Lecture 3

The anthroposophic conception of the world does not want to be something one sidedly theoretical, it does not want to be something that expresses the laws of the universe in a sum of ideas. It wants to be something much more comprehensive. It wants to be able to speak out of the whole scope of the human being, to be able to speak not only from a theoretical scientific spirit but also from an artistic spirit, a religious spirit and from a social and ethical spirit. And all this in such a way that it corresponds to the interests of the immediate practical life. The anthroprsophic conception of the world wants nothing to do with symbolic or allegorical anti-art non art. It wants to sprout from as rich and inner spiritual life as does its worldview, such a spiritual life cannot live itself out allegorically or symbolically but only in creations that are genuinely artistic. Not a single form should mean something in this sense rather every form should be something in the genuinely artistic sense. It should mean itself, express itself.

Everything in the visual arts ultimately aims at, proceeds from and creates out of the human form. The three dimensions of space, of which we determine all the forms that are the basis of the world around us, can be brought out of the human form. But if we speak about space as we did in lecture 2 then we never actually arrive at the conception of space we must bring into sensitive artistic creation. If we want to apply space to the things of this world and we do it geometrically, then we proceed by assuming a point within concrete space. One would have to assume that this point lies inside the human body. We assume extending from this point three axis perpendicular to each other. Then we refer this point, some spatial area, by determining the distances from these three axis respectively from the three planes that are formed by these three axis. In this way we come to a geometrical determination for something that fills our space. Also in kinematics, the mathematics of movement, we have the possibility of expressing movement in this space. But besides this space there is definitely another space. We cannot start from a point and refer everything to this point, but we must start from the opposite of this point. The opposite of the point is an infinitely distant sphere, a sphere to which we would look up in approximately the way we look up to the blue fermment. Think of it instead of having a point I am inside a hollow sphere. Then I relate everything that is inside of it to this hollow sphere. Instead of relating to a point by coordinates, I relate everything to this hollow sphere.

We now have an ability to relate to the Cosmos in the same way as we related to the human being. We then looked into the human being and got the three dimensions of space and we were able to determine the human being according to these three dimensions by saying that in the one dimensional direction lies the length of the upright body, In the second lies in the plane of the outstretched arms that which is symmetrically built into the human organism, And in the third lies everything positioned in the direction from front to back. So when we look at the human organism we do not have something that lies in just any random way, within these three dimensions we find the human organism formed and shaped in a very definite way. In the same way we can also relate to the Cosmos. How does it happen inwardly soulfully when we relate to the Cosmos in such a way?

Think of yourself standing in a field on a clear starry night so that you can freely look up to the starry sky all around. By looking freely around the starry sky you see areas in the firmament where the stars are clustered almost to the point of forming cloud like formations, you see other areas of the sky were the stars appear more separated from each other forming constellations. If you face this starry sky only intellectually you come to nothing at first but if you face this starry sky with your whole human being then you feel differently, we have lost this possibility of feeling but it can be reacquired. You feel one way toward a spot in the sky where the stars group together only nebulously and you feel differently where constellations stand out. You feel differently again opposite a spot in the sky where the moon stands shining. You will differently when there is no moon, during a new moon and so on. Just as you can feel concretely into the human organism in order to get the three dimensions where space itself is something concrete something connected with the human being, so you can acquire a view of the Cosmos of that which is the periphery. You do not only need to look inside yourself in order to come to something like the three dimensions, you can now look into the expanse, you can envisage the configuration of the expense and if you learn to understand how to grasp this vastness by advancing from the ordinary view (which is still sufficient for Euclidian geometry) to such a view as you need for this vastness then you arrive at a view that I have called imaginative cognition.

