19. On the Comic and its Connection with Art and Life
GA 271
Few of the fundamental aesthetic ideas have suffered more at the hands of the erroneous premises of German aesthetics than that of the “comic.” If, as German aestheticians do, you explain beauty by the idea (the divine) appearing in a sensual image, then insurmountable difficulties arise when it comes to defining the comic. For under this assumption, we have to distinguish two things in the art product (in the beautiful object): firstly, the sensual image, the material product made of marble, color, sound, words, and so on, and secondly, the idea that is brought to view through this image. Three cases can now arise: 1) The idea and the vivid image can be perfectly congruent, so that the idea is not too lofty, too spiritual, too sublime to be represented by this image, and the image can be worthy, significant, appropriate to the idea in the same way. In this case, there is perfect harmony between the idea and the perception; neither dominates the other, each is the equal of the other. Nowhere do we feel that something is missing, nowhere that something is lacking. When this occurs, German aestheticians believe that we are dealing with the “simply beautiful,” with the “beautiful in itself.” II.) it may happen that the idea appears more significant, greater than the perception, that it towers above it, goes beyond it, so that the perception appears too insignificant, small, inadequate to grasp the divine (the idea) in its full scope. The vessel is then not large enough to hold the content (the idea). While in the presence of the “simply beautiful” we feel satisfaction at the harmony between the divine (the ideal) and the earthly (the real), here we must stand in awe before the greatness of the idea, which seems so immense that we cannot find a picture adequate to it. In this case we are dealing with the sublime. III.) Now only the opposite case is possible; namely, that the image (the view) appears greater, more significant, more powerful than the idea. While in the [second] case the idea disturbs the harmony by its size, here the disharmony is due to the predominance of the sensory image. The latter imposes itself, rebels against the idea, revolts against the divine. Consequently, one can only find the ugly in this. If we now consider that the tragic is only a special case of the sublime, we find that the four concepts – beautiful, sublime, tragic, ugly – exhaust the inventory of aesthetics, with no room for the comic. For it is easy to see that a fourth case, distinct from the three listed, is no longer possible.
The situation is quite different if we take as our starting point the idea of beauty that I have put forward (Goethe as the Father of a New Aesthetic). Art can never, ever have the task of representing the idea itself. That is the task of science. If the basic ideas of German aesthetics are correct, then in terms of content there is actually no difference between science and art. The latter would only have to present in a vivid form what the former expresses through words (thoughts). This simple consideration proves that art must have a completely different task. And this is the opposite of that of science. If science has to present the divine in the form of direct thinking, as it hovers over the sensual, in pure ideal form, then art has to lift the sensual, the vivid, the pictorial into the sphere of the divine. When we stand face to face with nature, with reality, we find it neither divine nor un-divine, neither full of ideas nor empty of ideas, but simply indifferent to divinity, to the idea. The thinker looks through this indifferent shell and sees the idea in the form of the thought. But for this purpose he must leap over immediate reality, must look through and beyond it. He who stops at mere reality cannot arrive at the idea. The artist approaches reality in a different way. He does not transcend reality, he lovingly takes it up, indeed he experiences and weaves in the sensual, material, real. What he represents are objects of direct nature, of real existence. In the creations of art, we do not encounter anything in terms of content (the “what”) that we cannot also find in nature. The artist only changes the form (the “how”). He presents objects of reality, but differently than we find them in the real world. He presents them as if they were as necessary, as full of law, as divine as the idea. In terms of content, art has to do with the sensual; in terms of form, with the ideal. If science presents the idea in terms of content and form, and nature presents the sensual in terms of form and content, then a new realm emerges with art: the realm of the sensual in the guise of the divine. If someone were to claim that it is also possible for someone to present the divine in the guise of the sensual, this is refuted by the fact that no one can have an interest in such a task. For one can certainly have the need to lift up what is lower and less valuable into the realm of what is higher and more valuable, but not to lift it up into the opposite. It is precisely from the dissatisfaction with reality in its very own form that the longing arises to make it divine. But why should one want to bring the divine, which in itself already grants the highest satisfaction, into another form?
