The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. On the Comic and Its Connection to Art and Life

[ 1 ] Few of the fundamental aesthetic ideas have suffered more under the erroneous premises of German aesthetics than that of the “comic.” If, as German aestheticians do, one explains beauty by positing that the Idea (the Divine) appears in a sensory image, then insurmountable difficulties arise in defining the concept of the comic. For under this premise, we must distinguish between two elements in a work of art (in a beautiful object): first, the sensory image—the material product made of marble, paint, clay, words, and so on—and second, the Idea that is made visible through this image. Three cases can now arise. I. The idea and the visual image may coincide perfectly, so that the idea is not too lofty, too spiritual, or too transcendent to be represented by this image, and the image may be equally worthy, significant, and commensurate with the idea. In this case, there is perfect harmony between idea and perception; neither surpasses the other, and each is a match for the other. We sense nowhere a going beyond, nowhere a falling short. German aestheticians believe that when this occurs, we are dealing with the “simply beautiful,” with the “beauty in itself.” II. It may happen that the idea appears more significant, greater than the perception, that it towers above it, transcends it, so that the perception appears too insignificant, too small, too deficient to encompass the divine (the idea) in its full extent. The vessel is then not large enough to contain the content (the idea). Whereas in the case of “simple beauty” we feel satisfaction at the harmony between the divine (the ideal) and the earthly (the real), here we must stand in awe of the greatness of the idea, which appears so immense that we cannot find an image commensurate with it. In this case, we are dealing with the sublime. III. Now only the opposite case is possible; namely, that the image (the perception) appears greater, more significant, and more powerful than the idea. While in the second case the idea disrupts harmony through its grandeur, here the disharmony arises from the predominance of the sensuous image. The latter pushes itself to the fore, rebels against the idea, and revolts against the divine. Consequently, one can find nothing here but the ugly. If one now considers that the tragic is merely a special case of the sublime, then the four concepts—beautiful, sublime, tragic, and ugly—exhaust the inventory of aesthetics, and there is no room for the comic. For it is easy to see that, apart from the three cases mentioned, a fourth is no longer possible.

[ 2 ] The situation is quite different when based on the idea of the Beautiful that I have put forward (“Goethe as the Father of a New Aesthetics”). Art can never, under any circumstances, have the task of representing the idea itself. For this is the task of science. If the fundamental ideas of German aesthetics were correct, then in terms of content there would actually be no difference at all between science and art. The latter would have only to represent, in a vivid form, what the former expresses through the word (the thought). This simple consideration proves that art must have an entirely different task. And this task is the exact opposite of that of science. While science is to represent the divine in the form of immediate thought—as it hovers above the sensory, in pure, ideal form—art is to elevate the sensory, the concrete, and the pictorial into the sphere of the divine. When we stand face to face with nature, with reality, we find it neither divine nor non-divine, neither filled with ideas nor devoid of them, but simply indifferent to divinity, to the idea. The thinker looks through this indifferent shell and beholds the idea in the form of thought. But to this end, he must transcend immediate reality; he must look through it and beyond it. Whoever remains at the level of mere reality cannot reach the idea. The artist approaches reality in a different way. He does not transcend reality; he lovingly embraces it—indeed, he lives and weaves within the sensual, the material, and the real. What he depicts are objects of immediate nature, of real existence. In works of art, we encounter nothing in terms of content (the “what”) that we cannot also find in nature. The artist alters only the form (the “how”). He depicts objects of reality, but differently from how we find them in the real world. He depicts them as if they were as necessary, as full of law, as divine as the Idea. In terms of content, art deals with the sensuous; in terms of form, with the ideal. While science depicts the Idea in terms of content and form, and nature likewise depicts the sensuous in terms of form and content, art opens up a new realm: the realm of the sensuous clothed in the divine. If anyone were to claim that it is also possible for someone to depict the divine in the guise of the sensual, this claim is refuted by the fact that no one can have any interest in such a task. For one may sometimes feel the need to elevate what is lower and less valuable into the realm of what is higher and more valuable, but not to do the opposite. It is precisely from dissatisfaction with reality in its very own form that the longing to deify it arises. But why would one want to transform the divine—which in itself already provides the highest satisfaction—into another form?

