The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. The Sensual and the Supersensual in Their Realization Through Art II

[ 1 ] There is a very witty man who made a curious remark about all human philosophizing. In a work that was recently published—and which elaborates at length on the impossibility and futility of all human philosophizing—he said: Man possesses no more philosophy than an animal and differs from the animal only in that he makes frantic attempts to arrive at a philosophy, only to have to admit in the end that he must resign himself to ending up in ignorance. — There is much in this book that is otherwise well worth reading; it essentially compiles everything that can be said against philosophy. For this reason, the author in question has become a professor of philosophy at a university. I would like to quote a statement by this man, who expounds on the human contemplation of nature. The statement is quite radical. The gentleman in question says, in fact, that nature is mysterious in every respect, and that if a person truly senses the mystery of nature in all its aspects, he cannot help but take the infinite smallness of his own being to heart. Nature extends immeasurably in its eternity, and we should actually feel that, with our mental images and ideas about nature, we stand there with our mouths agape! — I am quoting, and one might say that the statement is not entirely inaccurate; that, in fact, when we contemplate nature, we as human beings truly sense how little of what we can grasp in our thoughts—even when we engage in the most ingenious natural science—actually corresponds to the great, immeasurable mysteries of nature. And if one did not sense that the thought—which nature itself does not produce, but which can only arise in the human mind — stands in opposition to nature; if one did not know that this thought corresponds to a human need; if one did not feel that in allowing thought to reign over nature lies something of our entire human destiny and human development—which we need just as the seed needs the plant—then, upon mature inner self-knowledge, we would not actually know why we reflect on nature. We reflect on nature for our own sake and know that, when we stand before nature, our thoughts actually place us quite far removed from it. This is how one feels when contemplating nature.

[ 2 ] When one is faced with spiritual life, with the supersensible life, one must speak differently. No matter how insignificant or childlike this supersensible life may seem when it manifests itself within us, one feels an inner necessity to also give voice to what the Spirit reveals to one in the soul. And although one must feel the most intense sense of responsibility toward everything one expresses about the spirit—what one can speak from the supersensible, what can only come to light within the soul—one feels that one must follow this impulse, that one must speak it out of an inner necessity, just as one grows as a child or learns to speak. One thus feels oneself in a very contradictory position with regard to the sensible and the supersensible.

[ 3 ] A third aspect is what one might call: reflecting on or expressing one’s thoughts about art. - When one wishes to speak about art, one feels neither that sense of standing on the sidelines—which one always feels when contemplating nature—nor that sense of necessity that overwhelms one in the face of the inner revelations of the supernatural; rather, when one attempts to speak about art, one has the feeling that one is actually constantly interfering with the thought one is developing. Thought is, in fact, a real troublemaker when it comes to artistic enjoyment. And one would like, time and again, to pause in one’s thinking and speaking about everything related to art and simply enjoy the art in silence. If, however, one does wish to speak about art for whatever reason, one does not want to do so from the perspective of an aesthetics professor or, even less, an art critic. Isn’t that right? Not from the perspective of an art critic, because it seems superfluous to lecture on why one enjoyed a meal after having eaten a variety of dishes. One simply wants to express one’s own experiences with art—the joys, the inspiration, and so on—just as one feels the need to talk about what one has experienced with a dear friend. Out of a certain fullness of heart, not out of a critical sense, one wants to talk about art, and one does not wish to claim that what one has to say expresses anything lawful or universally valid, but rather, at its core, merely a kind of subjective confession. But it seems to me that this is a consistent feeling in any discussion of art—that the very thought actually disturbs one—and this, precisely, seems to me to point directly to what art is essentially all about.

[ 4 ] Since we, as human beings, live primarily in the sensory world, one might ask: What is the relationship between art and the sensory? — One might also ask—since, as human beings, we can only fully experience the sensory world if we have a relationship to the supersensory—what is the relationship between art and the supersensory? — Well, it seems to me that through a basic sense of feeling that develops in relation to artistic creation, one must very soon come to the conviction that art is neither capable of representing the sensory world as it immediately surrounds us, nor is it capable of expressing thought.

