paint the blue sky at the top and the green sea at the bottom, then the line comes into being by itself as the boundary of the two. But if I draw the line of the horizon with a pencil, that is actually an artistic lie. And you will find that if you have a feeling for the infinite fullness revealed by colour, you can actually create a whole world out of what is coloured.
Red is not just red, red is that which, when one confronts it, means an experience like an attack on our self from the outside world. Red is that which causes one’s soul to flee from that which thus reveals itself as red. Blue is that which invites us to follow it, and a harmony of red and blue can then result in a balance between moving backward and moving forward. In short, if the coloured is experienced, it produces a whole world. And out of the coloured, one can create the form by merely letting the colour in its mutual relationships have an effect on one.
In my first mystery drama, I had a person say that the form of the colour must be the deed in the kind of painting that we are striving toward.4The Portal of Initiation. A Rosicrucian Mystery, through Rudolf Steiner. (Philos.-Anthropos. Verlag) If you look at the small dome here, and if the tinting is just so, that you cannot see the individual figures with it at all, but merely let what is brought as a patches of colour onto this small dome have an effect on each other in their mutual relationships, then you will also get an impression: the impression of a ground of surging colours.
This is first of all that out of which the various forms arise. For those who are able to live into the life of the coloured within themselves, the truly human form, the actions between human forms, the relationships between human forms arise out of the coloured. One has the need to have a blue patch in a certain place, and orange and red nearby. And if one studies this inwardly, intuitively, something like this Faust-like figure, with a floating, angel-like figure in front of it, emerges of its own accord. And one gradually comes to the conclusion, that the blue patch of colour forms itself into a figure reminiscent of the medieval Faust. You will see everywhere in the painting of the small dome that the colouring is the essential thing, and that the forms that are with it have arisen from the colour. Whoever would say: Yes, but one must first think, interpret, if one really wants to feel these individual motifs - is right in a certain sense, if they feel at the same time that here is realised that which I have just characterised as an experiencing of the world of colours.
You can then see how this blue Faust-like figure has emerged here,5See: Spiritual Science explanations of Goethe's Faust, Volume I (with 2 picture supplements: Faust, Flying child from the small dome of the burnt Goetheanum) Faust, the striving human being, and Der Baugedanke der Goetheanum, with 104 illustrations. Philos. Anthropos. Verlag. underneath it a kind of skeleton, the brown figure, then this orange angel, actually a child, floating towards the face of Faust.
If one first takes the coloured as a basis and then rises from the coloured to the living, then, however, one is faced with the riddle of knowledge of the present human being. The figure of Faust is something that has survived from the 16th century. I would like to say that Faust expresses the protest of the modern human being, who seeks the secrets of the world within themself, versus the human being, who in the Middle Ages still stood in a completely different relationship to the world. The legend of Faust is not something that merely stands for itself alone.
Goethe took up this Faust legend because Goethe was a truly modern human being. But he also transformed the Faust legend of the 16th century. This Faust legend culminates in Faust's encounter with the devil, Faust's confrontation with the forces of the adversary of humanity, his struggle with them. This was intended to express how, as the human being approached modern times, they really became entangled in this struggle. The sixteenth century still felt that those who were brought into this struggle with the devil had to be defeated if they became involved with the devil in any way.
We have the polar opposite of the Faust legend in the Luther legend. Luther at the Wartburg - he is tempted by the devil just like Faust, but he throws the inkwell at the devil's head and drives him away. The Luther legend and the Faust legend are polar opposites for the 16th century.
As you know, anyone who comes to Wartburg Castle will still find the stain preserved from the ink that Luther poured on the devil's head. The custodians tell you, however, that this is always renewed from time to time. But it is there for the visitors.
After Lessing had already pointed out this necessary alteration of the Faust legend, Goethe then transformed the Faust legend of the sixteenth century and portrayed the man Faust as the one who, however, wrestles with the adversary of humanity, with Mephistopheles, but who does not fall prey to him, despite the fact that he responds to him in a certain way, but who achieves his human victory over this adversary who is hostile to humanity.
In this Faust legend, in the whole figure of Faust, is contained the riddle of knowledge of the modern human being. Really, what is called scientific knowledge is basically a caricature of knowledge. That which we develop today by taking possession of the laws of nature and expressing them in abstract propositions, is basically something in which, if we feel it profoundly, we feel to be completely lifeless. When we give ourselves over to abstract ideas, we feel something like a dead soul in us, like a soul corpse. And one who has enough lively feeling, feels in this soul corpse, precisely in what is valued today as the correct, as logical knowledge, something like the approach of death.
This is the feeling that underlies this figure here. And as the counter pole to death, there is the angel-like child floating towards us in orange.
Then the other figures, which are hidden in the whole harmony, are such that the next figures are more or less the figures of a Greek wisdom initiation: a kind of Pallas-Athena figure with the inspiring Apollo, an Egyptian initiate further up, with its inspiring being. Then we come to the whole region of evolving humanity, which strives to experience the human by perceiving duality in the world, good and evil, the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic. It is represented where this figure below, carrying a child in its hand, has above it the bright, seducing Lucifer and the dark, sinister Ahriman.6See Der Baugedanke der Goetheanum, Figure 75-79.
This corresponds to the whole region of humanity which extends from Persia to Central Europe and the West, where the human being, if they strive cognitively, has to struggle with dualism, where all the doubts which are caused by being caught between truth and error, between good and evil, are triggered in one’s feelings.
If we approach the middle, in the east, we have this double form there. It is that which will one day grow out of the chaotic Russian. In the Russian soul we have, so to speak, the preparation for the soul-nature of the future, even if it has to work its way through the most diverse chaotic conditions. The human being exists in such a way that they basically always have a second person with them, and this also reveals itself to the contemplative gaze. Every Russian actually has their own human shadow which they carry with them. This then leads to feeling something like an inspiration from the gloomy soul, as is attempted here in the blue, on the other side in the orange angel figure and in the centaur-like figure that is above it. That relationship to nature and to the world, which the Russian soul has as a kind of soul of the future, is depicted there.
And all of this should come together to form the central image, which will then have its counterpart below in the wooden sculpture already mentioned. In the middle, in the east, you see the figure of Christ, above it the figure of Lucifer in red hues, below it, in various shades of brown, the figure of Ahriman. In this is to be felt what actually represents the essence of the human being.7We refer to the colour print by Hanfstaengl of the design sketched by R. Steiner for this picture of the painting of the dome. (Philos.-Anthropos. Verlag am Goetheanum)
One does not get to know the human being if one only looks at how the human being’s external contours appear to the physical eye. In the physical, the soul and the spirit, the human being carries a trinity within. Physically the human being bears a trinity in the following way. Physically we have within us everything that constantly causes us to age while we are alive, that makes us sclerotic, that makes our limbs calcify, that makes death, as it were, always present in us with its force. That is the physical-ahrimanic working. If this were to get the upper hand, we would fall into old age even as children. But it works in us, and it works physically precisely because it is the solidifying, heavy, calcifying element that leads us towards death.
Above the figure of Christ, we see the figure of Lucifer. It is that physical element in the human being which brings about fever and pleurisy, which in a certain sense always cause us to dissolve, these are the forces of youth, which, if they alone were present, would dissolve the human being.
This polar, circular opposition can be perceived throughout the whole human being. If one feels it in colour, then one feels the luciferic upwards in a red hue, the ahrimanic downwards in a brown hue. And the human being themself is the equilibrium between the two. The human being is actually always the inner state of equilibrium, which, however, must be sought for at every moment, between that which dissolves in warmth, in fever-fire, and the hardening, petrification and solidification which brings death. One will only have a real physiology of the human being when one sees this polarity in each individual organ. Heart, lungs, liver, everything becomes comprehensible only when one sees them in this polarity.
Well, I mean, you can feel all that in what is painted on the ceiling. One could say: so these are symbols after all! - The Austrian poet, Robert Hamerling, composed a poem "Ahasver", in which he did not depict human figures in a naturalistic way, but in a spiritual way. He was accused of creating symbols and not real people. He defended himself by saying: "If at the same time one feels so vividly that the figures are living people after all, then they may make a symbolic impression, for who can prevent Nero from being a symbol of cruelty? But one cannot say that Nero was not a real human being because of that!”
These things must be seen in the right light. And to those who do not want something like this to emerge in a new way from the experience of colour, who find it too complicated to look into these things, one must answer: Yes, what should someone who has no sense of anything Christian experience, for example, in Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper or Raphael's Sistine Madonna? Just as Christianity is necessary there, but even then, when Christianity is present, everything can be perceived from the coloured elements on the surface: so, when there is that very elementary, natural way of looking at the world, to which this building wants to bear witness, all that can be grasped not in abstract terms but in direct, living contemplation.
And that is what is really important about this building: that it is not fantasised about, not interpreted, but that the people who enter it, or who look at it from the outside, become absorbed in the forms, in the colours, and take in what is there in their immediate inner perception. Then we shall see, when we gradually find our way into this building, that it does indeed represent at least an attempt - everything is imperfect at the beginning - at least an attempt to come so close to the meaning of human evolution that it produces, precisely out of the spiritual life necessary for the present, something artistic, just as the various ages have produced something artistic out of their particular conception of the world.