[ 3 ] The realm of the non-ideal sensuous is reality; the realm of the non-sensuous ideal is science; and the realm of the sensuous-ideal is art. We encounter the first realm when we observe our surroundings with healthy senses; the second when we immerse ourselves in the realm of our thought; the third we find nowhere except as something already completed; we must create it ourselves. While the realm of nature has a sensuous reality and that of science a purely intellectual one, the realm of art has no reality at all. The sphere of artistic products is therefore called that of aesthetic appearance. Aesthetic appearance is the sensuous realm divinized by the creative human spirit.

[ 4 ] Now we must venture into the realm of the subjective and examine the fundamental disposition of the personality from which the longing for art and the enjoyment of art arises. All of humanity’s higher aspirations are a quest for freedom. To act freely above the instincts of nature, freely above the laws of sensuality, freely above passions and human statutes—that is the path and goal of the better human being. To be less and less subject to what nature demands, and to follow more and more what the spirit has recognized as an idea—that is what liberates the spirit. Freedom is the dominion of the spirit over nature, of the idea over reality. What I accomplish in accordance with the laws of nature, I must do—just as a raindrop must fall to the earth according to an immutable law. If I act solely out of such natural impulses, I am not my true self, not a free personality; for I do not drive myself—I am driven; I do not will—I must. But the more I kindle the light of the spirit within me, the freer I become. Only now can I say: it is I who am acting, who am accomplishing something. At the same time, there is the fact that I know which light I am following, that I have before me in my mind, in a pure and transparent form, the object toward which my action is directed. I do not act for the sake of my individuality, but because of the object I have recognized. Such an action, although it truly springs from the self, is completely selfless. For it is not accomplished by the self for the self’s sake. Such an action is an act of love—one that has arisen from the self’s complete devotion to the object. Thus, at the deepest level, truly free acts are only those acts done out of love.

[ 5 ] The artist’s creations are now (among other things) such acts of love. For he seeks to transcend sensory reality by spiritualizing it. He wishes to conjure before our senses a work that, despite its sensory nature, is permeated not by the laws of nature but by the laws of the spirit. Whatever is merely natural about the object is to be stripped away, overcome, and presented as if it were divine. Art is a continuous process of liberation for the human spirit and, at the same time, the educator of humanity in acting out of love. Whoever is able to look into the full depth of a truly great work of art will sense it—that noble ascent that, for the duration of contemplation alone, truly allows us to forget space, time, and our own personality, and to lose ourselves completely in the object we are beholding. Only those who know full, pure, and unclouded love will also fully understand this self-forgetful contemplation. Those who do not know true love will likely always remain alien to true art.

[ 6 ] If we must now assume that, in a work of art, the human spirit imbues the material with divinity, then the genre to which the work of art belongs will depend on the spiritual faculties that the spirit exercises in the process.

[ 7 ] We must bear in mind that what our mind ultimately arrives at is the first and highest thing in the world. The ideal unity, the primordial principle of things, certainly precedes all things in the world. However, in our intellectual striving, we ultimately arrive at this primordial principle. The first thing we encounter in the world is the infinite diversity of sensory things, which are, in truth, the ultimate manifestation of the primordial principle. The senses perceive this diversity; the intellect organizes and compares it, thereby forming concepts; reason then perceives the inner unity within this multiplicity. Sensibility, understanding, and reason, however, are the three faculties through which we comprehend the universe. Sensibility presents us with nature stripped of spirit; understanding, with the multiplicity of concepts; and reason, with the divine Idea enthroned above all.

[ 8 ] If we now take our explanation of beauty a step further, we must ask ourselves: to what extent can the artist rework sensory material, given the three faculties mentioned above?

[ 9 ] Above all, it is clear that the senses cannot alter reality in any way, for their task is to perceive reality as faithfully and as unaltered as possible. The intellect, which forms concepts from individual things, is already dealing with the spiritual; although it still deals with a multiplicity, this multiplicity is already elevated above the sensory realm. The intellect is thus already capable of spiritualizing nature. This hardly needs to be said of reason, for it grasps the very essence of all that is spiritual.

[ 10 ] It follows directly from this: The artist can transform the material of immediate reality in such a way that it appears, in form, as if it were imbued either by the intellect or by reason itself. Art, therefore, deals with works: 1. those that correspond in content to the life of reality and in form to the intelligible order of things; 2. those that correspond in content to this real life, but in form to the rational order and unity of the world.