Those who simply record what they see in the vastness of the world come to nothing. A mere drawing of the starry sky as the astronomers do today leads to nothing, but when the whole human being with the full understanding of the Cosmos confronts this cosmos then interior of the soul Images are formed in counter position to these star clusters. We see them on old maps where from the ancient instinctive clarivoyants such imaginations were still formed. Then we receive an imagination of the whole cosmos, we get the counterimage of what I presented in lecture 2 as the human basis of three geometric dimensions of space. We get something that can configure itself in infinite ways. People today basically have no idea how humanity once gazed into the universe in olden times, today it is believed that the different drawings, the pictures, the imaginations which were made as zodiacal images that sprung from mere fantasy, they did not. They were perceived and felt by facing the Cosmos, the progress of humanity demanded that this instinctive, lively and imaginative contemplation should be extinguished. This happened so that an intellectual contemplation that liberates the human being could take place, but if we want to be wholly human we must advance to such an imaginative cognition of the universe again, no longer instinctively but with full consciousness.

If in this way from the starry sky we come to a conception of space, then we do not get a space that can be exhausted by three dimensions. We get a space that I can also only suggest pictorially, if I have to indicate the space I spoke of yesterday with the three lines standing perpendicular to each other they are drawn from a center as in the following diagram I would have to indicate this other space by drawing configurations everywhere as if forces within planes approach the earth from all sides of the universe and from and from without had a plastic effect on the formations on the surface of the Earth. We come to such a mental image if we advance from what can be seen with the physical eyes of living beings above all human beings to what I have called imagination. Then instead of the physical human being the Cosmos opens itself in picture form and shows us a new space. As soon as we advance to this, we come to see a second human body We come to what an older divining instinctive clairvoyance called the Etheric body.

Though better designated as the body of formative forces. It is a supersensible body. We can study the physical body by looking for the forces flowing through it within its centric spatial extension. We cannot study the formative force body that flows through the human being if we start from centric space. We can study it only if we understand how it is formed from out of the whole cosmos. If we understand it in such a way that these very plains of force coming to the earth from all sides approach the human being and form the body of formative forces plastically from without. In no other way did the visual arts come into being from out of their elemental original source. With an intuitive glance you will see this in such a work as for example the Venus de Milo, It was not created by studying anatomy, by appealing to the forces that are merely comprehensible from the spatial sense of the physical body. It was created by what was known in older times as the body of formative forces which pervades the physical body, which is formed out of the Cosmos, which is formed out of a space that is just as peripheral as Earthly space is centric.

By the fact that a being is formed from the periphery of the universe, beauty is imprinted on it. This is in acord with the original meaning an essence of this word, the essence of beauty is the imprint of the Cosmos with the help of the etheric body on a physical earthly being. If we study a physical earthly being according to pure dry truth then we grasp it exactly according to ordinary physical space. If we allow the beauty of a being to affect us, if we want to enhance this beauty of a being through plastic visual art, then we must become aware that what is imprinted on a being as beauty comes from the Cosmos. This is what reveals to us, in the individual being, how the whole cosmos works in this being. You must feel how the cosmos expresses itself in the example of the human form. This human form becomes differentiated if we are able to approach it through inner imaginative cognition.