The realm of the non-unified sensual is reality; the realm of the non-sensual ideal is science; that of the sensual-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 thoughts; we find the third nowhere ready-made; we have to create it ourselves. If the realm of nature is a sensual reality and the realm of science is a purely intellectual one, the realm of art has no reality at all. Therefore, the sphere of art products is called that of aesthetic appearance.
Aesthetic appearance is the sensuality that has been made divine by the creative human spirit.
Now we must digress into subjective territory and examine the basic mood of the personality from which the longing for art and for the enjoyment of art arises. All higher striving of man is a striving for freedom. To rule freely over the instincts of nature, freely over the laws of sensuality, freely over passions and human statutes, that is the way and goal of the better man. To succumb less and less to what nature demands and to follow more and more what the spirit has recognized as an idea, that is what frees the spirit. Freedom is the domination of the spirit over nature, of the idea over reality. What I accomplish according to the laws of nature, I must do, just as a raindrop must fall to the earth according to an immutable law. If I act only out of such natural impulses, then I am not a 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 act, who accomplish something. At the same time, there is the fact that I know which light I am following, that I have the object at which my actions are aimed in a pure, transparent form in my mind. I do not follow for the sake of my individuality, but for the sake of the recognized object. Such action, although it truly arises only from the self, is completely selfless. For it is not done by the self for the sake of the self. Such an action is an action of love, that is, one that arises out of the full surrender of the self to the object. Thus, when understood at the deepest level, truly free actions are only those of love.
The artist's creations are now (among other things) such actions of love. For he seeks to overcome sensual reality by spiritualizing it. He wants to conjure up a work before our senses that, for all its sensuality, is not permeated by natural laws but by spiritual laws. Whatever is natural about the object should be stripped away, overcome and presented as if it were divine. Art is an ongoing process of liberation for the human spirit and at the same time an educator of humanity to act out of love. Those who are able to look into the full depth of a truly great work of art will feel it, that lofty upward pull that makes us forget space and time and our own personality for the duration of the contemplation and lose ourselves completely in the object we are looking at. Only those who know full, pure, unclouded love can fully understand this self-forgetful gaze. Those who do not know true love will always remain alien to true art.
If we now have to assume that in a work of art the human spirit divinizes the material, then it will depend on the spiritual faculty that it employs in the process to which genre the work of art belongs. We must keep in mind that what our spirit comes to last of all is the first and supreme in the world. The unity of ideas, the primal principle of things, certainly precedes all things in the world. But in our spiritual striving, we come to this primal principle last. The first thing we encounter in the world is the infinite variety of sensual things, which are in truth the final emanation of the primal principle. The senses perceive this diversity, the mind organizes and compares them, thereby forming concepts, and reason then sees the inner unity in this multiplicity. Sensuality, understanding and reason are the three faculties through which we comprehend the universe. Sensuality brings us nature stripped of spirit, understanding brings us the multiplicity of concepts, and reason brings us the divine idea that reigns over all.
If we now go one step further on the basis of our explanation of the beautiful, we must ask ourselves to what extent the sensible material can be reworked by the artist, given the above three abilities?
First of all, it is clear that the senses cannot undertake any reworking at all, because their task is to grasp reality as faithfully, as unchanged as possible. The intellect, which forms concepts of individual things, is already dealing with the spiritual. Although it still has a multiplicity, it is one that has been lifted out of sensuality. It is thus already possible for understanding to spiritualize nature. This hardly needs to be said of reason, for it grasps the quintessence of all spiritual reality. From this it follows directly: the artist can transform the material of immediate reality in such a way that it appears in a form as if it were permeated either by understanding or by reason itself. Art is therefore concerned with works: 1) that correspond in content to the life of reality and in form to the rational order of things; 2) and those that correspond in content to this real life but in form to the rational order and unity of the world.