[ 11 ] When the artist, following the course of reason, reshapes reality, his works fill us with such profound satisfaction because, in doing so, he presents the things that come from his hand as if they flowed directly from the Primordial Principle itself. Through works imbued with divine unity, the artist brings us closer to the spirit of the world. That is why, upon seeing Greek works of art, Goethe exclaimed in admiration: “There is necessity; there is God; it is as if these eternal things had been conjured forth by creative nature itself.”

[ 12 ] Thus, in the aesthetic appearance that the work of art presents to us, we see no contradiction with the depths of reality, but only with its surface. It is, in fact, a higher reality that art presents to us.

[ 13 ] But what happens when the artist allows not reason, but the intellect to guide him in reshaping reality?

[ 14 ] The intellect is a middle ground between sensibility and reason. It moves away from the former but does not reach the latter. It no longer possesses the superficial truth found in the simple reproduction of sensory reality, but it has not yet attained the truth found in the depths of rational insight. The concept that the intellect forms of individual things is, in fact, the most unreal thing in the world. For in the order of the world, there is no single thing in and of itself; everything is necessarily grounded in the interconnection and flow of things. Whoever does not keep the big picture in mind and measures only the individual parts against it can never recognize the truth. I can form a rational concept of an individual thing: truth is not present in this concept as long as the light of reason does not illuminate it. If I form two concepts, these may exist in an inner unity within the depths of the world order; yet the intellect possesses only the individual concepts, which, in this state of separation, need not harmonize at all but simply coexist side by side.

[ 15 ] The sensible objects, which the human mind transforms as if they were permeated by reason, will thus stand in stark contradiction to all reality. In the understanding itself, the incompatibility of its concepts naturally goes unnoticed, because it leaves them standing apart. But when they appear side by side in their inner contradiction with respect to an object, then this contradiction immediately presents itself to the eye. I can form a concept, based on reason, of a person’s mind. For example, I imagine it to be noble and grand. Alongside this, I also form a concept of his outward appearance. Let this be small, unremarkable, awkward, perhaps even clumsy. I can quite easily conceive of these two concepts side by side. But when they appear before me in the flesh on stage, united in a single person, then I perceive the contradiction with what is possible according to the laws of nature.

[ 16 ] It is completely irrelevant how large my mental image of a human head is, as long as I do not go beyond the head. But if I combine a large head with a small body and depict this combination in a real image, I perceive the contradiction with what is possible.

[ 17 ] Becoming aware of such a contradiction between a created object and its inner potential evokes in us a sense of the comic.

[ 18 ] The comic, then, is a sensually perceptible reality in the form of an intellectual contradiction. The “what” is sensibility; the “how” is reason, with its content not grounded in the nature of the whole.

[ 19 ] Wherever one examines something comical, one will find that what the creative individual has made of his material contradicts the deeper, inner nature and the fundamental laws of existence. And whoever is able to see through this contradiction perceives it as something comical.

[ 20 ] The liberating effect inherent in laughing at something comical stems from the fact that the person who recognizes the contradiction feels superior to the object in question; he believes he understands the matter better than it appears here in the depiction before him. Those who do not see through the contradiction also miss the effect of the comic. That is why the same subject may seem comic to one person but not to another. Those who have no understanding of the contradiction also have no understanding of the comic. Of course, it can happen that the perception of such a contradiction even puts us in a gloomy mood. But then we view the matter differently. We no longer focus on what is intellectually contradictory, but rather on the disharmony between a particular element and the whole. This, however, is rooted in a rational perspective. And this is where comedy ends. This is particularly the case when we perceive something incoherent in nature itself—for example, something misshapen or crippled. Here, we no longer interpret the individual parts in a rational sense, but rather we perceive the contrast between what has become and what should and could have become, and this leads us deeper than a mere contemplation of the rational.

[ 21 ] This is why there is actually very little that is directly comical in nature itself. The comical is mostly a human creation.

[ 22 ] When depicting the comic, a person may even have the direct intention of using the visual and the concrete to achieve precisely what cannot be achieved by presenting mere, contradictory concepts: to lead to the recognition of the contradiction. What fails to make the necessary impression in thought is achieved by the visual representation. This is the intent of irony and comic satire. Parody and travesty, too, seek nothing other than to ridicule the paradox of one thing by juxtaposing its opposite.