At first we direct our soul's attention to the formation of the head If we survey the head formation in its totality We cannot understand its formation by attempting to explain it merely from the inside of the head. We can understand it only is coming directly out of the Cosmos on its way around and through the body of formative forces if we go on to the formation of the human chest then we come to an inner understanding in reference to its form only if we have the possibility of imagining of a human being lives on the Earth all the orbits of the planets circle round the Earth along the zodiacal line even if only apparently according to the day's astronomy which doesn't play a role in this consideration while we refer the head to the whole cosmos we refer what is formed in the human chest to all that turns in the revolving equatorial line to what takes place in the different ways the sun circles round in a year or a day only when we go to the human limb system especially the lower limbs system do we get the feeling that this is now not assigned to the outer cosmos This is assigned to the Earth This is connected with the gravity of the Earth if we look with the sense of the plastic artist at the formation of the human foot we see it adapted to the gravity the Earth We see in their whole configuration of a lower leg and the upper leg are joined together through the mediation of the knee in such a way that they demonstrate the working of the force of gravity in its dynamics in its statics from out of the center of the earth into the universe we have these feelings when we look at the human figure with the sculptor's gaze for the head we need all the forces of the Cosmos We need the whole sphere so to speak if we want to understand what is expressed in such a wonderful way in the formation of the head if we want to understand what is expressed in the chest formation we need so to speak that which flows around the periphery of the Earth in the equatorial plane if we want to understand especially the lowers human limbs system with a metabolic system connected to it we must keep to the forces of the Earth in this respect Human being is bound to the forces of the Earth in short through the human form we receive a connection with the whole living vividly conceived world space today people will likely laugh in many circles also in artistic circles about such observations as I have just made I can well understand why they but they know a little of the real history of human development when they laugh at these things For those for those who can really delve into the sculptural art of olden times they already see in the sculpted figures of that time how feelings and sensations that were formed in an imaginative vision of the starry sky flowed into such figures in the ancients cultural forms the Cosmos was brought to view in human form but what is otherwise called cognition in an intellectual sense must be regarded as a cognition that was then connected with the whole range of human soul forces you become a real sculptor by sculpting out of elementary forces not by learning to rely on old stylistic forms in order to develop again what people knew in this or that stylistic epoch but no longer no today you do not become a sculptor by relying on the traditional as happens mostly today even with accomplished artists but you become a sculptor by being able to reach back with full consciousness to the formative forces at once led to the plastic arts there we must receive again cosmic perceptions We must again feel the universe and be able to see a microcosm a small world in the human being we must be able to look at the human forehead how it receives an imprint from the Cosmos We must be able to see the nose how it receives an imprint from that which also imprints itself on the whole respiratory system namely from the periphery from what circles the earth in the equatorial plane in the Zodiacal Plain and then we get the feeling the sense for what must be represented You do not create by your imitation by mere imitation of a model You create by immersing yourself in that power out of which nature herself has formed and created the human being You create you create the way nature herself creates then however the entire cognizing and artistically creative powers of sensing must be able to adapt to this when we have the human form before us we first direct our artistic gaze to the human head We do this with a tendency to form this human head plastically we will then strive to form as much as possible of this head in all its details to treat every surface as much as possible lovingly to treat the forehead surface lovingly to treat the curvature to the eyes lovingly to work out the ears and so on we will strive to form the lines that run across the front of the forehead across the nose as lovingly as possible we will strive to make a nose shaped this way or that depending on what we want to create short we will try to form lovingly Every individual surface that relates to the human head if on the other hand as sculptors perhaps I am saying something heretical for many people but I do believe that what I have to say goes back to original artistic feelings if we as sculptors wanted to make an effort to form human legs we would always experience a certain resistance to this you want to shape the head as lovingly as possible but not the human legs We would we would like to hide them to take them away from artistic shaping by trying to have all kinds of garments over them all kinds of things that sculpturally adapt themselves in a different way to what is expressed in the head A human figure with properly chiseled legs cows for example is actually something unappealing to the sculptures artistic eye Eye I know I'm saying something heretical but I also know I'm speaking all the more out of elemental artistic perception You don't want properly chiseled legs Why not Well for the sculptor there is simply a different anatomy a different cognition of the human form than for the anatomist For the sculpture there are actually no bones and muscles as strange as that may sound for the sculpture there is the human form which is formed with the help of the body of formative forces from out of the Cosmos and in this human form there are for the artist forces force effects force lines force connections I cannot possibly think of the top of the skull as a sculptor in any other