[ 5 ] When confronted with the sensory world, anyone with a sense of nature will, in fact, always have the feeling that, if one wishes to depict it and create some kind of representation of it, one cannot truly capture nature as such—that nature is always more beautiful and more perfect than any representation. With regard to the intellectual—as philosophical poetry and the like attest—one will have the feeling that, when attempting to depict it, one is describing something insubstantial and superfluous. Philosophical poetry invariably has a pedantic, schoolbook-like character; the allegorical and symbolic will, in fact, always be rejected by any true artistic sensibility.

[ 6 ] And so the question of the relationship between art and the sensory and the supersensory in particular can seem to one like a fundamental question of art itself. This raises the question: Is there anything else besides the sensory and the supersensory that has anything to do with the essential tasks of artistic creation and appreciation? — This question can probably only be answered by truly delving into the psychological process of artistic creation and appreciation: a process that cannot be described through systematic aesthetics, but can only be experienced. When one confronts the world in ordinary, sober, and at first glance non-artistic life, one is dealing, on the one hand, with sensory perception and, on the other, with what is produced in one’s own soul through sensory perception—namely, thought. To demand of art that it provide such perception as nature offers us—for example, the depiction of a human being—seems to me, for the reasons stated, to be something quite impossible and therefore superfluous. The desire to represent through art what the immediate perception of nature presents actually always stems from certain aberrations of art. On the other hand, however, it seems—perhaps this is somewhat strange, but one does experience it; I have already alluded to this in connection with discussions of art—that in the actual process of artistic creation and appreciation, one strives to eliminate thought as much as possible, to prevent it from arising in any way. This seems to me to stem from the fact that processes are constantly forming in the human soul that can either develop to their conclusion or break off at some point. One can only follow these processes if, through spiritual observation of the life of the soul, one truly descends into the depths of the soul’s life, which remain in the subconscious or unconscious for ordinary consciousness.

[ 7 ] Anyone who observes the inner life of a human being will find—setting aside, for the moment, the observation of the external world—that this inner life, insofar as it develops freely in contemplation and inner feeling, always has a tendency that can only be described as follows: Whatever surges and swells in the life of the soul—as sensation, as restrained impulses of the will, as feelings, and the like—wants to rise up, and it wants—even in a healthy life of the soul, when all is said and done—to take shape into what one might call a kind of vision. In life, deep within one’s soul, one is actually always striving to shape this surging, billowing inner life into a vision. However, in a healthy inner life, the vision must not come to the fore; it must be replaced, it must be halted in its emergence, otherwise a pathological inner life sets in. Yet in every soul, there are impulses striving to take shape as a vision, and we essentially go through life by continually holding back visions in the subconscious, by allowing them to fade away into mere thoughts. This is where perception—the external image—comes to our aid. When we confront the external world directly with our seething inner life, and the external world acts upon us with its impressions, this external world blunts what seeks to become a vision, and the vision fades into a healthy thought. I said: We actually go through the world constantly striving for visions, but we do not always bring the corresponding perceptions to our consciousness in the proper way. But anyone who tries to gain clarity about what is so faintly resonating between the lines of life in our daily experiences—anyone who is able to observe this—will see that all sorts of things really do emerge. I must say: If, for example, I happened to walk into someone’s dining room and found a group of people eating there, and the plates and bowls were painted red, I would instinctively believe—based on a basic intuition—that seated around the tables is a group of gourmets who wish to immerse themselves in the food and the courses with true relish. If, on the other hand, I were to see plates and bowls painted blue on the tables, I would assume that these are not gourmets, but rather people who are eating simply because they are hungry. Of course, one could perceive the same thing somewhat differently; that is not the point. What matters is that one is, in fact, always tempted to use what one encounters in life to trigger an aesthetic sensation and, in a certain way, to transform it into a fading vision. It is, of course, entirely possible to succumb to strong illusions in this realm. That does no harm. But even if it’s not at all true that a society that dines from red bowls must be called gourmets, the matter remains aesthetically valid. Similarly, one could say: If someone receives me in a red room, constantly lets me do all the talking, and is an utterly boring fellow, then I say: He’s lying to me. — For in a red room, I expect a person who has something to say to me, and I perceive it as a fundamental lie when he always lets me do all the talking.

