Supplements to Member Lectures

GA 246 — 22 August 1911, Munich

45. Matinee Lecture on the Exhibition of Paintings by Maria Strakosch-Giesler

My dear theosophical friends!

Today I would just like to say a few words to you! These conversations outside the actual cycle, such as this morning's [one], give us the opportunity, especially in such lecture cycles as the present one, for myself, so to speak, to speak to you in a somewhat different way than in the cycle. In the course of our theosophical work we have gradually come to the point where more intimate and higher areas of spiritual science have to be dealt with in our lecture cycles, and in such areas as the present one on “World Wonders, Soul Tests and Spiritual Revelations” it is necessary that every word that is spoken is examined in the most precise way to see whether it can be justified in relation to the sources of our spiritual science, those sources that we call the masters of wisdom and the harmony of sensations. For only under such conditions can what is to be said gradually lose the personal, the more individual moment. Such a matinee may give cause to say and deal with something of this individuality, which should also flow into our theosophical life, of that which is more human - since the lectures bring something more general. And here I would first like to draw your attention, my dear theosophical friends, to the pictures you will find of our dear member, Mrs. Strakosch, in one of our lecture rooms here. I would like to draw your attention to these pictures for the very reason that it must certainly be the intention in the course of time to penetrate more and more the artistic - and also the other life elements of all life, in other words - by spiritual science. In all this endeavor - as I was already able to say in the first lecture - we must be well aware that today we are naturally at the beginning with all such undertakings, and that the certainty and correctness of the will is what is important, not, for example, the words that are commonly used when someone says that he has done something that he did not want: I willed the best. - This is not how the will is meant, but in such a way that this will truly wants to include within itself the certainty that can give the seeds for something much more expansive that can happen in the future. I say this, of course, because I am aware that there are many objections to such artistic endeavors, which I would like to draw your attention to right now, from many different points of view. However, we must become accustomed through Theosophy to the fact that in the rise of the spiritual life of an epoch we must see precisely that which carries within it the germs of a future development; for it is so, as it is said at one point in the “Examination of the Soul”, in a certain respect it is so in all times that the corresponding elements in the world develop and die off and, dying off, will already see the new in themselves. It is then up to man to understand this newness.

When we look at the artistic development of humanity, we may perhaps be reminded of a wonderful quote from Schiller that was often quoted in Germany during the nineteenth century. Now, however, this quotation has become much rarer, because the belief in and memory of the idealism to which Schiller and Goethe aspired has more or less been fading for decades. This word, which succinctly expresses something tremendously significant for the development of art, means that the true artistic secret of the master lies in the conquest of the material by the form. - And you can see out in the world today how all the conditions for understanding such a word are actually missing. When we talk about this or that work of art here or there, how easily the question arises: Is what is being depicted really good and similar? - In the sense of Schiller's words, this would mean: Has the material that is to be embodied in the work of art been paid homage to as much as possible? Has the material overwhelmed the artist as much as possible? - Schiller, however, says: The true artistic secret of the master lies in the conquest of the material by the form.

Now, one might say, art is actually in a good place, since its true secret can never be lost in the world. For in one art there can never be merely a slavish processing of the material - our modern naturalism would certainly undertake this slavish processing of the material if it were possible in this art; but it is not possible there - that is music. And one would like to say: Thank God that people today do not hear the sources singing or sounding in rhythms as people did in ancient times; for they would simply slavishly imitate what they perceive externally in terms of material, as they so readily do in other arts; they would not strive at all to conquer the material through form. That, my dear theosophical friends, which is just impossible in musical art, is in a certain respect a basic element of all other art. Basically, the mission and task of art can never consist in the reproduction of that which surrounds us outwardly in material form. That is why in the Rosicrucian Mystery the words were spoken by the one personality of the prelude that the most imperfect shaping of that which is not yet present in nature is basically in a certain way higher than the most perfect reproduction of that which has already been put into the world for man through nature by divine-spiritual entities. In art, man has, as it were, when he really feels artistically, the impulse to go back to an element that cannot be described in any other way [than with the words:] Man imbues himself in art with the same creative, productive power with which the divine-spiritual entities were imbued when they themselves placed the working of nature into our world. The turning of the eye, the turning of the senses to what is there, to what has become through the productivity of the divine-spiritual entities, cannot be true art in the true sense of the word. But when man himself is able to immerse himself in the original productive power that was inherent in the gods when they brought forth what surrounds us in nature, then man also finds in himself something similar to what the gods perceived as productive in themselves.