Let us put ourselves back for a moment into the Greek heart, into the Greek soul. Let us put ourselves back into that soul which, with inner sincerity and honesty, could make the traditional statement: Better a beggar here on earth than a king in the kingdom of shadows. The Greek felt bound to the earth by the peculiarity of the spirit of the age. If one may say so, the Greeks appreciated everything that was on earth through the forces of the earth's gravity as something that adorned and covered this earth. They felt the forces of the earth's gravity. And in the building of their temples they expressed how they experienced the forces of this earthly gravity. When in primeval times, the human being looked up to the immortal, to the eternal in the human soul, they looked back to the ancestors. Those souls, which were the souls of the ancestors, the souls of the forefathers, gradually became for them the souls of the gods. And the graves of the ancestors remained for them a sacred place which enclosed something spiritual within itself. For a certain cultural current, the tomb is the first building, the building of the human soul that has left the earthly. In the construction of the Greek temple, one still feels something of an echo of the construction of the tomb. And the melancholy building of the tomb has risen in a joyful way in the building of the Greek temple, in that the departed human soul, which was once divinely worshipped as the ancestral soul, has become the god. The building over the ancestral grave, where the soul, the divinely worshipped ancestral soul was to be given a resting place, became the temple of the god Apollo, Zeus, Athena. And the temple enclosure became the extension of that which once existed as an ancestral tomb. As the ancestral soul became the god, so the tomb became the Greek temple. Just as the ancestral soul was looked upon as the past, and the building of the tomb thus took on a tragic aspect, so the building of the tomb became the building of the temple in its cheerfulness, in its joyfulness, because it had now become the envelope not of the departed soul but of the immortal soul of the gods existing in the present.
One can only think of a Greek temple as the dwelling house of the god. The Greek temple is not perfect in itself. There can only be a temple of Apollo, a temple of Zeus, a temple of Athena. The Greek went to the temple knowing that this was where the god lived.
If we leave out some of the architectural styles, we can then move on to the example of the Gothic building, the cathedral. Let us look again at the form of the cathedral: We no longer see in it any reminiscence of the tomb, at most this is preserved in an inorganic way through tradition, in that the altar is reminiscent of the gravestone, but this is brought into the whole in an inorganic way; the Gothic architectural idea is something different. The Greek temple is that which has shaped its forms through the conquest of the earth's gravitational forces. How could one form that which grows out of the construction of the tomb, that which rises over the earthly tomb, over that which has been lowered into the earth, in any other way than by conquering the forces of the earth's gravity through the force-dynamics, through the form of the building, by mastering in the supporting column, in the supported beam, the forces of gravity which are the forces of the earth. Later, feeling does not go to the earth, not to the ancestral soul that has disappeared: it lifts itself out and goes into the expanses of the world to the God above. Accordingly, the Gothic architectural forms take on their special form.
The striving form of the gothic building is not the overcoming of weight: the most important thing in the form of the gothic building is mutual support. Nowhere do we actually see bearing, we see striving upward. We do not see weight, but a striving upwards toward heaven.
Therefore, the Gothic cathedral is not the dwelling place of any gods, like the Greek temple, but the Gothic cathedral is the meeting place of the faithful, the meeting place of the congregation. If one enters a Greek temple from which the image of the god has been removed, the Greek temple has no meaning. A Greek temple without the image of the god is meaningless. The image of the god must be supplemented in the imagination. If you go into a Gothic cathedral without mass being said and preached, or without a congregation praying together - it is not complete. The living congregation belongs there. And the word for cathedral, “Dom”, also expresses the flowing together of the congregation. Duma and Dom have the same origin. And when the Narodnaya Duma got its name, it was out of the feeling of working together, just as the Gothic cathedral got its name out of the feeling that people must flow together with their souls and together direct their feelings upwards in the direction of the striving Gothic forms.
We see how the perception of artistic forms demonstrates a certain progress in the course of human evolution. Today we no longer live in a time in which one feels as one did in the period when the Gothic flourished. Today we live in a time in which the human being must penetrate deeper into their own inner being. Today we can only establish a social community by each person experiencing "know thyself" in a higher sense than was previously the case - even if it resounds through the ages as the old Apollonian demand of "know thyself" - and fulfilling it in a deeper sense. Only by becoming individualities in the most intensive sense can we form human communities today.
When one immerses oneself in the forms of this Goetheanum, in a feeling way, what do they speak to us? What do they reveal to our gaze? If we want to speak about them, we must try to place before the human soul exactly the same thing that can be expressed through the anthroposophical world view as the mystery of the human being and the mystery of the world, as they reveal themselves to the human being, precisely through ideas, through concepts. The Greek temple represented the dwelling place of the God who descended to earth. The Gothic cathedral represented that which evokes in one the urge to feel "know thyself" and to be together with other people precisely out of this recognition.
When you enter this house, you should have the feeling: In the forms, in the paintings, in everything that is there, one finds the mystery of the human being, and one likes to unite with other people here, because here everyone finds that which reveals their human value, their human dignity, in which one likes to unite lovingly with other people.
In this way, this building wants to welcome all those who enter it, who approach it.
10. Zweiter Vortrag: Die Kunst, Eine Offenbarung Geheimer Naturgesetze
Gestatten Sie, dass ich heute noch einiges über den Baugedanken von Dornach zu dem vor einigen Tagen Gesagten hinzufüge. Die Aufeinanderfolge der Säulen und Säulenkapitelle habe ich versucht zu interpretieren. Es kann ja die Frage aufgeworfen werden: Warum sind hier fortschreitend im Bau sieben Säulen an jeder Seite zu finden? Und man kann dabei an allerlei nebulos Mystisches in Bezug auf die Siebenzahl denken — wie man ja Anthroposophie überhaupt anklagt, dass sie allerlei solche Dinge wiederum aufbringt, welche, wie man meint, in allerlei Aberglauben wurzeln.
Die Siebenzahl der Säulen hier in irgendeiner anderen als in künstlerischer Weise zu deuten würde aber demjenigen widersprechen, was zugrunde gelegen hat schon bei der Ausarbeitung des Modells, bei der ursprünglichen Arbeit. Wenn man nämlich so vorgeht, dass man die einzelnen Kapitelle auseinander hervorgehen lässt, das heißt, jedes folgende aus dem vorigen hervorgehen lässt, wie ich das hier das letzte Mal schilderte, so kommt man eben darauf, dass in einer gewissen Beziehung mit der siebenten Säule eine Art Abschluss erreicht ist. Das entspricht einfach dem aufeinanderfolgenden Fühlen in dem Schaffen der Form. Würde man eine achte Säule machen wollen, so würde man die Form - allerdings auf einer höheren Stufe - wiederholen müssen.
Und es ist begreiflich, da ja bei einem organischen Bau alles darauf beruhen muss, dass man sich verbindet mit den schaffenden Kräften der Natur und des Weltwesens überhaupt, dass da auch diejenige Zahl herauskommt, welche gewissermaßen die Leitzahl für mannigfaltige Naturerscheinungen ist. Wir haben in der Tonskala sieben Töne. Die Oktave ist die Wiederholung der Prim. Wenn wir die Erscheinung des Lichtes vor uns hinstellen, haben wir da, wo das Licht zur Farbe sich abschattet, in der bekannten Farbenskala sieben Farben. Die neuere Chemie stellt das sogenannte periodische System auf, was ein Aufbau der Atomgewichte und Eigenschaften der chemischen Elemente auch nach der Siebenzahl ist. Wer das organische Leben verfolgt, findet diese Zahlen überall. Nicht ist es irgendein abergläubisches Vorurteil, sondern es ist ein Ergebnis einer tieferen Beobachtung. Und wenn man mit dem Gefühl einfach sich der Beobachtung hingibt, nichts träumt dabei, nichts mystifiziert, dann wird man auch zu dieser Siebenzahl der Säulen hier das richtige Verhältnis finden können.
Alles ist hier so versucht, dass das Prinzip des Organischen durchaus festgehalten ist. Sie sehen hier die Orgel (Abb. 28, 29) hineingestellt in den ganzen Bau so, dass sie nicht in einer Ecke steht, sondern dass sie gewissermaßen aus den Bauformen herausgewachsen ist, dass also die Bauarchitektonik und die Bauplastik sich den Formen, die durch die Anordnung der Orgelpfeifen gebildet werden, annähern, sie nicht umfassen, sondern sie gewissermaßen aus sich hervorwachsen lassen. Was bei einer solchen Architektur und einer solchen Plastik ins Auge gefasst werden muss, das ist das Materialgefühl, das Gefühl für den Stoff. Es handelt sich durchaus darum, dass man, gerade wenn in Holz gearbeitet wird, dieses Materialgefühl empfindet, also etwas mit dem Spezifischen des Stoffes Zusammenhängendes empfindet, aus dem man arbeitet. In Holz hat man, weil man im Wesentlichen ein weiches Material hat, aus dem man herausarbeitet, zugleich dasjenige, was am leichtesten die Form als solche überwinden lässt und das zu Offenbarende, das künstlerisch zu Offenbarende am meisten hervortreten lässt. Sodass, wenn man im Holz arbeitet, man sich durchaus hineinbegeben muss in die Geheimnisse des Weltendaseins.
Ich will nur auf Folgendes aufmerksam machen. Man nehme an, man wolle die menschliche Gestalt als Holzplastik schaffen. Es wird ja zuletzt der Bau abgeschlossen sein hier im Osten dadurch, dass unter diesem Motiv, das in der Mitte gemalt ist, eine Holzplastik sich befinden wird, die dasselbe Motiv enthalten wird (Abb. 93). Da wird man auch die Gestalt des Christus sehen in Verbindung mit luziferischen und ahrimanischen Wesenheiten. Da handelte es sich also darum, eine durchaus idealisierte und spiritualisierte menschliche Gestalt aus dem Holze heraus zu schaffen.
Es ist mit den Voraussetzungen, die ich soeben charakterisiert habe, etwas ganz anderes, an dem Haupte, an dem Kopfe der menschlichen Gestalt zu schaffen als an dem übrigen Organismus. Mit abstrakter Erkenntnis kommt man eben durchaus nicht an diese Dinge heran. Das Gestalten, die Formgebung liegt natürlich ebenso in dem Naturgesetzmäßigen wie alles Übrige, das in irgendeiner Weise nach Zahl, nach Maß und dergleichen das Naturgemäße anordnet. Wenn man das menschliche Haupt, den menschlichen Kopf formt, so hat man überall das Gefühl, man muss die Form aus dem Inneren herausarbeiten, man muss versuchen, die Empfindung zugrunde zu legen, dass der Kopf vom Zentrum nach außen geformt ist. Bei dem übrigen menschlichen Organismus hat man das Gefühl, dass man von außen hereingehen muss und gewissermaßen die Außenflächen von außen hereinformen muss. Man hat das Gefühl, dass man beim Haupte als wesentliche Fläche diejenige hat, die unten liegt, die also im Innern ist, die von innen nach außen ihre Kurven, ihre Flächen sich gibt, währenddem man beim übrigen Organismus als hauptsächlichste Flächen die äußeren [Flächen] ins Auge fassen muss.