[ 8 ] As we go through life, we are actually always inclined to elevate what we experience to the level of a fleeting vision, which then fades amid the external impressions of life. Artistic enjoyment and creation always go one step further. Artistic enjoyment and creation cannot allow what is bubbling and seething in the inner life of the soul to rise subconsciously to the level of a mere thought. That would be something that would simply fill us with thoughts, but would not lead us to anything artistic. But if, as artists—or through an artist reaching out to us—we are able to provide an external form for something that is striving to rise up in the soul, I mean, for example, a combination of colors—and if we feel that this combination of colors gives us something we need so that the corresponding rising vision—which, however, must not become a vision in the full sense—has an external complement, then we definitely have something artistic before us. I can imagine that someone might, using whatever artistic means, simply limit themselves to expressing moods and feelings by combining colors that perhaps do not correspond at all to any external object—perhaps, the less they correspond, the better—but which are, in a sense, the counter-image of what is striving to become a vision in their inner life. Amid the somewhat abundant discussions in recent times about all manner of artistic matters, attention has also turned more toward such phenomena, and when someone creates something that has nothing at all to do with the external world—something whose sole purpose is the one I have just described—we speak of Expressionist art. It is still frowned upon today to assume that what is taking shape within a person as a longing and striving toward a goal corresponds precisely to a fundamental trait of humanity: to arrive at a sensualization of that which can reveal itself in the soul only spiritually. If, however, one were to attempt to express a thought—something that has already progressed from the stage of vision to a faint thought—through any sensory means, one would be unartistic. If one avoids the thought and confronts the sensory form directly, one has established the connection between the human being and what has come into being artistically, with the thought set aside. And one may say: This is precisely the essential point—that art represents neither the sensory nor the supersensory, but rather the sensory-supersensory, something in which the sensory immediately contains a counterplay to a supersensory experience. Neither the sensory nor the supersensory, but only the sensory-supersensory can be realized through art.

[ 9 ] On the other hand, one might ask: If it is not acceptable for what we encounter in everyday life as perception in the external world to simply be reproduced in art, how is it then possible to engage with nature artistically at all? If nature contained nothing within itself other than what it presents to us in external perception—and what within that stimulates the formation of thought—then there would be no necessity whatsoever for art to arise. One can speak of a necessity for artistic creation only if there is indeed more in nature than what appears in finished natural products for the mental image—for the thought that, in art, must not serve as a bridge between the individual and external nature. Now, however, one must say: Nature possesses within itself that immeasurability, as well as that intense infinity, which we cannot grasp directly through thought. Nature also contains the supersensible within the sensible. One comes to understand the basis of the sensually-supersensible in external nature itself when one observes nature in such a way as to attempt to grasp what exists within it beyond the sensory impression. Well, let me give an example: When one stands before a human being, one can direct one’s attention to the human form, to the fact that the incarnate reveals itself through the human form, to the fact that the soul manifests itself through the outer form in physiognomy and facial expressions; one can observe how life permeates the very essence of outer form. Certainly, one can do that. But if one were to attempt to reproduce everything that is present in a human being in this way, one could not, as I said, attain nature, for the mere desire to reproduce external natural objects remains something unartistic. Anyone who, when faced with a work of art, asks about its resemblance to a natural object, is from the outset testifying—and one must state these things radically—that they wish to see not a work of art, but an illustration. But something else is at work here. One must say: When one pursues what is expressed in the human form, what actually appears to one as form is, through everything else that lives within it—through the nuance that comes from immediate life, through the spiritual content—the form is thereby annihilated. And that is the secret of nature: nature is so infinite in its details that every detail can endure being killed by a higher power. But if one has a sense for it, one can awaken what has been killed to new life from within one’s own being; one can so enliven what has been killed in the human form—killed by the higher life, killed by the soul’s permeation—in the form itself that the form now becomes a living being, without itself containing life or soulful content. One can give form to that which, for example, a sculptor must take as material simply because one works with materials; one comes to realize that nature is so intensely infinite that in every one of its details it contains infinitely more than what it represents. When nature places a form before us, it kills the inner life of the form—the life is enchanted within it—and one can disenchant it. When we encounter something in nature that is colorful, the color in the object itself is most certainly stifled by something else. If I take the color alone, I am able to awaken from the color itself something that has absolutely nothing to do with what the color is on the object. I create a life out of the color—a life that lies enchanted within the color only when the color appears on the surface of the natural object. Thus, it is possible to dispel the enchantment from everything we encounter in nature. Thus it is possible to redeem from nature everywhere that which lies within nature and its intense infinity, and to create nowhere an imitation of nature, but rather to demystify that which has been killed in nature by something higher.