When the artist, following the course of reason, transforms reality, we are filled with such great satisfaction by his works because he presents the things that came from his hand as if they had emerged directly from the original principle itself. Through the work, which is glowing with divine unity, the artist brings us closer to the spirit of the world. That is why Goethe, when he saw the works of Greek art, exclaimed in admiration: “There is necessity, there is God; it is as if these eternal things were conjured forth by creative nature itself.”
Thus, we see no contradiction in the aesthetic appearance that the work of art provides us with, but only with the depths of reality, only with its surface. It is precisely a higher reality that art presents to us.
But how does this relate when the artist does not allow reason but understanding to prevail in him when transforming reality?
Understanding is something between sense perception and reason. It moves away from the former and does not reach the latter. It no longer has the superficial truth that lies in a simple copy of sensory reality, but it also does not yet have the truth that lies in the depths of the rational view. The concept that the mind forms of the individual thing is in fact the most unreal thing in the world. For in the order of the world there is no single thing by itself; everything is necessarily grounded in the context and flow of things. He who does not have the whole in mind and measures the individual thing by it can never know the truth. I can form a concept of an individual thing in an understanding way: Truth is not in this concept as long as the light of reason does not illuminate it. If I form two concepts, they may be in an inner unity in the depths of the world order, but the intellect has only the individual concepts, which in this separateness do not have to agree at all, but go side by side.
The things perceived by the senses, which the human mind thus transforms as if they were permeated by understanding, will thus stand in stark contradiction to any reality. Of course, the mind itself does not notice the incongruity of its concepts because it allows them to stand as separate entities. But when they appear in this inner contradiction side by side in an object, then the same immediately comes to the fore. I can form a concept of a person's mind intellectually. For example, I imagine the mind to be exalted and great. Alongside this, I also form a concept of his outward appearance. This is small, inconspicuous, awkward, perhaps clumsy. I can think of these two concepts quite well side by side. But when they come to me in the flesh, united in one person on the stage, then I perceive the contradiction with what is possible according to natural law.
How large I imagine a person's head is completely irrelevant; as long as I do not go beyond the head. But if I put together a large head with a small body and present this together in a real picture, I perceive the contradiction to what is possible.
The realization of such a contradiction between a created object and its inner possibility causes in us the sensation of the comic.
The comic is therefore a reality in the form of an intellectual contradiction. The “what” is sensuality, the “how” is intellect with its content not grounded in the nature of the whole.
Wherever you examine something as being funny, you will find that what the creative human being has made out of his material contradicts the deeper, inner nature, the fundamental laws of being. And whoever is able to see through this contradiction perceives it as being funny.
The liberating effect that lies in laughing at a comical object is based on the fact that the person who sees the contradiction feels superior to the object; he believes he understands the matter better than it appears before him in the presentation. Those who do not see the contradiction also miss out on the effect of the comic. Therefore, one and the same object can appear comical to one person but not to another. Those who have no understanding of the contradiction also have no understanding of comedy. Of course, it may happen that the perception of such a contradiction even puts us in a gloomy mood. But then we also look at the matter differently. We no longer look at the intellectual contradiction, but at the disharmony between the individual and the whole. But this already has its basis in a rational view. And here the comedy stops. This is particularly the case when we perceive something incongruous in nature itself, for example, something deformed or crippled. Here we no longer understand the individual parts rationally, but we see the contrast between what has become and what should and could have become, and this leads us deeper than a mere rational understanding.
This is why there is actually little that is directly comical in nature itself. The comic is mostly man-made.
In presenting the comic, man may even have the direct intention of achieving through the pictorial, the demonstrative, that which cannot be achieved by the presentation of mere, contradictory concepts: to lead to the recognition of the contradiction. What does not make the necessary impression in thought is done by the visual presentation. This is the purpose of irony, of comic satire. Parody and travesty also aim to ridicule the paradox of the one by juxtaposing the opposite.