[ 23 ] It is in the nature of the comic that it finds a far wider audience than other art forms. For a person need only grasp the contradictory details with the intellect; the perception of the contradiction itself provides the image, the representation. It is not at all necessary here to rise to a rational understanding.

[ 24 ] It is also inherent in the nature of the comic that it serves primarily to expose human folly. After all, folly consists in regarding things that are wrong or contradictory as real. If one were to present the fool’s delusions to him externally in a tangible form, he might be more easily convinced of his folly than by any other means.

[ 25 ] The serious artist who does not create from the whole, the complete, but rather cobbles together his work from details, can easily and unintentionally create something comical in the process. Likewise, we ourselves present a comical spectacle to those around us when we engage in actions in which nothing but the contradiction we are enacting is glaringly apparent to the audience.

[ 26 ] The effect of the comic, of course, always depends on how far above the comic object the evaluator stands—in other words, to what extent he is capable of grasping the contradiction in its full depth. For example, it will strike the wise person as comical to see so many people in life striving for, valuing, and worshiping something that does not seem at all worthy of value or worship to him. It follows from what has been said earlier that he can remain at the level of the comical impression only as long as he stops at grasping the contradiction with his intellect. If he delves deeper and considers the effort that humanity devotes to this empty nothingness, then he must, of course, view the matter more seriously.

[ 27 ] To the fool, on the other hand, many things will seem comical, whereas the wise man cannot laugh at them at all. If the fool considers a thing only from its outward appearance and fails to grasp its depth, he may well laugh at the contradictions on the surface. Precisely what those of a more refined nature do is so often ridiculed, because it is not understood, though the contradiction between these actions and what is customary in life is clearly seen.

[ 28 ] Anyone who has a knack for finding contradictions in life and for linking together contradictory elements—which can only be artificially brought together by the intellect—will be particularly well-suited to portraying the comic. Wit is nothing other than the play of the intellect, which seeks out similarities in things that are very distant from one another and, through the resulting juxtaposition, presents an obvious contradiction.

[ 29 ] The effect of the comic also depends on the degree to which the contradiction outweighs the harmony that is always present, however slight. After all, anything that is completely foreign is excluded from the realm of the comic. We can say: The comic corresponds to the intellect, but it contradicts both sensibility and reason.

[ 30 ] Anyone who perceives the contradiction but mistakes understanding for reason, and who, instead of laughing, is saddened by the disharmony, has no sense of the comic. He will see nothing but contradictions everywhere and regard them as the “one and all” of the world. This leads to the melancholic’s state of mind. Whoever, on the other hand, is convinced that reason reigns behind the intellect, and that inner, higher unity reigns behind contradiction, can calmly laugh at the disharmony. Indeed, he can even go so far as to hold the view that where there is contradiction, only the intellect is at play; when considered rationally and more deeply, one always arrives at harmony. Such a person lives in the belief that contradiction is always superficial, never profound; and therefore always takes it lightly—as something that frees life from monotony and sameness, but which vanishes immediately when one delves deeper. This person laughs at what is contradictory and becomes serious in the face of the divine harmony of things. In him we find the fundamental spirit of humor.

[ 31 ] A third possibility exists. One may well possess a faculty for perceiving contradiction, yet lack one for unity and ideality. Such a person may well understand what is wrong, petty, or unreasonable, but this understanding is not underpinned by a sense of depth. Such a person may well laugh, but cannot be truly serious and devout. This is the fundamental mood of frivolity. The melancholic person may well feel a need for deep harmony, but lacks the spiritual strength to grasp it. Consequently, he also lacks the sense to laugh at absurdities. He lacks an understanding of what he ought to take seriously; therefore, he takes seriously that which cannot be considered as such. The humorist can laugh at absurdities without worry, for he knows that they lie not at the core but on the surface, and he has a sense for the things at the core of worldly existence. The frivolous person has only a sense for the superficial, but also only a need for it. He does not know the depth and does not want to know it. He lives on the surface.

[ 32 ] This brings us full circle to where we set out to go. We have highlighted the idea of the comic as a form of aesthetic appearance and have also characterized the relationship this idea has to life. The comic is not merely an arbitrary human creation; it is the very way in which one should view and represent the outward aspect of life, which is contradictory in many respects.