[ 10 ] When discussing these matters, one is tempted to speak in paradoxes; but I believe that does no harm, because one can see from the extreme, radical cases how things actually stand in the less radical cases. Just as I can imagine, on the one hand, that—when the artistic is worked out from within through the restrained vision, and I create a counter-image out of forms, lines, and colors—these lines and colors can be arranged in such a way that they reflect nothing other than the restrained vision, so I can say, on the other hand: It seems possible to me that, from a natural being—let’s say, a human being—in whom life itself has been extinguished, who has become a corpse, I might create something living in a purely artistic sense by drawing something from the universal realm that can still artistically animate the corpse. Such extreme cases need not exist. But the possibility exists, as a borderline case, that when nature has already killed a being, a re-creation of the corpse itself comes about by drawing in something that—being something entirely different from what the human being is in his or her spiritual essence—infuses this form with spirit. I could imagine that a captivating work of art might come into being through a new life sprouting within a corpse, a life that reflects the mysteries surrounding the human being—mysteries that are veiled only by the fact that, until death, the human being carries his or her own soul within. One need not take offense at such a borderline case. It is, after all, a borderline case. This helps us realize that artistic creation can be effective in relation to external nature, for artistic creation and appreciation actually proceed in this way all the time—even if not pushed to the extreme of such a borderline case. Art is a continuous redemption of a mysterious life that cannot exist in nature itself, but must be drawn out of it. I then stand before a natural product in human form that has been deadened, yet I attempt to awaken this form’s own life and, from within the form—even though it is merely a dead form—to reawaken the whole human being.

[ 11 ] Genesis states that humankind came into being through the breath of God, that a human soul was breathed into us. This might lead one to see something else in the air besides that combination of oxygen and nitrogen. It might tempt one to see in the air something that awakens the human soul from within it—something soul-like; it might tempt one to believe that this air, when inhaled by a human being, essentially longs to become a soul. One might see in the air the counter-image of the human soul—that is, more than merely something inanimate: a yearning for humanity. Now, it is true that it is very difficult to arrive at such a sensation when considering air, because air and fire offer little inspiration for artistic creation. No one would really want to paint fire, any more than they would want to paint lightning, and nor would anyone want to draw the air. So, when directly confronted with air, one will not easily arrive at this feeling; but it seems to me that a true artistic sensibility can arrive at this feeling when confronted with the world of light and color. When confronted with the world of light and color, one can truly have the feeling that every color—or at least the relationships between colors—harbors a longing to become either a whole human being or a part of one. In the human being, they manifest either as an inner expression of his being, or through the light that illuminates him and is reflected back. But one can say: If one lives in the light itself, one shares in the longing of the air to take shape, for example, as a human face. — One can have the sensation that red and yellow want something; they want to take shape as something in the human being—they possess a language inherent within themselves. Then one will not attempt to merely reproduce the human being in a sober manner. Freeing oneself from the model must, in general, become an ideal of artistic creation. Whoever has not transcended the model at the very moment they begin to create—whoever does not regard it as something that guides them in eavesdropping on nature’s secrets—will remain dependent on the model and produce mere illustrations. On the other hand, those with artistic sensibility will be tempted to shape a human being, or any other creature, or any form of nature out of color. For such a person, the world of color will be able to take on an inner, nuanced life. One will find that red and yellow colors are such that they tempt one to use them wherever one wants something to express itself, to speak through itself. What confronts one in red and yellow will express itself; through its own power, it will bring about the ideal of art—the exclusion of thought. It is different when one is confronted with blue and violet. There, one will have a much stronger sense that, with blue and violet—at least in one respect—one is drawing closer to thought. One will have the feeling that with blue and violet, one cannot depict something that expresses itself, but rather something that more readily expresses something else. One will be tempted to depict the inner nature of blue by showing it in motion. And one will find that it is difficult to bring about an inner movement of the object by creating lines in red. In red, rather, lines, shading—I would say, physiognomy—will emerge. Red will speak for itself. When blue is translated into lines, it will betray its inner nature; it will lead one deeper into the surface of the color rather than drawing one out of it. When something expresses itself as color, one has the feeling that the color pushes one back. Blue, however, leads one deeper into the surface of the color; one believes that movement and the unfolding of the will are possible in what is expressed through the blue. A purely sensory-supersensory being—that is, a supersensory being that one wishes to bring into the sensory world—painted in blue and expressing its inner mobility through the nuances of blue, will be able to bear fruit.