way when I form the human head but to form it from the outside in as it is shaped from the Cosmos however that which gives me the corresponding curvatures of the head I form according to dynamics according to forces that push the form from the inside out that opposed the forces acting inwardly from the Cosmos as a sculpture when I form the arms I do not think of bones but of those forces that act for example when I'd bend the arm There I have lines of force developments of force not what develops his muscle or his bone And the thickness of the arm depends on what lives there not on the muscle tissue that is on it but because in forming beauty you have above all the tendency to adapt the beautiful human form to the Cosmos You can do this only with the head for the lower limbs are adapted to the earth and therefore you want to leave that out he would like to lift the human form from the earth when you arrange an artistically you Heavy Earth being if you were to form too much of the lower human being in the art of sculpture and if we look at the head alone again we see that it is only the upper part of the head the wonderfully arched skull that is arched differently in each individual There is therefore only an individual phrenology no general phrenology It's only this upper part that is modeled on the whole cosmos what is formed in the eyes and nose is formed similarly to the human thoracic organism organism they are already formed according to the periphery according to the equatorial current therefore when I depict the eyes in the sculptural work that represents a human being I know that I cannot depict the gaze that deepened or the superficial gaze by any kind of coloring I must limit myself to depicting large or small slit or oval eyes or more or less straight eyes But to represent the transition of the eyes into the shape of the nose the forehead into the shape of the nose is to sense how human beings see by putting their whole soul into this sea This is different with slid eyes different with oval eyes different with straight eyes look at how the human being breathes this wonderful possibility of expression you nearly feel of the human being breathes through the nose and you will say to yourself as the human being is in the chest as the chest form is created from the Cosmos so the human being pushes up into the eyes and nose what is breathed in the chest what beats in the heart it is expressed in the pictorial form in the way the human being is in the head It only comes to expression in the top of the skull which in terms of its form is an imprint of the Cosmos in the way the human being reacts to the Cosmos by not merely taking in the oxygen and acting passively but how we humans have our own share in this substance how we present our own being to the Cosmos in the chest This is expressed sculpturally through the formation of the eyes and the nose and by forming the mouth oh by forming the mouth we actually already form the whole inner human being in its opposition to the Cosmos There we formed the way the human being reacts to the world out of the metabolic system in the formation of the mouth in the formation of the chin in everything that belongs to the formation of the mouth We formed the metabolic limb human being but in its spiritualization in its outwardly acting image thus whoever stands before the human head in a sculptural sense has the whole human being there according to the nature of the human organic systems You have the skull cap with its strange curvatures according to the nerve sent system in the eye nose formation you have speaking platonically the courageous person a human being who would inner individuality courageously confronts the upper Cosmos and by forming the mouth which belongs to the head formation that is configured from the outside you actually have from the inside counteracting the configuration that works in from the outside that which makes up a person's inner being from these fleeting indications which could be no more than sketches about which you will have to continue to think you will have seen that the sculpture does not really need them knowledge of the human being gained by imitating a human model The sculptor must actually be able to inwardly reexperience the forces that work through the Cosmos shaping the human form The sculptor must be able to create out of what is happening when the human being is formed plastically out of the fertilized germ cell of the maternal body to create from what works through the mother out of cosmic forces and not merely from the forces that are in the maternal body as sculptors we must be able to create in such a way that at the same time we can understand what is progressively revealed out of the individual human being The further we descend toward the limbs above all we must be able to understand how this wonderful outer covering of the human being the forum of the skin arises as the result of the two forces the forces that were peripherally from all sides of the Cosmos and that which works centrifugally outward and opposes them for the sculpture the outer form of the human being must be a result of cosmic forces and inner forces The true sculptor will need to have such perceptions in every detail If we let us say sculpt out of wood and in art it is a matter of having a feeling for the material of knowing what this or that material is suitable for Otherwise we do not create sculpture but only illustrate an idea in a novelistic way if we sculpt the human form out of wood we will know by forming the top of the head that we must have the feeling that the form presses in from the outside This is the secret of creating human form when I formed the forehead I must have the feeling that by forming it I am pushing it in from the outside but from the inside forces are working against me I can I can only press lightly or forcefully in order to push back the force is working from within as far as is possible in accordance with the cosmic forces that formed the head the way it must be but what is very interesting is that when I come to the rest of the human body I do not advance if I form and shape from the outside there I must have the feeling that I am inside already when I come to the formation of the chest I must put myself into the inside of the human being and form plastically from the inside outward through the inner necessity of artistic creation informing