The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1918–1920
GA 277b — 8 August 1920, Dornach
74. Eurythmy Performance
Dear Attendees:
As was usual before these eurythmic performances, I would also like to introduce the presentation with a few words today. Eurythmy art uses a form of expression that is essentially new. However, my intention is not to explain what can be seen on stage, which would be inartistic – and artistic work should not need explanation – but rather to say something about this particular means of expression. Therefore, I would like to take the liberty of saying a few words beforehand.
The point is that this means of expression, a kind of visible language, is a language that works either by the whole person moving his limbs in a way that is intended to appeal to the eye in the same way as audible language appeals to the ear, or by groups of people making such movements, which constitute a kind of visible language. But it is not the opinion that this visible language should be what could be called facial expressions or gesturing or the like, but rather the opinion that the direct connection between gestures and expressions and what is going on inwardly in the soul must be must be avoided here in the artistic, as it is avoided in ordinary language, which, although it has arisen from the direct expression of feeling and external observation, is not exhausted in what could be understood as a play of gestures. It is a careful, intuitive study of the development of spoken language that leads, as it were, to the formation of this visible language.
If one develops what Goethe calls sensory-supersensory vision, one can see which movements, but especially which movement tendencies, underlie the production of audible speech by the larynx and the other speech organs. It is well known that speech is based on a kind of movement. As I speak here, the movements that are carried out by my speech organs are transmitted to the air, and it is precisely the content of what is spoken that is conveyed to the ear through the air. But it is not about these immediate vibrational movements, but rather about what, as it were, lives in these vibrations as a tendency to move, which is now carefully studied for each sound, each sound formation, for sound contexts, but which is also studied by name for sentence structure, for the internal laws of language. And all that can be studied in this way and remains unnoticed as something that only underlies the spoken language, because one draws attention to what is heard and not to what underlies the movement, all that remains unnoticed in spoken language, is transferred to the whole person. In this way the whole human being appears before the spectator as a living larynx, executing those movements which are otherwise present in the larynx as a tendency, and through which this visible speech comes about.
It may be noted that in the present day, this eurythmic art, which is born out of our anthroposophically oriented worldview, which is a further development of Goethe's view of art and artistic attitude, that this eurythmic art meets certain aspirations that live as longings, as artistic longings in our time. Who would not know, if they have only delved a little into the artistic striving and working of the present, that the arts are wrestling with new means of expression, with a new formal language? And who would not know how different the paths are on which the struggle is waged? But how unsatisfactory it is to create something out of color, out of form, and also out of words, in order to gain a new means of expression.
If we want to describe what actually prevails in newer, in modern artistic striving, then at the same time we have what still makes it difficult for viewers to directly perceive the artistic representation of the eurythmic art. For what are today's modernizations of artistic striving based on? We see how, in the development of modern times, the human being has more or less lost the ability to develop forces from within, through which he can give himself to the outside world, through which he can completely merge with the outside world.
If we look back at earlier artistic epochs, which are no longer fully understood even by many today, we have to say: something like a Raphael or a Michelangelo work of art, they arise precisely from the artist's ability to inwardly experience what the being he is depicting experiences. This inner co-experience with nature, with the world in general, has been gradually lost by people in recent centuries and is increasingly being lost in the present to the external perception of life.
Art has always tried – one need only recall Goethe's definitions of art – to reflect what one could experience through inner involvement with the other, with other beings, with external nature. They tried to replace this, let us say, with the impression of fate, with the momentary impression as in Impressionism, in the consciously impressionistic state that art wants to become, because one could not grow together with the object, as one had to, so to speak, fall out of the object; therefore one surrendered to the momentary impression. This impressionistic devotion to the momentary impression cannot lead to a real, genuine means of artistic expression, for the simple reason that this momentary impression can no longer be understood once it has passed. To a certain extent, you have to believe that such a momentary impression, captured in the impressionistic work of art, was once there. Impressionism, which seeks to be naturalistic, removes you from the actual essence of things. Man cannot bring his inner self into the world. So, artistically, he becomes an impressionist.
