75. Eurythmy Performance
This creates an opportunity to point out something that is currently being felt very vividly by creative artists – at least, one would like to point this out from one corner – namely, that a large proportion of artists today are yearning for new means of expression, new forms of expression. Impressionists, expressionists or whatever these artists call themselves, is how the various paths taken in their art are called. On the one hand, we see how the immediate impression is to be captured, how the impression is to be reproduced. Because people today have actually lost the power to delve into the inner essence of things, as the great artists of earlier epochs were able to do, have lost the ability to create entirely from within, so to speak, what remains is captured in the impression. Or, what is captured through wrong words and so on, which then seems difficult for more philosophical natures to understand, is captured in expressionism. But these are all paths that actually lead to answering the old question of art in a new way: how do you capture impressions artistically without thoughts playing a role in the process? Abstract thoughts are always the ones that kill actual art. Art must proceed without abstract thoughts. Now, here we have the opportunity. In ordinary speech, we do not have the same opportunity, because today the need to communicate has already descended too far into the conventional, into usefulness. And the artist, for example, must try to achieve through what lies beneath language - also a eurythmic element, by the way - that which can satisfy him.
Cite:
GA 277b/1920-08-15/p010 · edition English