Dadurch, dass man solches empfindet, kommt man gerade im Künstlerischen den Naturgeheimnissen nahe. Und es muss immer wieder betont werden, dass dasjenige, was man heute Erkenntnis nennt, durchaus nicht dazu führen kann, die Geheimnisse der Natur wirklich zu enthüllen, dass beim lebendigen Erfassen der Ideen, die einem gegeben werden in Naturgesetzen und dergleichen, man immer die Notwendigkeit empfindet, von diesen Ideen aufzusteigen zu dem, was sich nur in einer künstlerischen Anschauung erfassen lässt. Und man darf im Grunde genommen den Weltengeheimnissen gegenüber nicht anders denken als so, dass die sogenannte wissenschaftliche Erkenntnis eine Stufe ist, dass sie aber sich erheben muss zum lebendigen künstlerischen Erfassen der Welt, wenn man den Weltengeheimnissen wirklich nahetreten will. Man darf nicht so denken, wie man heute vielfach denkt, dass die Kunst nichts zu enthüllen habe von den Weltengeheimnissen, dass das alles der Wissenschaft überlassen sein müsse.
Die einzig wirkliche naturgemäße Anschauung ist diese, welche der Goethe’schen Weltauffassung zugrunde lag und die ich schon von den verschiedensten Seiten her charakterisierte -- die Goethe zu dem Ausspruche brachte: Die Kunst ist eine Offenbarung geheimer Naturgesetze, die eben ohne dieses Dasein der Kunst sich nicht offenbaren würden.
Und so könnte man sagen: In einem Bau wie diesem wird dem Menschen zugleich dasjenige vorgeführt, was eine Art Extrakt der Weltengeheimnisse ist. Daher wurden beim Ausführen dieses Baues auch mancherlei künstlerische Probleme aufgeworfen. Sie ergaben sich einem als etwas Selbstverständliches, vor allen Dingen das malerische Problem. Auf der einen Seite war es notwendig, die Empfindungen zum Ausdruck zu bringen, die erkennen konnten eine Veranschaulichung gewisser Weltengeheimnisse, aber auf der andern Seite wiederum musste man das Augenmerk lenken auf die künstlerischen Ausdrucksmittel.
Sie sehen in der Ausmalung der großen Kuppel (Abb. 31, 32) nicht irgendetwas symbolisch-phantastisch Ausspekuliertes, so sehr das auch mancher Mensch glauben könnte. Wenn Sie hier am Westende (Abb. 31) die Ausmalung ansehen, so werden Sie sehen: Es ist da in der Farbenkomposition etwas drinnen, was eigenartig sich ausnimmt. Nun werden Sie alle wissen: Wenn Sie Ihre Augen schließen, dann sehen Sie bei geschlossenem Auge etwas wie ein geheimnisvolles Schattenauge dem Auge gegenüber.
Dasjenige, was auf diese Weise bei geschlossenem Auge jeder Mensch wie eine Art Schattenauge vor sich haben kann, das kann, wenn das innere Schauen sich besonders ausbildet, in einer viel ausführlicheren, viel inhaltsvolleren Weise vor die Seele treten. Es ist dann allerdings nicht mehr so robust, so grob wie die beiden Augen, die man sich als Schattenaugen bei geschlossenen wirklichen Augen gegenübersieht, aber es enthält dasjenige, was, in einer gewissen Weise vergeistigt, geschaut werden kann bei gespannter innerer Aufmerksamkeit nach dem Teile der Peripherie des Menschen hin, der gegen die Augen hin gelegen ist. Dasjenige, das dann diesem beseelten Innenblicke erscheint, ist, man möchte sagen, eine ganze Welt.
Und es steigt schon die Empfindung auf: Indem man gewissermaßen in seine eigene Schkraft, in seinen eigenen Sehraum bei geschlossenem Auge als Mensch hineinsicht, sieht man etwas vor sich, das etwas wie den Anfang der Schöpfung vorstellt. Dieser Anfang der Schöpfung ist dasjenige, was Ihnen hier am Westende der großen Kuppel entgegentritt. Und es ist nicht ein bloßes Phantasiegebilde, dass da oben der Paradiesesbaum, darüber eine Art VaterGott ist, und dann diese beiden Augenformengebilde auftreten. Das alles ist etwas, was durchaus bei einem vertiefteren inneren Empfinden vor das innere, vor das Seelenauge tritt.
Ebenso ist das, was Sie in der großen Kuppel am Ostende hier sehen, eine Art Empfindung des eigenen Ichs. Dieses Ich, das ist ja, wenn man so sagen darf, eine Art Dreifaltigkeit; es offenbart sich auch in der inneren Empfindung so, dass es einmal bis zur lichtvollen Klarheit und Durchsichtigkeit des denkenden Ich geht, auf der anderen Seite, auf dem anderen Pol gewissermaßen nach der Willensseite geht, nach dem wollenden Ich und in der Mitte nach dem fühlenden Ich. Das kann zunächst ja in einer so abstrakten Weise ausgedrückt werden, wie ich es eben jetzt abstrakt ausgedrückt habe als denkendes, fühlendes, wollendes Ich. Im Konkreten ist es zu empfinden als ein Mensch, der mit Liebe in der Lage ist, die Farben der Natur zu betrachten, der imstande ist, alles das, was ihm in der Natur für alle Sinne entgegentritt, mit einer hingebungsvollen Liebe anzuschauen.
Wenn man das Ich so erlebt, dass man es zu gleicher Zeit wie ausfließen lässt in die ganze Natur, so ist man sich folgender Empfindungen bewusst: «Siehst du eine Pflanze in ihrer grünen Farbe, in der Farbe ihrer Blüte an, so ist dasjenige, was du da als Bild der Pflanze vor deine Seele bringst, im Grunde eigentlich das, was du auch antriffst, wenn du in das eigene Innere schaust. Das, was in der Natur als Farbenteppich ausgebreitet ist, das färbt sich selber, indem du in dein Inneres schaust. Und richtest du als ein die Welt liebender Mensch den Blick nach außen, richtest du dich auf zu den Weiten des Tageslichtes, das in unendliche Raumesweiten sich dehnt, dann empfindest du dich verbunden mit diesen Raumesweiten. Indem du Farben, Töne dieser Raumesweiten mit dir selber verbindest und indem du all die Konfigurationen empfindest, die sich dir da darbieten, empfindest du etwas, was du nicht mit dem Verstande umsetzest in ein Symbolum, sondern was du unmittelbar auch künstlerisch intuitiv hinmalen kannst.
Und wiederum, wenn du in der Richtung der Erdoberfläche, dieser horizontalen Ebene, den Blick schweifen lässt, hinschweifen lässt über Bäume, welche die Erde bedecken, über alles dasjenige, was sich da ausdrückt in den bewegten Bäumen, wenn der Wind durch sie durchrauscht, dann fühlst du dein fühlendes Ich, und du bekommst die Anregung, nicht in abstrakter Ausführung dieses Ich zu konstruieren, sondern es in Farbengebung hinzumalen. Richtest du den Blick nach unten, sodass du dich mit allem Fruchtenden der Erde verbunden fühlst, so empfindest du dann die Notwendigkeit, dein wollendes Ich zum Ausdrucke zu bringen in einer Farbe, die sich dir ganz von selber aufdrängt.
So etwa muss man sich denken, dass die Konfiguration der Decke zum Ausdruck gekommen ist. Und weil in dieser Art das im Verhältnisse des Menschen zur Welt sich aussprechende Weltengeheimnis, wie es sich empfinden lässt, hier an die Decke gebracht worden ist, ergab es sich von selber, dass in diese Decke auch hineingemalt wurde manches von dem, was eben aus diesen Weltengeheimnissen heraus gefühlt werden kann. Sie finden daher einige Flächen bedeckt mit demjenigen, was sich einer geistgemäßen Erkenntnis aus der Weltevolution ergibt.
Diese Figuren, die Sie hier links und rechts sehen, welche scheinbar mythologische Figuren darstellen, sie sollen wiedergeben etwa die Situation, wie sie war vor der großen atlantischen Katastrophe. Die materialistische Entwicklungstheorie erweist sich ja vor der geistigen Anschauung durchaus als nicht richtig. Wenn wir zurückgehen in der Menschheitsentwicklung, so kommen wir zunächst in die griechisch-lateinische Zeit zurück, die etwa im achten vorchristlichen Jahrhundert beginnt. Wir kommen dann weiter zurück in die ägyptisch-chaldäische Periode, welche beginnt etwa um die Wende des vierten zum dritten vorchristlichen Jahrtausend. Wir kommen in ältere Perioden zurück, und zuletzt kommen wir zu einer Zeit zurück, die man geisteswissenschaftlich nennen muss die Zeit der atlantischen Katastrophe. Da fanden große Umlagerungen der Kontinente statt. Man blickt zurück mit dem schauenden Blicke in eine Zeit der Erdenentwicklung, in welcher dasjenige, was jetzt von dem Atlantischen Ozean bedeckt ist, bedeckt war von Land. Aber man kommt zugleich zurück in eine Erdenentwicklungsperiode, in welcher der Mensch noch nicht in der Form hätte vorhanden sein können wie jetzt, in einer - so wie die heutigen Muskeln und Knochen sind, gebildeten Form. Wenn man etwa Meerestiere nimmt, Quallen, die man kaum von ihrer Umgebung unterscheiden kann, dann kommt man zu der materiellen Gestaltung, in der der Mensch einmal auf der Erde war, während der alten atlantischen Zeit, in der die Erde noch überall bedeckt ist von dauerndem, dichtem Nebel, in welchem der Mensch lebte und daher auch ein ganz anderes organisches Wesen war. Und dem schauenden, dem hellschauenden
Blick ergeben sich dann - wenn das Wort nicht missverstanden wird - eben diese Formen, die hier links und rechts an die Decke gemalt sind.