It is in the nature of the comic that it finds a far larger circle of connoisseurs than the other art forms. For man needs only grasp the contradictory details with the mind; the contemplation of the contradiction itself provides him with the image, the representation. It is not necessary here to elevate it to the level of rational contemplation.
Furthermore, it is also in the nature of the comic that it serves excellently to demonstrate human folly. After all, folly consists in taking the wrong, the contradictory, for reality. If the fool's delusions were presented to him externally in a vivid way, he might be more easily convinced of his folly than in any other way.
The serious artist who does not create from the whole, but instead assembles his work from individual parts, can easily inadvertently create something comic. Likewise, we present ourselves as a comic object to our fellow human beings when we commit acts in which nothing but the contradiction we are experiencing comes to light for the audience.
The effect of the comic always depends, of course, on how far the observer is above the comic object, that is, in other words, to what extent he is able to grasp the contradiction in its full depth. To the wise man, for example, it will seem comical when he sees so many people striving, cherishing and worshiping something in life that does not seem worthy of cherishing or worshiping to him. From what has been said earlier, it is clear that he can only remain with the impression of the comical as long as he stops at grasping the contradiction with his mind. If he penetrates deeper and considers the effort that mankind puts into empty vanity, then he must, of course, take the matter more seriously.
On the other hand, many things will make a comical impression on the fool that will not make the wise laugh at all. If the latter regards a thing only from its outward appearance and does not see its inner depth, he may well laugh at the contradictions of this surface. Precisely what better-laid natures do is so often laughed at, because it is not understood, but the contradiction is seen in which these actions stand with what is ordinary in life.
Those who have a sense for finding contradictions in life and for linking together what is contradictory, only to be brought together artificially by the mind, will be particularly suited to depict the comic. The joke is nothing more than the play of the mind, which seeks out similarities in things that are very far apart and, by juxtaposing them, creates an obvious contradiction.
The effect of the comic also depends on the degree to which the contradiction outweighs the harmony, which is always present, even if it is slight. The realm of the comic also excludes anything that is completely alien. We can say that the comic corresponds to understanding, but it contradicts both sensuality and reason.
Those who perceive the contradiction but mistake understanding for reason, and instead of laughing are saddened by the disharmony, have no sense of humor. They will see only contradictions everywhere and mistake them for the “one and only” of the world. This leads to the melancholic mood. On the other hand, anyone who is convinced that reason prevails behind understanding, and that inner, higher unity prevails behind contradiction, can laugh at the disharmony. Indeed, they can even go so far as to believe that where there is contradiction, only understanding is at play; when viewed rationally and more deeply, one always arrives at harmony. Such a person lives in the belief that contradiction is always superficial, never deep; he therefore always takes it lightly; as something that frees life from uniformity and monotony, but which immediately disappears when one penetrates deeper. This person laughs at the contradictory and becomes serious about the divine harmony of things. In him we find the basic tenor of humor.
A third case is also possible. A person may have an organ for perceiving contradictions, but none for perceiving unity and ideality. Such a person can understand what is perverse, petty, and unreasonable, but this understanding is not supported by a sense of depth. This person can laugh, but cannot be truly earnest and pious. This is the basic mood of frivolity. The melancholic does have a need for deep harmony, but he does not have the spiritual strength to grasp it. Therefore, he also lacks the sense to laugh at the absurdities. What he should take seriously is missing; therefore, he takes seriously what cannot be considered as such. The humorist can laugh at the wrong without worry, because he knows that it lies on the surface rather than at the bottom, and he has a sense for the things at the bottom of the world's existence. The frivolous person has only a sense for the superficial, but even that is the only need he has. He does not know the depths and does not want to know them. He lives on the surface.
And so we have come full circle of our journey. We have shown the idea of the comic as a form of aesthetic appearance and characterized the position that this idea has in relation to life. The comic is not just an arbitrary creation of man, it is the only way to look at and represent the in many ways contradictory outer side of life.
Rudolf Steiner.