[ 12 ] In this way, one can demystify whatever in nature appears as a part, whatever in nature is killed by a higher form of life. One can find the sensory-supersensory in nature itself; one can breathe life into mere form. One will find that it can never truly make a satisfying impression if one simply reproduces the human form, as it appears in a human being, in a sculptural work of art. Many years ago, I had a strange experience with a friend who became a sculptor. He told me back then—we were both very young—: “Look, you see, one should actually create the true work of sculptural art by precisely replicating every single contour of the surface.”—I must admit that this statement made me absolutely furious, for it seemed to me that this approach could result in the most abominable kind of artistic achievement. For in any case, if one wants to carve out of stone or wood that which a human being possesses as form—that which the Higher Being has used to extinguish life within him—without this inner life, then one must bring it to life oneself; the surface must be called upon to express what it can never express in the outward, natural human being.

[ 13 ] One will find, for example, that if one bends a surface and then bends it again, so that the bend is itself bent, one has the simplest primordial phenomenon of inner life. A surface bent in this way—so that the bend is itself bent—can be used in the most diverse ways, and—though this, of course, must be further developed—the inner life of the two-dimensional will emerge from the very nature of the surface itself. These things testify to us that there is a relationship between external nature and the human inner life that, in truth, has the character of the sensory-supersensory. It is precisely through our encounter with external nature that we arrive at the formation of thought, because this external nature kills off—through a higher power—that which otherwise exists as elements within nature and holds a higher spiritual life in a state of enchantment. This compels us to grasp this killed-off life through sober thought. If we avoid this pale form of thought and instead set out to grasp that which lies enchanted within the parts of nature—and in doing so carry out the process of assembling it and imparting higher life to it ourselves—then we undergo the process of artistic creation or that of artistic appreciation. The relationship between the two is simply this: what comes later in one is what comes earlier in the other, and what comes earlier in the other is what comes later in the first. If one follows this line of thought—which is directed toward the intense infinity of nature and the possibility of demystifying nature’s secrets—to see what it represents in the inner life of the human soul, then one must say: This does not give rise to a pale world of thought. What is demystified in this way is brighter than what mere thought can grasp. Yet it establishes a connection between the external object and the human soul in which thought is set aside, and in which, nevertheless, a spiritual relationship between the human being and the object is sought.

[ 14 ] Of course, this can go further, and that leads to what may still seem quite absurd or even horrifying to some people today. One can understand that; but what initially seemed horrifying to people has, after they had become accustomed to it for some time, come to seem perfectly natural to them. If you observe a human being—you need only look at the structure of their skeleton—even a very superficial examination will lead you to the conclusion that the skeleton clearly consists of two distinctly different parts—we will not consider the other one today—namely, the skull, which is, so to speak, merely “attached,” and the rest of the skeleton. For anyone with a sense of form, it now becomes clear—not through any anatomical analysis, but through an intuitive observation of the skull and the body skeleton—that one is the metamorphosis of the other; that one can conceive of the main bones in such a way that wherever there is a bump, it can grow out, and conversely, wherever there is a protrusion, it can recede. Through mere transformation—through a change in form—one can indeed cause the head skeleton to emerge from the rest of the skeleton and, to a high degree, the rest of the skeleton to emerge from the head skeleton. So that one can say: The whole human being is enchanted within the head. Even when one encounters a skeleton without a head, one will be tempted—if one does not wish to remain stuck at the level of sensory perception—to supplement this skeleton with a head through a combination of the sensory and supersensory; one will be tempted to let the vision of the head emerge from the skeleton. There are people who do not have a mental image of this. But it is impossible for a human torso skeleton to arise in nature in any way without a head skeleton. For those who approach nature not merely as a mental image but in such a way that they carry the essence of nature within their own sensibility and cannot perceive the natural object any other way than it must be, it goes without saying that the skull also appears to them from the body skeleton as if in a vision. But for those who see through these things, it is nevertheless the case that if they have only the head and then, as if through a vision, complete the whole human being from it, this human being becomes different than if, conversely, they were to complete the other part. It is similar and yet, in turn, different. So that one can say here as well: In nature out there, a wholeness is created within the human being, which consists in the division into the head and the rest of the organism; but each individual wants to be a whole human being. Within a higher whole, the life that is enchanted within each individual as a whole human being is extinguished. If one sets aside the thought that arises when one encounters a human being, then one finds oneself compelled to recreate from within oneself what one takes away from the human being by analyzing them. And in this way, one creatively recreates nature, just as nature itself does. One brings about this infinitely intense, significant process of unifying that which must first be killed in its parts in order to reappear on a higher level. And, of course, it becomes something different when one recreates it in the mind.