Anderes ist versucht worden, ich möchte sagen, als ein malerisches Wagnis. Sie sehen hier einen Kopf (Abb. 32 ganz rechts). Nicht wahr, wenn man naturalistisch malt, so muss ein Kopf oben abgeschlossen sein, denn so sind eben einfach die naturalistischen Menschenköpfe. Hier ist der Kopf oben nicht abgeschlossen, denn es ist das Seelisch-Geistige des alten Inders, des ersten Kulturmenschen nach der atlantischen Katastrophe, hier an die Wand gemalt. Und da musste man das Wagnis unternehmen, den Kopf oben nicht durch eine Decke abzuschließen, sondern offen zu lassen, weil in der Tat, wenn der indische Mensch für seine Zeit festgehalten wird, er sich so darstellt, dass er sich durch seine Urweisheit in Verbindung fühlte mit den Himmeln, dass sich für ihn, ich möchte sagen, die physische Kopfdecke ins Unbewusste verlor, und er sein Seelisches in die Weiten des Himmels herauserstreckt fühlte. Das ist hier in der malerischen Form festgehalten. Und im Zusammenhang fühlte sich dieser alte Inder mit den sogenannten sieben Rishis, welche ihm in sieben Strahlen die Weisheit der Welt einergossen. Solche Dinge sind hier an der Decke des Zuschauerraums durch Farben festzuhalten versucht worden.
Das eigentlich Künstlerische, das in Bezug auf die Malerei hier in diesem Bau versucht werden sollte, das sehen Sie in der kleinen Kuppel hier (Abb. 57). Da ist versucht worden, dasjenige - wenn auch in einer noch unvollkommenen Gestalt - zu geben, was ich nennen möchte das Malen aus der Farbe selbst heraus. Und das scheint mir mit der Zukunft der malerischen Kunst überhaupt zusammenzuhängen. Indem man auf der einen Seite im weiteren Fortschritt der Menschheit sich immer mehr und mehr wird dem Geiste nähern, wird man auf der anderen Seite aber immer mehr und mehr das Bestreben haben, das Geistige im äußeren Sinnlich-Wirklichen auch zu finden.
Dann aber wird man genötigt sein, sich innerlichst zu durchdringen mit demjenigen, was man gerade in der Kunst besonders braucht: intensives Wirklichkeitsgefühl. Mit intensivem Wahrheitsgefühl, künstlerisch aufgefasst, wird man gerade dazu gebracht, in dem Farbigen das eigentlich Malerische zu sehen. Ist denn die Linie eine Wahrheit? Ist denn die Zeichnung eine Wahrheit? Eigentlich ist sie es nicht. Sehen wir die Horizontlinie: Sie ist dann da, wenn wir oben in der Farbe festhalten den blauen Himmel, unten das grüne Meer. Wenn wir oben die blaue Himmelsfläche, unten das grüne Meer malen, dann entsteht die Linie als die Grenze beider von selbst. Wenn ich aber mit irgendeinem Stift die Horizontlinie hinzeichne, so ist das eigentlich eine künstlerische Lüge.
Und man wird finden, dass, wenn man eine Empfindung hat für die unendliche Fülle, die durch die Farbe geoffenbart wird, man tatsächlich aus dem Farbigen eine ganze Welt herausschaffen kann. Rot ist ja nicht bloß Rot, Rot ist das, was, wenn man sich ihm gegenüberstellt, ein Erlebnis bedeutet, wie eine Attacke auf unser Selbst von der Außenwelt. Rot ist dasjenige, was einen zum Fliehen bringt in der Seele vor dem, was sich also als Rot offenbart. Blau ist dasjenige, was einen auffordert, ihm zu folgen, und eine Harmonie aus Rot und Blau kann dann eben ergeben den Ausgleich zwischen einem Zurückweichen und einem wiederum Nach-vorne-Gehen. Kurz, das Farbige, erlebt, ergibt eine ganze Welt. Und aus dem Farbigen heraus kann man, indem man bloß die Farbe in ihren gegenseitigen Beziehungen auf sich wirken lässt, die Form schaffen. Ich habe in meinem ersten Mysterium eine Person das so aussprechen lassen, dass die Form der Farbe Werk sein müsse in der Malerei, der wir entgegenstreben.
Wenn Sie hier die kleine Kuppel ansehen (Abb. 73), und wenn die Abtönung gerade so ist, dass Sie die einzelnen Figuren drinnen gar nicht sehen können, sondern bloß das, was als Farbfleck auf diese kleine Kuppel gebracht ist, in den gegenseitigen Verhältnissen aufeinander wirken lassen, dann bekommen Sie auch einen Eindruck, den Eindruck eines in Farben wogenden Grundes. Das ist zunächst dasjenige, aus dem heraus dann die verschiedenen Formen entstehen. Für den, der das Leben des Farbigen in sich nachzuleben vermag, für den entsteht die wirklich menschliche Gestaltung, entstehen Handlungen zwischen menschlichen Gestaltungen, Verhältnisse zwischen menschlichen Gestaltungen durchaus aus dem Farbigen heraus. Man hat das Bedürfnis, an einer bestimmten Stelle einen blauen Fleck zu haben, in der Nähe Orange, Rotes. Und wenn man dies nun innerlich empfindend intuitiv studiert, so wird ganz von selbst so etwas daraus, wie hier diese Faust-artige Figur ist, vor ihr eine schwebende, engelartige Figur. Und man kommt allmählich darauf, dass der blaue Farbfleck aus sich selbst heraus sich zu dem formt, was eine Art von Figur ist, die an den mittelalterlichen Faust erinnert.
Sie werden in der Malerei der kleinen Kuppel überall sehen, dass die Farbgebung das Wesentliche ist, und dass die Formen, die drinnen sind, eben durchaus sich aus der Farbe heraus ergeben haben. Wer etwa sagen würde: Ja, aber man muss doch erst nachdenken, interpretieren, wenn man nun diese einzelnen Motive wirklich empfinden will -, der hat in einem gewissen Sinne recht, wenn er zugleich empfindet, dass hier dasjenige verwirklicht ist, was ich eben als ein Nacherleben der Farbenwelt charakterisiert habe.
Man kann dann sehen, wie hier diese blaue Faust-artige Figur entstanden ist; unter ihr eine Art Skelett, das Braune, dann dieser orangene Engel, eigentlich ein Kind, das dem Antlitz des Faust entgegenschwebt (Abb. 69-73). Legt man zuerst das Farbige zugrunde und erhebt sich dann aus dem Farbigen zum Lebendigen, so hat man allerdings dann gerade das Erkenntnisrätsel des gegenwärtigen Menschen vor sich. Die Faustfigur ist ja etwas, was sich aus dem 16. Jahrhundert erhalten hat. Ich möchte sagen: In dem Faust prägt sich aus der Protest des modernen Menschen, der in sich selber die Weltgeheimnisse sucht, gegen den Menschen, der noch im Mittelalter in einem ganz anderen Verhältnis zur Welt stand.
Die Faustsage ist ja etwas, was nicht bloß für sich allein dasteht. Goethe hat diese Faustsage aufgenommen, weil eben Goethe ein echt moderner Mensch war. Er hat aber auch umgestaltet die Faustsage des 16. Jahrhunderts. Diese Faustsage gipfelt ja darinnen, dass Faust seine Begegnung mit dem Teufel hatte, dass Faust sich gegenüberstellte den Kräften des Menschengegners, dass er mit ihnen rang. Damit sollte ausgedrückt werden, wie der Mensch, indem er sich der neueren Zeit heraufnäherte, in diesen Kampf wirklich hineinverstrickt wurde. Das 16. Jahrhundert empfand das noch so, dass derjenige, der in das Ringen mit dem Teufel gebracht wurde, unterliegen musste, wenn er sich nur in irgendeiner Weise mit dem Teufel einließ.
Wir haben die polar entgegengesetzte Sage zur Faustsage in der Luthersage. Luther auf der Wartburg: Er wird ebenso wie Faust vom Teufel versucht, aber er wirft dem Teufel das Tintenfass an den Kopf und vertreibt ihn. Luthersage und Faustsage sind für das 16. Jahrhundert polare Gegensätze. Sie wissen ja, wer auf die Wartburg kommt, findet heute noch immer den Tintenfleck erhalten von jener Tinte, die Luther dem Teufel an den Kopf geschüttet hat. Die Kustoden sagen einem dann allerdings: Ja, das wird immer von Zeit zu Zeit erneuert. Aber es ist eben doch für die Besucher da.
Goethe hat dann, nachdem Lessing schon auf diese notwendige Umänderung der Faustsage hingewiesen hatte, die Faustsage des 16. Jahrhunderts umgebildet und den Menschen Faust hingestellt als den, der allerdings mit dem Gegner der Menschheit, mit Mephistopheles ringt, der aber ihm nicht verfällt, trotzdem er in einer gewissen Weise auf ihn eingeht, sondern der seinen menschlichen Sieg über diesen menschenfeindlichen Gegner erringt. Es ist in dieser Faustsage durchaus in der ganzen Faustgestalt das Erkenntnisrätsel des neueren Menschen enthalten.
Ach, das ist ja im Grunde genommen eine Karikatur der Erkenntnis, was man wissenschaftliche Erkenntnis nennt. Dasjenige, was wir heute ausbilden, indem wir uns der Naturgesetze bemächtigen und sie in abstrakten Sätzen ausdrücken, das ist im Grunde genommen etwas, woran wir, wenn wir es tiefer empfinden, durchaus das Unlebendige empfinden. Indem wir uns den abstrakten Ideen hingeben, empfinden wir etwas wie ein gestorbenes Seelisches in uns, wie einen Seelenleichnam. Und derjenige, der lebhaftes Empfinden genug hat, er empfindet in diesem Seelenleichnam gerade bei dem, was heute als die richtige, als die logische Erkenntnis geschätzt wird, etwas wie ein Herannahen des Todes. Diese Empfindung liegt dieser Figur hier zugrunde (Abb. 71). Und als der Gegenpol des Todes ist dann das engelartige, in Orange heranschwebende Kind da (Abb. 72).