But then, as a kind of opposition to Impressionism, the expressionist principle has arisen in recent times. It appeared, so to speak, provocatively. Man, having lost the ability to immerse his inner self in the outer, wanted to directly express this inner self as an expression of the soul through the usual artistic means of expression.
But this, in turn, brings with it, I would say, the other danger, that what is experienced quite subjectively, subjectively experienced in the deepest inner self, is presented as a single human experience, and this again sets a limit to understanding, in that the spectator would again have to respond tolerantly to what a single individual human being experiences as the deepest experience of the soul, which he cannot do at all, to express something about which one can only say – the philistine can say –: He wants to paint or draw something spiritual; I see water, a number of ship sails, which I might just as well think are laundry hanging out to dry, and so on. These are things that are produced in expressionism, that may project the human interior outward, but cannot be understood because they are not experienced, but are merely there, in that this individual human interior is depicted as being directly connected to the external world, in direct connection with the external world.
Nevertheless, a way to truly artistic means of expression will have to be found again, in which one, so to speak, meets impressionism with expressionism, and vice versa. But one can believe that something like eurythmy could accommodate the search that lies in this direction and that this is precisely why eurythmy is so much in demand today - which, after all, is also the case with everything else that emerges from anthroposophical culture and world view.
The fact that the whole human being becomes, as it were, a larynx, that the whole human being is a means of expression for a visible language, means that what the human being can experience inwardly, which is also is experienced in the recited poems or the music played, what is experienced after, what is experienced in the innermost being, in the human soul, comes to expression in the human being himself as an outer manifestation. But this means that it is not just a momentary impression – an expression that can be captured in an impressionistic way. For if something in nature is fixed by some momentary impression, we have something that we can and do express spiritually, that we delve into the soul of nature. We can develop this by looking at the expression that is presented in eurythmic performances by the human being himself. Here, spirit and soul are presented directly in the outer movements before our eyes. At the same time, there is impression. It should not be said that eurythmy is an all-encompassing art in this respect, but it can certainly be said that it points the way to how artistic means of expression can be found for what can be felt as a yearning in broad circles of artistic endeavor today.
That, in a few words, is the modern aspect of eurythmy in the best sense of the word, what our time demands of eurythmy as an art.
But then this eurythmy has a further, pedagogical-didactic side, in that it is a kind of soulful gymnastics for the child. In the age of our materialism, purely physiological gymnastics, that which is essentially based on the materialistic view of the human body, has been produced by these views, and takes precedence. Today, people are still one-sided in this respect, although some minds, which now want to do away with many of the prejudices of the present day - such as Spengler, for example - already recognize how one-sided this kind of gymnastics is. Of course, nothing should be said against the educational value of this kind of gymnastics, but it must be supplemented by something that not only trains the body, but above all, from the soul, pours initiative into the human being, which is so lacking in our time. This can be done by the child not just doing the gymnastic movements required by the physical organization, but by making soulful movements, so that soul lives in every movement. This affects the will. It becomes inwardly soulful and strengthens the human being in the will initiative, in the creation of the will initiative. And this is what our civilization needs if it wants to move forward.
Today I want to disregard the hygienic-therapeutic side that is still in our eurythmy. Everything that eurythmy can develop is still in its infancy today. And those of our esteemed viewers who have been here before will see how we are now trying to really follow through on the broader form, for example, in terms of gesture formation and form building, how we are trying more and more to , all the gestures of the moment, and to really bring forth a moving language and music, and how we are particularly concerned not to reproduce what the prose content of the poem is, but what the poetic artist has made of that content.
Despite our efforts to move forward, I have to say it here before every eurythmy performance attended by guests: despite our efforts to move forward, we are nevertheless quite clear about the fact that this eurythmic art is only just beginning, that this eurythmic art is a very first attempt – perhaps even an attempt with inadequate means even today. But we are also clear about the fact that if we continue to develop what has already been tried, or if others continue to develop it, then eurythmy art can become something that can stand as a legitimate art alongside other, older sister arts.