There we find one thing right away: today we look around in the world, find the individual surfaces of objects, their colors speak to us. Through spiritual science we hear that matter, even at its closest level, is a maya, an illusion, and that in truth matter, as it spreads outside in space, is condensed light. We must therefore assume that the gods, who were originally imbued with their productive power, condensed within themselves the elemental power of light that sprays through the expanses of space. Even the densest substances outside are not what physicists and chemists talk about, but are condensed, consolidated light. And the ground we tread on - no matter how solid it may be - is condensed from the elements of the world, consolidated by the gods. In the German language we have a good word, the sounds of which have unfortunately already been forgotten due to its inartistic meaning, and that is the obvious word “dichten” and “Dichtung”. And it is not for nothing that we say: poetry is written. When poetry is written, when poetry is practiced, then what the gods formed outside in the world actually happens through the powers of our souls by writing poetry out of light and hardening material substances and the solid ground beneath our feet. And such words, which are closely related to words that exist among us, must first be brought up again from the vocabulary. Language, through its great, powerful genius, has made us use the word “poet” because it really means something for the soul, as it means, for example, when the word “poet” is used in the second Rosicrucian Mystery, where it is said that the world spirits composed nature out of light. We must feel something like this when the musical artist allows the world of tones to rule within him, that world of tones in which he cannot directly imitate the outside world, but where he must practise, completely in the ruling divine element in his own soul, so that tone joins tone. Just as the tones work in the musical artist, so can the colors work in the painterly artist, and a painterly art is conceivable which attempts to reproduce in the first elements that creative activity which we can only imagine by learning to think how the world of the gods crystallizes and hardens our material world out of the light. Read the words that Ahriman says in the Mystery; there you will find in such an expression as “in dense light” or “I harden solid ground” just the indications of that in which Ahriman is in his way the helper of the higher spiritual powers. Precisely in such passages where “dense light” or “the hardness of the ground” is spoken of, you should not imagine that some kind of word of embarrassment is being used, but rather that one is pointing to world secrets and that one does not go too far when one interprets such words in the most literal way possible. We must look for sounds and [we must try to bring out the almost lost relationships in our language, to make language something different again from what it often is today. But then the feeling must arise in us that there is something similar to color effects, to sound effects in the sounds of language and that we must understand how to handle language in a much freer way than in the slavish way that is usually based on people's realistic feelings today. That is why we are striving more and more and must be happy to have found an understanding helper in Fräulein von Eckardtstein, so that our stage sets look like this, where our painters also follow us quite understandingly, so that the stage sets look like this, so that no consideration is given to the question: What looks good on one or the other? What suits this or that face? What does this or that person like? Rather, that the entire stage design in its colors and forms expresses something through which one can, as it were, look through and enjoy with peace of mind something like Strader, as he sits in front of the painting of Capesius, [and feels] that a true work of art only stands before us when all materiality is conquered. - The master's true artistic secret lives in the conquest of matter by form! - Therefore, every work of art should actually evoke the feeling in us: When I stand in front of this work of art and look at it, the material dissolves, becomes misty, dissolves, disappears, and a magical spiritual effect takes its place. When the work of art disintegrates before us, it fulfills Schiller's words: In the conquest of matter by form lies the true artistic secret of the master. - And form is an unpretentious word for spirit. The true secret of the master's art lies in the conquest of the material by the spirit!

Out of the nature of color itself, our friend, Mrs. Strakosch, now seeks to create something that you naturally cannot find here and there in the physical world, so that we must say: We are to be guided by these pictures, which we may now find one way or another, to the possibilities of painterly art, [to] the colors, which after all carry a longing to be absorbed by the human soul and to become conscious in it, to let the colors creatively shape themselves in us in such a way as one or the other poses itself to harmony or discord; the creative glows of color, which also permeate the human being according to the [astral plan] in the devachan, where they still present themselves as they are the creative powers of the entities, they should penetrate the soul, should resonate together like the tones of music. Then they present us with something picturesque that we cannot find outside.

Today such a will is indeed faced with the most difficult obstacle, and it is almost not yet possible to create anything meaningful today in such a way that it can already give a mental image of what is actually to become on this path. But we can gain an understanding on theosophical ground of what is to become - I say. There is, however, a point that I have already touched on several times in relation to other things. In this area, too, we see that the current towards spirituality, which has just been characterized, is most stubbornly opposed by what is called practical life and which is in reality the most impractical. The practitioners go around outside, talk about the practice of life, talk about being the real practitioners, regard the others as fantasists, as impractical people who are not capable of anything in life. How can the external practice of life still be considered practical today? Through thoughtlessness that does not think about how things should be! Just look at how impractical every hat, every skirt, every table is that is given to us by brutal practice! And it is only because one accepts the most impractical, nonsensical things, to which one adapts one's habits of life, because one thoughtlessly confronts the practice of life, which has become the most impractical thing one can think of, the most dreamlike thing, only because one thoughtlessly confronts it, that it can still be valid today, even among those who are already better able to see what impractical people think up. And anyone will be able to make a table better than today's so-called practitioners, who are really impractical. But we face this world, we need its things. And the way we have to use them becomes very important to us when we see the subtlety of art, what has to be wanted on the ground of spiritual life, when we see that directly touching on what practice gives us. And that is why it is difficult and why there are such obstacles for those who want something like that, as I have indicated, for example, in painting. There we are offered completely useless colors. The painter has to have them made by the manufacturers. But there is nothing at all to be done with these colors; when we look into the real world of colors, when we have an idea of higher worlds, these colors look like embodied brutality. And if we try to juxtapose the colors - let's say - of human skin and those of the painted human body, then the execution is almost a mockery of what one can want, even through the external color technique.