Dann sind [da] die anderen Figuren, die in die ganze Harmonik hineingeheimnisst sind so, dass die nächsten Figuren etwa die Figuren einer griechischen Weisheitseinweihung sind: eine Art Pallas-Athene-Gestalt (Abb. 75) mit dem inspirierenden Apollo (Abb. 76), ein ägyptischer Eingeweihter weiterhin oben (Abb. 78), mit dem Inspirator (Abb. 77). Dann kommen wir in den ganzen Bezirk der sich entwickelnden Menschheit, die zu dem Erleben des Menschlichen strebt dadurch, dass das Duale in der Welt wahrgenommen wird, das Gute und das Böse, das Luziferische und Ahrimanische (Abb. 79). Es ist dort dargestellt, wo unten diese Figur, die das Kind in der Hand trägt, über sich den hellen, verführenden Luzifer und den dunklen, finsteren Ahriman hat. Es entspricht das dem ganzen Bezirk der Menschheit, der sich aus dem Persischen herüber nach Mitteleuropa und nach dem Westen erstreckt, wo ja der Mensch, wenn er erkenntnismäßig strebt, mit dem Dualismus zu kämpfen hat, wo alle Zweifel, die in ihm hervorgerufen werden durch das Hineingestelltsein zwischen Wahrheit und Irrtum, zwischen das Gute und das Böse, in Empfindungen ausgelöst werden.
Nähern wir uns mehr der Ostmitte, so haben wir dort diese Doppelgestalt (Abb. 83, 84). Es ist dasjenige, was einstmals aus dem chaotischen Russischen herauswachsen wird. In den russischen Seelen haben wir ja gewissermaßen die Vorbereitung für das Seelenhafte der Zukunft, wenn auch das sich durch die verschiedensten chaotischen Zustände hindurcharbeiten muss. Der Mensch ist da noch so, dass er im Grunde genommen immer einen Zweiten bei sich führt, und dem schauenden Blicke offenbart sich das auch. Jeder Russe hat eigentlich seinen eigenen Menschenschatten, den er mit sich führt. Das führt dann dazu, aus dem Dumpf-Seelischen so etwas als Inspiration zu empfinden, wie es versucht ist hier in der blauen, auf der anderen Seite in der orangenen Engelgestalt (Abb. 83, 85) und in der kentaurartigen Gestalt, die drüber ist (Abb. 84, 85). Jene Beziehung, welche die russische Seele hat als eine Art Zukunftsseele zu der Natur, zu der Welt, das ist da festgehalten.
Und das alles soll sich zusammenschließen zu dem Mittelbilde (Abb. 86), das dann sein Gegenstück unten in der schon erwähnten Holzplastik haben wird. Sie sehen in der Mitte im Osten die Christusgestalt (Abb. 90), über ihr die Luzifergestalt in der Rottönung (Abb. 87), unter ihr in verschiedener Brauntönung die Ahrimangestalt (Abb. 88). In dem ist zu empfinden, was eigentlich des Menschen Wesenheit darstellt. Man lernt ja den Menschen nicht kennen, wenn man ihn nur so anschaut, wie er äußerlich konturiert für das physische Auge erscheint. Der Mensch trägt physisch, seelisch und geistig eine Dreiheit in sich. Er trägt physisch eine Dreiheit in der folgenden Art in sich. Er hat physisch in sich alles dasjenige, was uns fortwährend, während wir im Leben stehen, zum Altern bringt, was uns sklerotisch macht, was unsere Glieder verkalken lässt, was gewissermaßen den Tod mit seiner Gewalt immer in uns anwesend sein lässt. Das ist das physisch-ahrimanisch Wirkende. Nähme das überhand, so würden wir schon als Kinder der Greisenhaftigkeit verfallen.
Aber es wirkt in uns, und physisch wirkt es eben dadurch, dass es das Verfestigende, das Schwere, das Verkalkende, das uns gegen den Tod Führende ist. Über der Christusgestalt sehen wir die Luzifergestalt. Sie ist dasjenige Physische im Menschen, was ihn ins Fieber, in die Pleuritis bringt, was ihn gewissermaßen immer veranlasst, sich aufzulösen, was die Kräfte der Jugend sind, die, wenn sie allein vorhanden sein würden, den Menschen auflösen würden. Dieser polare, zirkuläre Gegensatz ist durch den ganzen Menschen hindurch wahrzunehmen. Empfindet man ihn farbig, so empfindet man nach oben das Luziferische in Rottönung, das Ahrimanische nach unten in Brauntönung. Und der Mensch selbst ist die Gleichgewichtslage zwischen beiden. Der Mensch ist eigentlich immer der innere Gleichgewichtszustand, der aber in jedem Augenblicke gesucht werden muss, zwischen dem in ‘Wärme, im Fieberfeuer sich Auflösenden und den in den Tod bringenden Verhärtungen, Versteinungen, Sich-Verfestigungen. Man wird erst eine wirkliche Physiologie des Menschen haben, wenn man in jedem einzelnen Organe diese Polarität sieht. Herz, Lunge, Leber, alles wird erst verständlich, wenn man sie in dieser Polarität sieht.
Nun, ich meine, das alles kann man in dem, was da an der Decke gemalt ist, empfinden. Man kann [nun] sagen: Das sind ja doch wiederum Symbole! Ein österreichischer Dichter, Robert Hamerling, hat einen «Ahasver» gedichtet, in dem er nun nicht in naturalistischer Weise, sondern in einer geistigen Art Menschengestalten hingestellt hat. Man hat ihm vorgeworfen, dass er Symbole geschaffen habe und nicht wirkliche Menschen. Er hat sich verteidigt, indem er sagte: Wenn man zu gleicher Zeit so lebendig empfindet, dass die Gestalten eben doch lebendige Menschen sind, dann mögen sie einen symbolischen Eindruck machen, denn wer kann denn verhindern, dass Nero ein Symbolum der Grausamkeit ist? Aber man kann doch nicht sagen, dass Nero deshalb nicht ein wirklicher Mensch war!
Diese Dinge müssen eben durchaus nur im richtigen Lichte gesehen werden. Und derjenige, der nicht will, dass so etwas jetzt auf eine neuere Art aus dem Farbenerleben herauskommt, der es zu kompliziert findet, sich in diese Dinge hineinzuschauen, dem muss man antworten: Ja, was soll denn der, welcher gar keinen Sinn für etwas Christliches hat, etwa das Abendmahl von Leonardo da Vinci oder die Sixtinische Madonna von Raffael erleben? So wie dort die Durchchristung notwendig ist, aber auch dann, wenn die Durchchristung da ist,
aus dem auf der Fläche befindlichen Farbigen alles empfunden werden kann, so kann, wenn jenes ganz elementarisch-naturgemäße Weltanschauen da ist, von dem dieser Bau zeugen will, alles das nicht in abstrakten Begriffen, sondern in unmittelbar lebendiger Anschauung erfasst werden.
Und das ist es, worauf es einem eigentlich gerade bei diesem Bau ankommt: dass nicht herumphantasiert, nicht heruminterpretiert wird, sondern dass sich die Menschen, die ihn betreten, oder die ihn von außen anschauen, in die Formen, in die Farben vertiefen, dasjenige in der Anschauung, in der unmittelbar inneren Anschauung hinnehmen, was da ist. Dann wird man sehen, wenn man sich so allmählich in diesen Bau hineinfindet, dass er in der Tat wenigstens den Versuch darstellt - alles ist im Anfang unvollkommen -, wenigstens den Versuch darstellt, dem Sinn der menschlichen Entwicklung so nahe zu kommen, dass er, eben aus dem der Gegenwart notwendigen Geistesleben heraus, ein Künstlerisches gibt, wie die verschiedenen Zeitalter ein Künstlerisches gegeben haben aus ihrer besonderen Weltempfindung.
Versetzen wir uns für einen Augenblick zurück in ein Griechenherz, in eine Griechenseele. Versetzen wir uns in diejenige Seele zurück, die mit innerer Aufrichtigkeit und Ehrlichkeit den überlieferten Ausspruch tun konnte: Besser ein Bettler hier auf dem Erdenrunde als ein König im Reiche der Schatten. Der Grieche empfand sich vermöge der Eigentümlichkeit des Geistes seines Zeitalters mit der Erde verbunden. Wenn man so sagen darf: Er würdigte alles auf der Erde durch die Kräfte der Erdenschwere Befindliche als etwas diese Erde Schmückendes und Bedeckung Ausübendes. Er empfand die Kräfte der Erdenschwere. Und in seinem Tempelbau drückt sich das aus, wie er die Kräfte dieser Erdenschwere empfand.
