Address on Eurythmy

More recent art forms are Impressionism and Expressionism. When a painter places dots of color next to each other in such a way that, from a certain distance, the eye perceives an impression similar to that created by light, matter, and cast shadows, this intermingling of colors is produced by Impressionism. In Expressionism, nothing is given, but only what is experienced in the artist's soul in a kind of clairvoyant way. This is achieved through certain color combinations. Expressionism is the exact opposite of Impressionism. One only needs to like what the artist has experienced in his soul. Poetry is an extremely impressionistic art, while dance is an expressionistic art. It is precisely through the expressive forms of dance that the soul of a person is expressed. In recent years, poetry has worked together with eurythmy. As a result, the impressionistic works together with the expressionistic, and this has become a demand. At first, it was believed that recitation should take a back seat. However, the fact that both are expressed creates two streams of feeling in the human soul. One stream is that of a quiet fear and the other that of a quiet sense of shame. The fact that the two swing like opposite pendulum swings, that one always swings back and forth between the two feelings, is precisely what should happen. The peculiar harmonious interaction comes about as a result, with one sounding out one moment and the other the next. We hope that something will come out of eurythmy that we cannot yet imagine, but which can then be exposed and seen publicly. All kinds of dancing have become popular, causing humanity to suffer from spiritual indigestion. Terpsichoritis is also one of the things that has afflicted humanity in recent years. When eurythmy is performed, one participates with the etheric body – should one do that? What the poem does not say, the eurythmic interpretation can sometimes point to backgrounds that otherwise remain hidden; it can reveal what works through the poet and what cannot be conveyed through words. What would otherwise remain hidden is thus revealed through the work of art.