[ 15 ] I believe that the mental image alone evokes a certain sense of dread. In Dornach, in our building, we made an attempt—one can make attempts in all areas; it can never be a matter of trying to restrict art through any kind of dogma— with a group intended to be carved in wood—it is important that it be carved in wood; this cannot be done in stone—first, to reunite in a central figure, on a higher level, that which is also united in human beings, but united by nature, where the limb-like is overcome by something higher. Every human being is asymmetrical. But what the left side wills is something entirely different from what the right side wills; one can sense it: then two human beings stand before us, the left-side human and the right-side human. That which is specialized in the left-side and right-side human is united in nature into a higher unity, in that the self-willed nature of the limbs is subdued. To the artistic gaze that confronts the will of nature, the complete form of the left-side human and the right-side human, so to speak, emerges once more. Both essentially want something different, and the artist must—though this may remain largely in the subconscious—relive the process that nature carries out on another level by subduing the left-hand person and the right-hand person and balancing them within the whole human being. If one now truly creates an artistic form in which the shape itself suggests that the human being is an asymmetrical being, then something else must be added. The sensuous-supersensuous, when perceived, compels one to actually bring forth what is necessary as other elements. Therefore, we were compelled to create other forms. We were compelled to balance the separation and subsequent reunification of the left and right aspects of the human being by hinting at the other two opposites. What lives within the human being as a vision when one imagines the torso-human visionarily supplemented to form the whole human being? — One would then have living in the outer form what rises from the torso to the head as drives and instincts—what one might call the Luciferic. One will want to shape this Luciferic in a different way than nature has done: For example, one would transform the shoulder blades into wings; then one would again be tempted to bring together what nature constricts—these wings—with the form of the ear and the head. Something different will emerge from these sensory-supersensory human limbs than an ordinary natural human being, but it will represent a certain aspect of the human being that one should not depict in isolation. It would be dreadful if someone were to present such a thing as a figure in and of itself, but when placed alongside the human being and integrated into the proper composition with the human figure, it can be arranged in such a way as to imitate nature’s compositional power. Conversely, one must likewise recreate that which, within the human head, seeks to become a whole human being. What seeks to become a whole human being within the human head becomes ossified and hardened when it is developed into a whole human being. This is what we must continually overcome within ourselves—and what we actually do overcome—by combining the impulses we carry within us through our head with those that, arising from the rest of the organism, keep this hardening process fresh. We must overcome what is the head through that which originates from the blood of the heart organism. Here, the sensory-supersensory constitution of the human being offers the possibility of recreating, in separate forms, what is composed by nature itself in a hidden way on another level within the individual human form.