Indem der Mensch in Urzeiten aufblickte zu dem Unsterblichen, zu dem Ewigen der Menschenseele, so sah er ja zurück zu den Ahnen. Diejenigen Seelen wurden für ihn allmählich Götterseelen, welche die Ahnenseelen, die Vorfahrenseelen waren. Und das Grab der Ahnen blieb ihm die heilige Stätte, welche ihm ein Geistiges in sich schloss. Die Grabstätte, sie ist für eine gewisse Kulturströmung der erste Bau, der Bau der Menschenseele, die aus dem Irdischen hinweggegangen ist. Im griechischen Tempelbau fühlt man noch etwas von einem Nachklang des Gräberbaus. Und der traurige Gräberbau ist aufgegangen in heiterer Weise im griechischen Tempelbau, indem die hingeschiedene Menschenseele, die als die Ahnenseele einmal göttlich verehrt worden ist, zum Gotte selbst geworden ist. Aus dem Bau über dem Ahnengrab, wo der Seele, der göttlich verehrten Ahnenseele eine Ruhestätte geschaffen werden sollte, wurde der Tempelbau des Gottes Apollon, Zeus, Athena. Und die Tempelumhüllung wurde der Ausbau desjenigen, was einstmals als Ahnengrab vorhanden war. Wie aus der Ahnenseele der Gott wurde, so wurde aus dem Grabesbau der griechische Tempelbau. Wie zu der Ahnenseele als zu dem Verflossenen hingeschaut wurde, der Grabstättenbau dadurch einen tragischen Ausdruck bekam, so wurde aus dem Grabesbau der Tempelbau in seiner Heiterkeit, in seinem Freudevollen, weil er ja jetzt die Umhüllung nicht der hingegangenen Seele, sondern der in der Gegenwart vorhandenen unsterblichen Götterseele geworden war. Man kann sich ja einen griechischen Tempel nur als das Wohnhaus des Gottes denken. Der griechische Tempel ist nichts Vollkommenes für sich. Es kann nur geben einen Apollotempel, einen Zeustempel, einen Athenatempel. Der Grieche ging zu seinem Tempel, indem er wusste: Da wohnt der Gott. Wenn wir einiges auslassen von architektonischen Stilformen, können wir dann vorschreiten zum Beispiel des gotischen Baus, zum Dombau. Schauen wir wiederum die Form des Domes an: Wir sehen in ihm nicht mehr irgendeine Erinnerung an den Grabesbau, höchstens in unorganischer Weise durch Tradition erhalten, indem der Altar ja erinnert an den Grabstein, aber das ist unorganisch in das Ganze hineingebracht, der gotische Baugedanke ist etwas anderes. Der griechische Tempelbau ist dasjenige, was sich durch die Bezwingung der Erdschwerekräfte in seinen Formen gebildet hat. Wie könnte man dasjenige, was aus dem Grabstättenbau erwächst, was also über der irdischen Grabstätte, über dem in die Erde Gesenkten sich erhebt, wie könnte man das anders gestalten, als indem man die Kräfte der Erdenschwere durch die Dynamik, durch die Bauform bezwingt, indem man in der tragenden Säule, in dem gestützten Balken die Schwerekräfte bemeistert, welche die Kräfte der Erde sind.
Später geht das Gefühl nicht zu der Erde, nicht zu der hingeschwundenen Ahnenscele hin: Es hebt sich hinaus und geht in die Weltenweiten zu dem Gotte oben. Demgemäß nehmen die gotischen Bauformen ihre besondere Gestaltung an. Das Strebende der gotischen Bauformen ist nicht die Überwindung der Schwere: Das Hauptsächlichste bei der gotischen Bauform ist das sich gegenseitige Stützen. Wir sehen nirgends eigentlich ein Tragen, wir sehen ein Emporstreben. Wir sehen nicht die Schwere, sondern ein Hinaufstreben himmelwärts. Daher ist der gotische Dom auch nicht die Wohnung irgendeines Götterwesens, wie der griechische Tempel, sondern der gotische Dom, er ist die Versammlungsstätte der Gläubigen, die Versammlungsstätte der Gemeinde.
Geht man in einen griechischen Tempel hinein, aus dem das Götterbild entfernt ist, so hat der griechische Tempel keinen Sinn. Ein griechischer Tempel ohne das darin befindliche Götterbild ist sinnlos. Man muss sich das Götterbild in der Phantasie ergänzen. Geht man in einen gotischen Dom hinein, ohne dass die Messe gelesen und gepredigt wird, oder ohne dass eine Gemeinde zusammen betet - er ist nicht vollständig. Da hinein gehört die lebendige Gemeinde. Und das Wort Dom drückt auch aus das Zusammenströmen der Gemeinde. Duma und Dom ist ja desselben Ursprungs. Und als die Narodnaja Duma ihren Namen bekommen hat, so war das aus dem Gefühl des Zusammenwirkens heraus, wie der gotische Dom seinen Namen bekommen hat aus dem Gefühl, dass die Menschen mit ihren Seelen zusammenströmen müssen und gemeinsam in den Richtungen der gotischen Strebeformen ihre Gefühle nach aufwärts richten.
Wir sehen, wie das Durchempfinden künstlerischer Formen im Laufe der Menschheitsentwicklung einen gewissen Fortschritt zeigt. Wir leben heute nicht mehr in einer Zeit, in der man sich so fühlt wie in jener Zeit, da die Gotik geblüht hat. Wir leben heute in einer Zeit, in welcher der Mensch tiefer in sein eigenes Inneres hineindringen muss. Wir können heute nur eine soziale Gemeinschaft dadurch begründen, dass ein jeder Mensch in einem höheren Sinne, als das früher der Fall sein konnte — wenn es gleich als die alte apollinische Forderung des «Erkenne dich selbst» durch die Zeiten tönt -, das «Erkenne dich selbst» erlebt, es in einem tieferen Sinne erfüllt. Nur indem wir Individualitäten im intensivsten Sinne werden, können wir heute auch wiederum menschliche Gemeinschaften bilden.
Wenn man in empfindender Art sich vertieft in die Formen dieses Goetheanums, was sprechen sie denn zu uns? Was offenbaren sie den Blicken? Will man über sie reden, muss man versuchen, ganz dasselbe vor die Menschenseele hinzustellen, was man durch die anthroposophische Weltanschauung als das Geheimnis des Menschen und das Geheimnis der Welt, wie sie sich für den Menschen offenbaren, eben auch durch Ideen, durch Vorstellungen ausdrücken kann. Der griechische Tempel stellte sich dar als Wohnung des zur Erde herabgestiegenen Gottes. Der gotische Dom stellte dar dasjenige, was im Menschen den Trieb hervorruft, das «Erkenne dich selbst» zu erfühlen und gerade aus diesem Erkennen heraus mit anderen Menschen zusammen zu sein.
Betritt man dieses Haus, dann soll man die Empfindung haben: In den Formen, in den Malereien, in allem, was da ist, findet man hier dasjenige, was Menschengeheimnis ist, und man vereinigt sich hier gerne mit andern Menschen, weil hier jeder das findet, was seinen Menschenwert, seine Menschenwürde offenbart, in dem man sich am liebsten liebevoll mit anderen Menschen zusammenfindet. In dieser Art möchte dieser Bau alle diejenigen begrüßen, die ihn betreten, die ihm sich nahen.
10. Second Lecture: The Art of Revealing the Secret Laws of Nature
Today, allow me to add a few words about the building concept of Dornach to what I said a few days ago. I have tried to interpret the sequence of the columns and column capitals. The question may be raised: why are there seven columns on each side of the building? And one can think of all sorts of nebulous mysticism in relation to the number seven – as anthroposophy is generally accused of inventing all sorts of such things, which are rooted in all sorts of superstition.
But to interpret the seven columns here in any other way than in an artistic sense would contradict what was at the root of the original work when the model was being developed. If one proceeds by allowing the individual capitals to emerge from one another, that is, allowing each following one to emerge from the previous one, as I described last time, one comes to the conclusion that in a certain respect a kind of conclusion is reached with the seventh column. This simply corresponds to the successive feeling in the creation of the form. If one wanted to make an eighth column, one would have to repeat the form, albeit at a higher level.
And it is understandable, since in an organic structure everything must be based on connecting with the creative forces of nature and of the world in general, that the number that emerges is the guiding number for a wide range of natural phenomena. We have seven tones in the musical scale. The octave is the repetition of the prime. If we consider the phenomenon of light, we have seven colors in the familiar color scale where the light shades off into color. Modern chemistry establishes the so-called periodic system, which is a structure of the atomic weights and properties of the chemical elements also according to the number seven. Anyone who studies organic life will find these numbers everywhere. This is not some superstitious prejudice, but the result of deeper observation. And if you simply surrender to observation with feeling, without dreaming or mystifying, then you will also be able to find the right relationship to these seven pillars here.
Everything here is designed to fully capture the principle of the organic. You see here the organ (Figs. 28, 29) placed in the whole structure in such a way that it is not standing in a corner, but rather has grown out of the building forms, so that the architectural structure and the building sculpture approach the forms created by the arrangement of the organ pipes, not encompassing them, but allowing them to grow out of themselves, so to speak. What must be considered in such architecture and such sculpture is the sense of the material, the sense of the substance. It is absolutely essential, especially when working in wood, to feel this sense of the material, that is, to feel something connected with the specific nature of the substance from which one works. In wood, because it is essentially a soft material that you are working with, you have at the same time that which most easily allows form as such to be overcome and that which allows the revelation, the artistic revelation, to emerge most strongly. So that when you work in wood, you have to delve into the secrets of the existence of the world.
I would just like to draw attention to the following. Let us assume that we want to create a wooden sculpture of the human form. In the end, the structure here in the east will be completed by the fact that there will be a wooden sculpture under this motif, which is painted in the middle, and which will contain the same motif (Fig. 93). There one will also see the figure of Christ in connection with Luciferic and Ahrimanic entities. So the task was to create a thoroughly idealized and spiritualized human figure out of wood.
The requirements I have just described mean that the head, as the seat of the human form, is quite different from the rest of the human organism. Abstract knowledge is not enough to approach these things. Of course, the shaping and design of the head is just as much a part of the natural law as everything else that in some way orders the natural in terms of number, measure and the like. When forming the human head, one has the feeling everywhere that one must work the form out from the inside, one must try to base it on the perception that the head is formed from the center outwards. With the rest of the human organism, one has the feeling that one must go in from the outside and, as it were, shape the outer surfaces from the outside in. One has the feeling that with the head, the essential surface is the one that lies below, that is, the one that is inside, that gives itself its curves and surfaces from the inside out, while with the rest of the organism, one must consider the outer surfaces as the most important ones.
By feeling this, one comes close to the secrets of nature, especially in the artistic. And it must be emphasized again and again that what is called knowledge today cannot lead to the real unveiling of the secrets of nature, that in the living grasp of the ideas given in natural laws and the like, one always feels the necessity to ascend from these ideas to that which can only be grasped in an artistic vision. And basically, when faced with the secrets of the world, one cannot think differently than that so-called scientific knowledge is one step, but that one must rise to a living artistic grasp of the world if one really wants to approach the secrets of the world. One must not think as one often thinks today, that art has nothing to reveal about the secrets of the world, that all of this must be left to science.
