The Rudolf Steiner Archive

39. Theosophy and the Visual Arts

Article in the “Münchener Neueste Nachrichten”, January 1906

[ 1 ] Ch. Th. Theosophy and Art. The well-known Theosophical speaker Dr. Rudolf Steiner from Berlin spoke on January 17 and 18 before a large audience in the Prinzensaal of Café Luitpold on the subject of Theosophy and Art. In his first lecture, he sought to shed light on the essence of the visual arts—painting, sculpture, and architecture—from a theosophical perspective. According to the theosophical worldview, as he explained in his introduction, external, material nature is merely the expression of a deeper cosmic reality. In nature-in-the-making, the process of formation initially takes place internally in three stages—known in occultism as the “elemental realms”—progressing from the formless to a world of forms and flowing images, which serve as archetypes of the external world. According to the speaker’s explanation, the artist’s creative process is connected to these realms. In the imaginative state, he ascends once more into nascent nature, into these higher realms, beholds the images of the world that lie beyond the world, and brings them into waking consciousness. He experiences the formation of the world anew. From his theosophical perspective, Redner believes he must point out that internalization—the spiritual deepening leading to the rediscovery of the inner spiritual world—and stepping outside oneself for self-expansion and devotion to the universal world were also the defining characteristics of initiation into the mysteries, which he associated, in a somewhat surprising way, with artistic aptitudes.

[ 2 ] Redner believes he can find a distinction in the visual arts in the fact that painting and sculpture reproduce only the higher realm of images and forms, whereas architecture reshapes the formless, thereby representing a recreation of the structure of the world from the formless forces of nature. This is why architecture so clearly reveals its distinctiveness, its character. Nothing is more closely related to the character of a people than its architectural style.