[ 16 ] It actually becomes what one might call a post-creative process—a process within the human soul—something that not only imitates nature in an abstract, external way, but also continues the unfolding of nature within the human being himself. This presupposes that, in a very complex way—one that remains solely in the subconscious, since conscious thought is suspended—the artist and the person who takes artistic pleasure actually face both nature and themselves. That is, of course, understandable. It must be said: Psychologically, we are engaged in a complex process with regard to what is to become art. If someone simply wanted to depict a beautiful woman, by merely imitating what nature provides, he would inwardly kill this woman. He would portray her as dead. She would not come alive in his work, precisely if he depicted her very faithfully. One must first be able to transform her into a corpse, but then, through what is genuine, true humor, recreate her beauty from an entirely different element. Without—to speak figuratively—killing a beautiful woman in the picture—one must, so to speak, beat her up or something like that, first transforming her somehow into something dead—one cannot paint her properly. Her beauty exists in nature in a form entirely different from how it must exist in the finished work of art. One must first discover, through humor, what it is that is actually being killed that gives rise to something new. One might say: When sitting across from a serious scholar, depicting him is, at first, actually a comedy; one might be tempted to laugh at his serious expression. But one will not have artistically finished with the serious scholar’s face until one has, in a humorous way, brought it to life again through something else. One will have to make it endearing again and will then be able to understand it from an entirely different perspective.

[ 17 ] The point, then, is to resurrect through one’s own subjective life that which has been killed in nature—to demystify it, to redeem it. If I observe a lively young farmer walking across an alpine pasture and simply imitate him, I will likely create something very lifeless; but if I make an effort, as it were, to first “kill” him and, through certain lines, bring about a harmony between him and the surrounding nature, then I will be able to create something artistic. Hodler attempted such things, and we can see that the subconscious strives for something similar everywhere, which has also led to artistic discussion about what one might call, on the one hand, the creation of a counter-image for the unfinished vision, and on the other hand, the creation of a subjective counter-image through that which is enchanted in nature and is always brought to life by a higher existence. In this way, the sensual and the supersensual approach the human being from two sides, and through this, the human being can attempt to elevate them in art to a higher, new form of existence.

[ 18 ] In my earlier lecture on the same topic, I attempted to link the ideas I have developed here before you—to illustrate how the sensory and the supersensory can be realized through art—to certain ideas of Goethe’s. I was criticized for this, and I now realize that it would have been possible to do so without referring to Goethe. One is often criticized for just such things, especially when one draws on Goethe, because people who believe they are particularly close to Goethe—when they repeat something of his that they do not understand—think they can pass judgment on others who have made an effort to delve into the matter. These things are understandable; it is a natural process in human life, and one should actually be quite pleased at times when what one says receives such a judgment. One might even take the view that if it had received a different, approving judgment, one must have said something quite superfluous or foolish. So what I was able to avoid, I would at least like to bring up at the end. I actually believe that anyone who approaches Goethe with understanding will find in Goethe’s broad-minded and discerning view of art—albeit expressed in a different way—what is today asserted as the sensual-supernatural element in art. Even the expression itself is borrowed from Goethe. And I believe—although I am certainly of the opinion that, in a certain sense, it is true that those to whom art reveals its secrets have a rather pronounced aversion to engaging in intellectual criticism of art or in an aesthetic-scientific analysis— I believe that art can only be discussed from the standpoint of life, that art is actually discussed most accurately when one listens to the artists themselves. Admittedly, this sometimes leads to curious experiences. As a rule, artists rail terribly against what other artists produce, and while one may take pleasure in the artists’ works, one sometimes does not take pleasure in what the artists say about their works, because they occasionally harbor illusions about their own creations. But the artist must, after all, create out of illusions, and it is precisely this that might be right—that which provides the proper impulse for his artistic creation. Even though I fully acknowledge all of this, and even though I certainly understand from a certain perspective that the artist is indeed always rather aloof toward anything that approaches him in a sycophantic manner—whether from an aesthetic-scientific or other point of view—I still do not believe that it is entirely unnecessary to form mental images of art based on one’s own sensibilities. I believe that art must always progress in step with the general advancement of spiritual life. I believe that it is precisely through the contemplation of the sensory-supersensory—as it takes shape through sustained vision, as it confronts us from external nature when we demystify what is enchanted within it—that art solves the mysteries of nature in a sensory-supersensory way. And so, in conclusion, I would like to quote this beautiful, worldly saying by Goethe as a summary of today’s reflections: “To whom nature begins to reveal her manifest secret, there arises an irresistible longing for her most worthy interpreter, art.”