The only true and natural view is that on which Goethe's conception of the world is based, and which I have already characterized from the most diverse points of view – which led Goethe to the conclusion: Art is a revelation of secret laws of nature that would not reveal themselves without the existence of art.
And so one could say: In a building like this, man is presented with what is a kind of essence of the secrets of the world. Therefore, in the execution of this building, many artistic problems were raised. They presented themselves as something self-evident, especially the pictorial problem. On the one hand, it was necessary to express the sensations that could recognize a visualization of certain secrets of the world, but on the other hand, one had to draw attention to the artistic means of expression.
You do not see anything symbolically and fantastically speculated in the painting of the great dome (Figs. 31, 32), as much as some people might believe it. If you look at the painting here at the western end (Fig. 31), you will see that there is something in the color composition that looks strange. Now you will all know: if you close your eyes, you will see something like a mysterious shadow eye opposite the eye with your eyes closed.
What each person can see in front of them like a kind of shadow eye when their eyes are closed can, when the inner vision is particularly developed, appear before the soul in a much more detailed and meaningful way. It is no longer as robust or as coarse as the two eyes that one sees as shadow eyes when the real eyes are closed, but it contains what can be seen, spiritualized in a certain way, when one is intently inwardly attentive towards that part of the periphery of the human being that is located towards the eyes. What then appears to this inspired inner gaze is, one might say, a whole world.
And the sensation arises: as one, so to speak, looks into one's own power, into one's own visual space with closed eyes as a human being, one sees something in front of oneself that represents something like the beginning of creation. This beginning of creation is what meets you here at the west end of the great dome. And it is not a mere figment of the imagination that there is the Tree of Paradise, above which is a kind of Father God, and then these two eye-shaped forms appear. All this is something that, when you have a deeper inner feeling, comes before the inner eye, before the eye of the soul.
Likewise, what you see here in the large dome at the eastern end is a kind of feeling of one's own self. This I, if one may say so, is a kind of trinity; it also reveals itself in the inner sense in such a way that it goes on the one hand to the luminous clarity and transparency of the thinking I, and on the other hand, at the other pole, so to speak, to the will side, to the willing I, and in the middle to the feeling I. At first this can be expressed in such an abstract way as I have just abstractly expressed it as a thinking, feeling, willing I. In concrete terms, it can be felt as a person who, with love, is able to look at the colors of nature, who is able to look at everything that comes to him in nature with all his senses with a devoted love.
When one experiences the self in such a way that it simultaneously flows out into all of nature, one is aware of the following sensations: “When you see a plant in its green color, in the color of its blossom, what you bring before your soul as an image of the plant is actually what you also encounter when you look within yourself. What is spread out as a carpet of color in nature colors itself when you look into your inner being. And when you, as a person who loves the world, turn your gaze outwards, towards the expanse of daylight that stretches into the infinite vastness of space, you feel connected to this vastness of space. By connecting colors and sounds of these spatial expanses with yourself and by sensing all the configurations that present themselves to you, you sense something that you cannot translate into a symbol with your mind, but that you can immediately and intuitively paint artistically.
And again, when you let your gaze wander over the surface of the earth, this horizontal plane, over the trees that cover the earth, over everything that is expressed in the moving the trees rustle in the wind, then you feel your own feeling self, and you are inspired not to construct this self in abstract terms but to paint it in colors. If you look down, so that you feel connected with all that is fruitful on earth, you then feel the necessity to express your willing self in a color that imposes itself on you all by itself.
This is how one must imagine that the configuration of the ceiling has been expressed. And because the mystery of the world, as it can be sensed in the relationship of man to the world, has been brought to the ceiling in this way, it was self-evident that some of what can be sensed from these world secrets was also painted into this ceiling. You will therefore find some surfaces covered with what results from spiritual knowledge of world evolution.
These figures, which you see here on the left and right, which apparently represent mythological figures, are intended to reflect the situation as it was before the great Atlantic catastrophe. The materialistic theory of development proves to be completely wrong when viewed spiritually. If we go back in human development, we first come to the Greco-Latin period, which begins around the eighth century BC. We then go further back to the Egyptian-Chaldean period, which begins around the turn of the fourth to the third millennium BC. We go back to older periods, and finally we come to a time that must be called spiritual-scientific: the time of the Atlantic catastrophe. At that time, major rearrangements of the continents took place. One looks back with the seeing glance into a time of the earth's development in which that which is now covered by the Atlantic Ocean was covered by land. But at the same time one goes back to an earth development period in which man could not yet have existed in the form as he does now, in a form that is formed like today's muscles and bones. If you take sea animals, jellyfish, for example, which can hardly be distinguished from their surroundings, then you come to the material form in which man once was on earth, during the old Atlantean time, when the earth was still covered everywhere by permanent, dense fog, in which man lived and was therefore a completely different organic being. And to the seeing, the clairvoyant
arise to the seeing, the clairvoyant
gaze, if the word is not misunderstood, precisely these forms that are painted on the left and right of the ceiling.
If you paint in a naturalistic way, a head has to be closed at the top, because that is simply how naturalistic human heads are. Here the head is not closed at the top because it is the soul and spirit of the ancient Indian, the first cultural man after the Atlantic catastrophe, painted here on the wall. And so one had to dare not to close the head at the top with a ceiling, but to leave it open, because in fact, when the Indian man is held for his time, he presents himself in such a way that he felt connected to the heavens through his primal wisdom, that for him, I might say, the physical head cover was lost in the unconscious, and he felt his soul stretching out into the vastness of heaven. This is captured here in pictorial form. And in this context, this old Indian felt connected to the so-called seven rishis, who poured the wisdom of the world into him in seven rays. An attempt has been made here to capture such things in colors on the ceiling of the auditorium.The actual artistic endeavor that was to be attempted in terms of painting in this building can be seen in the small dome here (Fig. 57). There, an attempt has been made – albeit in an as yet incomplete form – to achieve what I would call painting from the color itself. And this seems to me to be connected with the future of pictorial art in general. While on the one hand, in the further progress of humanity, one will approach the spiritual more and more, on the other hand, one will also strive more and more to find the spiritual in the external sensual reality.
But then one will be compelled to imbibe that which is especially needed in art: an intense sense of reality. With an intense sense of truth, artistically understood, one is led to see the truly pictorial in color. Is the line a truth? Is the drawing a truth? Actually, it is not. Let us look at the horizon line: it is there when we capture the blue sky in color at the top and the green sea at the bottom. When we paint the blue sky above and the green sea below, the line arises by itself as the boundary between the two. But if I draw the horizon line with just any pencil, it is actually an artistic lie.
And you will find that if you have a feeling for the infinite abundance revealed by color, you can actually create a whole world out of color. Red is not just red, red is that which, when you confront it, signifies an experience, like an attack on our self from the outside world. Red is that which causes one to flee in one's soul from that which reveals itself as red. Blue is that which prompts one to follow it, and a harmony of red and blue can then result in a balance between recoiling and advancing. In short, the colored, experienced, results in a whole world. And from the colors, one can create the form by merely allowing the color to take effect in its mutual relationships. In my first mystery, I had a person express it in such a way that the form of the color must be the work in painting that we are striving for.
If you look at the small dome here (Fig. 73), and if the shading is such that you cannot see the individual figures inside, but only what is brought onto this small dome as a color spot, and let the mutual relationships work on each other, then you also get an impression, the impression of a reason surging in colors. This is initially the basis from which the various forms then arise. For those who are able to relive the life of the colored within themselves, for them the truly human form, the actions between human forms, the relationships between human forms arise entirely from the colored. One has the need to have a blue spot at a certain point, orange and red in the vicinity. And if you now study this intuitively, feeling it inwardly, something like this Faust-like figure will emerge by itself, with a floating, angel-like figure in front of it. And you will gradually realize that the blue color spot is forming itself into a kind of figure reminiscent of the medieval Faust.
You will see everywhere in the painting of the small dome that the coloring is the essential thing, and that the forms within have emerged entirely from the color. Anyone who might say, “Yes, but you first have to think, to interpret, if you really want to feel these individual motifs,” would be right in a sense, if they also feel that what I have just characterized as reliving the world of color has been realized here.
Then one can see how this blue Faust-like figure came into being; under it a kind of skeleton, the brown, then this orange angel, actually a child, floating towards the face of Faust (Figs. 69-73). If one first takes the colors as a basis and then rises from the colors to the living, one has before one the cognitive puzzle of the present human being. The Faust figure is something that has been preserved from the 16th century. I would like to say: In Faust, the protest of modern man, who seeks the secrets of the world within himself, is expressed against the man who, in the Middle Ages, had a completely different relationship to the world.
The Faust saga is not something that stands alone. Goethe took up this Faust saga because Goethe was a truly modern man. But he also transformed the Faust saga of the 16th century. This Faust saga culminates in Faust's encounter with the devil, in Faust confronting the forces of the human enemy, in his wrestling with them. This was intended to express how man, as he approached modern times, became truly embroiled in this struggle. The sixteenth century still felt that whoever was brought into the struggle with the devil must succumb if he engaged with the devil in any way.
We have the legend of Luther, which is the polar opposite of the legend of Faust. Luther at the Wartburg: he is tempted by the devil, just like Faust, but he throws the inkwell at the devil's head and drives him out. The legends of Luther and Faust are polar opposites for the 16th century. You know that anyone who comes to the Wartburg today will still find the ink stain from the ink that Luther threw at the devil's head. The curators will tell you, though: yes, it is always being renewed from time to time. But it is there for visitors.
Goethe then, after Lessing had already pointed out the need to change the Faust saga, rewrote the Faust saga of the 16th century and presented the human Faust as someone who, although he struggles with the opponent of humanity, with Mephistopheles, does not fall prey to him, even though he engages with him to a certain extent. Instead, he achieves his human victory over this misanthropic opponent. The Faust saga contains in the whole figure of Faust the riddle of knowledge of the modern human being.