Therefore, for the kind of art that has now been indicated to you in the tendency, it will above all be necessary for an emancipation to take place, an emancipation in art from the fabrication of colors. The painter must make his own colors. Painterly art must begin with the painter being able to make his own colors, so that he does not feel dependent on the most elementary things offered to him by the materialistic outside world. You know that this ideal is fulfilled by the old painters. Thus what has been indicated to you as an initial desire will arise when the painters learn, when the other artists also learn, to emancipate themselves from the materialistic world. Today it is felt as the deepest pain towards what could happen out of the preparation of colors, when one has to see that even those who want to create such works of art as we see hanging in the anteroom have to go to some paint store and buy the colors there. With such colors, which do not emphasize the insight into the fact, not the true practice, but the fantastic unpractice, nothing at all can be done in true light and color art. So you see, my dear theosophical friends, that we can indeed learn a great deal about our time if we turn our gaze to that which confronts us as the beginning and which wants to be born out of the theosophical spirit, which is the true life-practice of the future, but that we can only learn a great deal if we really transfer this theosophy into our lives. It would perhaps be more convenient to simply have everything we need for our stage sets done by craftsmen; but it would be as impractical as possible. Only by Theosophists can it turn out in such a way that one can gradually get a mental image of what is actually the will in the artistic field that is glowing with Theosophy.

Therefore I ask you to look at the pictures outside with the eyes of a Theosophist, to look at them in such a way that in their production the colors that one buys still had to be used, and that what is so beautifully intended in them is the beginning of an artistic activity that will have to begin to form the colors out of the original components of nature itself. Painterly art must begin with the mixture of colors, must feel how one color flows into another, how the pigment can reproduce the transparency of real color. You can only do that if you make the colors yourself. Then you will see how few colors you need to evoke all possible nuances. There is something barbaric about working with a very large number of colors on the palette today. If a painter were to begin his art by mixing his colors, then he would be able to bring about the interplay of colors in a different way from the few basic colors he needs; but only then will it be possible to conjure up something before our eyes that is an echo of what the gods create in nature. That is why matter can only be conquered by form if something like this is asserted right down to the art of portraiture. Painting artists do not have it as easy as the others. The other artists use the means that are to a certain extent available outside, but that is precisely where the temptation lies to imitate these external means, whereas for the real artist they are nothing other than a means of freeing himself from imitating nature. Then, when one learns to really recognize in the nature of pigment the nature of transparency in color, one will discover something of a very profound importance that penetrates into artistic secrets.

There is a nuance of color in nature among the wonders of nature which in a mysterious, mysterious way has secreted within itself all the other nuances of color of the one spiritual pole of color. And this color is the color of the human body. The secret of this color nuance will only be discovered again when such an ideal can be fulfilled as has been mentioned today. For those who have an idea of these things - not for the intellect, but for the artistic sensibility - will find in by far the greatest number of portraits today - I will say out of politeness - that people do not look like people at all in a color that the human body really has, but as if one had painted a wooden figure. Among these flesh colors of the skin is not human flesh, [but] wood or some other substance, of which an improper expression is that which ultimately wants to present itself as the real color of the human being. If one wants to understand something like this, then one must delve into the mystery of the effect of color, into that mystery which must first try to learn to recognize in itself the purely transparent color to be held in the higher worlds; then to fathom the mystery of how Ahriman works in the dense light, in order to really discover in the [pigment color] that which is placed before us externally.

In order to become practical, it is above all necessary to emancipate oneself from what is today called practice, to realize that all this is the opposite of all real practice and can only exist as practice because it cannot be brought to the man through its goodness and practicality, but through the fact that there is nothing else and simply defines it as practical and talks people into it, while those who can feel the fact have a hard time getting past a table at all or sitting at one as it is delivered to us today. We just have to bear it with resignation.

In this sense that I have characterized for you today - you know I only want to characterize - consider the pictures that have been hung up in front of you this time as a beginning to the fact that we want to make more and more attempts to show how Theosophy can integrate itself into all real life. However, if Theosophy is to integrate itself into all real life, it must bring to light the original secrets of becoming human that have been lost. Some discomfort will be connected with this - it will not be comfortable to prepare the colors yourself - but only when you realize this and extend it to many other things will you see how Theosophy must permeate our lives in a practical sense.

Look with such eyes at what is first being attempted in this present time in a direction that lies in our spiritual science, and from this point of view immerse yourself in the pictures that we have spread out before your eyes today to indicate our great goals in this respect as well.