Oh, that is basically a caricature of knowledge, what is called scientific knowledge. What we are educating today, by appropriating the laws of nature and expressing them in abstract sentences, is basically something that, when we feel it more deeply, we feel as something completely inanimate. By devoting ourselves to abstract ideas, we feel something like a dead soul in us, like a soul's corpse. And those who have a sufficiently lively sense perceive something like the approach of death in this soul corpse, precisely in what is today valued as the correct, logical realization. This perception underlies this figure here (Fig. 71). And as the opposite pole of death, there is the angel-like child floating in orange (Fig. 72).
Then there are the other figures, which are so enmeshed in the overall harmony that the next figures are more or less those of a Greek initiation into wisdom: a kind of Pallas Athena figure (Fig. 75) with the inspiring Apollo (Fig. 76), an Egyptian initiate further up (Fig. 78), with the inspirer (Fig. 77). Then we come to the whole realm of developing humanity, which strives towards an experience of the human by perceiving the duality in the world, good and evil, the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic (Fig. 79). This is depicted where, at the bottom, the figure holding the child in its arms has the bright, seductive Lucifer and the dark, sinister Ahriman above it. This corresponds to the whole region of humanity that extends from Persia to Central Europe and the West, where man, when striving for knowledge, has to struggle with dualism, where all the doubts that arise in him through being placed between truth and error, between good and evil, are released in feelings.
As we approach the middle of the east, we have this dual form (Figs. 83, 84). It is the one that will one day grow out of the chaotic Russian soul. In the Russian soul we have, as it were, the preparation for the soul-like quality of the future, even if it has to work its way through the most diverse chaotic states. Man is still so that he basically always carries a second person with him, and to the discerning eye this also reveals itself. Every Russian actually has his own human shadow, which he carries with him. This leads to the dull soul being perceived as something like inspiration, as is attempted here in the blue angelic form (Figs. 83, 85), on the other side in the orange angelic form (Figs. 83, 85) and in the centaur-like form that is above it (Figs. 84, 85). The relationship of the Russian soul as a kind of future soul to nature and the world is captured there.
And all of this is to be combined into the central image (Fig. 86), which will then have its counterpart in the wooden sculpture mentioned earlier. In the middle, to the east, you see the figure of Christ (Fig. 90), above it the figure of Lucifer in shades of red (Fig. 87), below it in various shades of brown the figure of Ahriman (Fig. 88). In this, one can sense what the human being actually represents. We do not get to know a person just by looking at them as they appear to the physical eye. Physically, spiritually and mentally, the human being carries a trinity within them. Physically, they carry a trinity within them in the following way. Physically, he has within him everything that causes us to age continuously while we are alive, that makes us sclerotic, that calcifies our limbs, that, so to speak, allows death with its violence to be ever present within us. This is the physical Ahrimanic working. If this were to get out of hand, we would fall prey to old age even as children.
But it works in us, and it works physically precisely because it is that which solidifies, that which is heavy, calcifying, and leads us towards death. Above the Christ-figure we see the Lucifer-figure. This is that physical element in man which brings him to a fever, to pleurisy, which always causes him, as it were, to dissolve, which are the forces of youth, and which, if they were alone present, would dissolve the human being. This polar, circular opposition can be perceived throughout the whole human being. If one senses it in color, then one senses the Luciferic upwards in shades of red, the Ahrimanic downwards in shades of brown. And the human being is the equilibrium between the two. Man is actually always in a state of inner equilibrium, but this must be sought in every moment, between dissolving in 'heat, in feverish fire', and the hardening, petrifying, solidifying that brings death. We will only have a real human physiology when we see this polarity in every single organ. Heart, lungs, liver, all of this only becomes understandable when seen in this polarity.
Well, I think you can feel all of this in what is painted on the ceiling. You can [now] say: But these are symbols again! An Austrian poet, Robert Hamerling, wrote a book called 'Ahasver', in which he presented human figures not in a naturalistic way, but in a spiritual way. He was reproached for creating symbols rather than real people. He defended himself by saying: If you feel so vividly at the same time that the figures are indeed living people, then they may make a symbolic impression, because who can prevent Nero from being a symbol of cruelty? But you can't say that Nero wasn't a real person because of that!
These things must be seen in their true light. And to those who do not want something like this to come out of the experience of color in a newer way, who find it too complicated to look into these things, one must answer: Yes, what should someone who has no sense of Christianity experience, such as Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper or Raphael's Sistine Madonna? Just as thorough Christianization is necessary there, but even if thorough Christianization is there,
everything can be felt from the colors on the surface, so everything can be grasped not in abstract concepts but in direct, living contemplation if that elementary, naturalistic worldview is there, which this building wants to bear witness to.
And that is what is important in this building: that there is no fantasizing or interpreting, but that the people who enter it or look at it from the outside immerse themselves in the forms and colors, accepting what is there in the immediate inner view. Then one will see, when one gradually finds one's way into this structure, that it does indeed represent at least an attempt – everything is imperfect at the beginning – to come so close to the meaning of human development that it, precisely out of the spiritual life necessary for the present, gives an artistic impression, as the different ages have given an artistic impression out of their particular world view.
Let us transport ourselves back for a moment to a Greek heart, to a Greek soul. Let us transport ourselves back to that soul that could, with inner sincerity and honesty, utter the saying handed down: Better a beggar here on the round of the earth than a king in the realm of shadows. The Greeks felt connected to the earth because of the peculiarity of the spirit of their age. If one may say so, they honored everything on earth through the forces of the earth's gravity as something that adorns and covers this earth. They felt the forces of the earth's gravity. And this is expressed in the way they built their temples, how they felt the forces of this earth's gravity.
When man in primeval times looked up to the immortal, to the eternal in the human soul, he also looked back to the ancestors. Those souls gradually became divine souls for him, which were the ancestral souls, the souls of the ancestors. And the grave of the ancestors remained for him the sacred place that embraced the spiritual within him. The burial place is the first building for a certain cultural trend, the building of the human soul that has departed from the earthly. In Greek temple building, one can still feel something of the resonance of the tomb. And the sad building of graves was taken up in a cheerful way in Greek temple building, in that the deceased human soul, which as the soul of an ancestor was once revered as divine, has become a god itself. The building over the grave of the ancestor, where a resting place was to be created for the soul, the divinely revered ancestral soul, became the temple of the god Apollo, Zeus or Athena. And the temple enclosure became the extension of what had once been the ancestral tomb. Just as the god arose from the ancestral soul, so the tomb became a Greek temple. Just as the ancestral soul was regarded as something that had passed away, and the construction of graves thus took on a tragic expression, so the construction of graves became the construction of temples in its serenity, in its joyful expression, because it had now become the wrapping not of the departed soul but of the immortal divine soul present in the present. One can only think of a Greek temple as the dwelling place of the god. The Greek temple is not a complete entity in itself. There can only be a temple of Apollo, a temple of Zeus, a temple of Athena. The Greeks went to their temples knowing that the god dwelled there. If we omit some of the architectural styles, we can then move on to the example of Gothic construction, to the building of cathedrals. Let us look again at the shape of the cathedral: We no longer see in it any kind of memory of the tomb, at most it is preserved in an inorganic way through tradition, in that the altar is reminiscent of the tombstone, but this is introduced into the whole in an inorganic way; the Gothic idea of building is something else. The Greek temple is what has been formed in its forms by conquering the forces of gravity. How could that which arises from the construction of graves, that is, that which rises above the earthly grave, above that which is lowered into the earth, how could that be shaped differently than by conquering the forces of the earth's gravity through dynamics, through the form of the building, by mastering the forces of gravity in the supporting column, in the supported beam, which are the forces of the earth.
Later, the feeling does not go to the earth, not to the vanished ancestral realm: it lifts itself up and goes out into the world to the God above. Accordingly, the Gothic forms take on their special design. The striving of the Gothic forms is not the overcoming of gravity: the most important thing in the Gothic form is the mutual support. Nowhere do we actually see a support; we see an upward striving. We do not see heaviness, but a striving upwards towards heaven. That is why the Gothic cathedral is not the dwelling place of some divine being, like the Greek temple; rather, the Gothic cathedral is the meeting place of the faithful, the meeting place of the community.
If you enter a Greek temple from which the image of the god has been removed, the Greek temple makes no sense. A Greek temple without the image of the god in it is meaningless. You have to imagine the image of the god in your mind. If you enter a Gothic cathedral without a service being read and preached, or without a congregation praying together, it is incomplete. A living community belongs there. And the word cathedral also expresses the coming together of the community. Duma and Dom are of the same origin. And when the Narodnaja Duma got its name, it was out of the feeling of working together, just as the Gothic cathedral got its name from the feeling that people must come together with their souls and together direct their feelings upwards in the directions of the Gothic struts.
We see how the intuitive perception of artistic forms shows a certain progress in the course of human development. We no longer live in a time in which one feels as one did in the days when the Gothic flourished. We live today in a time in which man must penetrate deeper into his own inner being. Today we can only found a social community if each person experiences and fulfills the “know thyself” in a deeper sense than was previously the case, even if it resounds through the ages as the ancient Apollonian demand of “know thyself”. Only by becoming individuals in the most intense sense can we form human communities today.
If we immerse ourselves in the forms of this Goetheanum in a sensitive way, what do they speak to us? What do they reveal to our gaze? If we want to talk about them, we must try to present to the human soul what we can express through the anthroposophical worldview as the secret of the human being and the secret of the world as they reveal themselves to the human being, and also through ideas and images. The Greek temple represented the dwelling place of the god who had descended to earth. The Gothic cathedral represented that which evokes in man the urge to feel the “know thyself” and to be with other people precisely because of this realization.
When you enter this house, you should have the feeling: In the forms, in the paintings, in everything that is there, one finds here what is humanly secret, and one is happy to unite with other people here because here everyone finds what reveals their human value, their human dignity, in which one most loves to find oneself lovingly with other people. In this way, this building would like to greet all those who enter it, who approach it.