...
or the changed form, as we have here:
711
Christ monogram:
This is what people limited themselves to during that time,
during which the mass of the Gospels became unified and
gradually penetrated people's minds. This is the reason why
actual pictorial representation of the holy history can only be
spoken of as originating from the 2nd or
3rd centuries onwards.
In
the course of our local art observations which I have
emphasized I want to point out another relationship today by
referring to what I've highlighted before. I have stressed that
the first representations which were created still obeyed the
forms of the old, ancient pagan artistic development.
People simply transposed the pagan artistic expression on to
the content of the Christian development. This is very
important. One can say that before and up to the 3rd
Century nothing had been done in the western cultural
development to depict images of the Gospel scenes as such,
which had not come as a transfer from pagan art. Here we find
figures which we connect to Christian representation as
similarly depicted to what we usually see in pagan myths. Today
we want to limit our observations to the Christ figure Himself.
In this regard we find at the start of the first times the
Christ is represented, most frequently of all, the image of the
Good Shepherd, in the most varied forms in antiquity, presented
in the pre-Christian times. This image — chosen from one out of
many representations of “The Good Shepherd”:
714
Mosaic of the Good Shepherd, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia,
Ravenna ...
...
reminds us of the depiction of David amongst the animals. It
reminds us of other Greek images.
If
we limit ourselves in particular to the Christ figure in this
image, as it still stands, you see an absolutely antique
expression. We notice the endeavour in this pictorial
representation towards the expression of a mild, noble face,
generally found in these olden times, beardless, still with
tousled hair, youthful, gracious. These were the endeavours
which live in all these images. We already see in this
representation of the Christ imagery the pagan imagery imposed
on it as the basis because in such images everything is still
pagan. Now a question about such a statement is created: what
precisely characterizes the paganism in this imagery — I'm
speaking from an artistic point of view. So much has been
written and spoken about art but the essential vigour, if I may
call it that, of the pagan artistic expression has not been
stressed. When you — as much as it is possible from what is
still available — study Greek imagery you will very gradually
find the fact that this Greek imagery, studied realistically in
the sense we speak of realism today, did not exist. The forms
of the human body were not presented by the Greeks as a direct
likeness of a portrait of some model, corresponding in any way
at all as a mere copy of the human body as it walks the earth
because the Greek simply had an ideal body in mind. This
ideal body they had in mind, actually incorporated something
quite different from what human eyes could actually see in a
model. In order to really understand the most important Greek
bodily depictions, the artistic physical forms, one has to
refrain from considering what the eyes see in the model and its
form; one should remember what I already mentioned in previous
years: the Greek depiction is according to the inner feelings
experienced within the body. A muscle wasn't merely a direct
rendering according to what the eye saw but how it was being
experienced, how with inner feeling it cooperated with
movement, streamlined with muscle contraction. The rendering in
artistic matter carried a feeling which was being experienced
within the physical itself.
What single factor made this possible? Indeed, it was only
possible as a result of the Greek artist, when connecting his
thoughts to the physical nature of a person in the majority of
his creative images, he relinquished the individual nature of
the person. He refrained from including it. When he looked, he
saw only the physical expressed in the human form. Pay
attention — he looked at the physical nature of mankind as if
it represented the outcome of the entire cosmos, as a total
spiritual depiction of the cosmos. When you look at a Zeus
figure, at a Pallas Athena figure, an Apollo, an Aphrodite
figure, you find the soul within it. However, these souls which
are within these physical forms are not individual human souls
but they are souls that live as results of the entire cosmos:
world souls in a human physical form. One could say that what
the Greeks searched for as souls in this realm they saw as
absolutely beyond the idea that the human is a result of the
universe, but that through their thinking they considered the
forces cooperating in the universe as striving to produce the
crowning glory of its creative forces, the crown of its
creative power as a product resulting in the human organism.
How focussed and concentrated the creative cosmic forces were,
to bring the human form into existence! In such Greek human
organisms are the forms I have been telling you about, and here
we also find the concentrated expression as seen in laws
creating the entire culture, and also through which the entire
Spiritual All rules: the creativity of the cosmos condensed in
the human being.
One
could say the Greeks configured the body in this way. Indeed it
seems extraordinary but much more correct if one thinks of what
I want to say now. One imagines that when people are asleep,
the soul, therefore the `I' and the astral body are outside the
physical body and that the sleeping body is ensouled by
universal spirituality, absorbed by this spirituality which
belongs to the cosmos and through the spiritual aspect being
driven out of the human body it has the result of enabling the
individual spirituality during earth evolution to enter into
humanity and thus one acquires the Greek inspired shaping of
human form in such figures, as I have indicated to you. Not
that the Greek had no understanding of individual spirituality
but he saw the individual soul qualities as not yet penetrating
the human form; the human form was for him still something
universal. So it happens, which is extraordinary enough, that
the individual soul aspect, the specific human soul aspect in
Greek art only appears when the Greek does not represent forms
which in Greek art, in their higher development, are regarded
as typical. When the Greek presents an Apollo or a Zeus, Pallas
Athena or Hera or Aphrodite then something typical is
presented; when these are not presented, when Satyr or Faun is
depicted, then what is presented is pertaining to the
individual human aspect, applicable to every soul which is
present when it is awake and which leaves the body when it is
asleep.
You
see this is the curious thing in pagan art development in its
highest configuration in Greece. Specific human soul qualities
had not penetrated the art forms when the ideal-type aspects
were adopted. By contrast all that was working in the soul, the
emotions and impulses permeating the soul with the preference
of the Satyr and Faun figures, one could say these reminded one
of animals. When the Greek presented the god Apoll, then in the
god Apoll lived a super human, a super individual soul as an
artistic figure of Apollo. Swinging over to the humanistic we
first find, in the Greek depiction of a Mercury-type, the
Hermes-type. We can find many — you can study the Hermes-type -
inspired by the Faun- and Satyr-type. One could say it was the
conviction of Greek art that the human soul had not come
sufficiently far in its development that it had its own powers
to express itself in the human form, when this human form
wanted to come out in its full glory.
If
we now go even further back in Greek art history we encounter
the oriental art form, to discover the total universal cosmic
coming into expression. Thus Greek art was the final flowering
of universal cosmic expression, the representation having been
attempted in the physical human form. It is extremely important
that this is looked at.
One
can now say that as the Christ became the redeemer in relation
to the rest of the powers of evolution in humanity, so He also
became the redeemer in relation to this view of art. Imagine an
elevated mind posing a question such as this: how can one
idealize a representation in order to reach an expression in
contemporary art, an expression of something spiritual,
something human, how can one idealize something which earlier
was merely represented by using the mentioned deviation of an
ideal type, namely a Faun-type, a Satyr-type and so on? How can
the problem be solved in connection with the specific human
form, how can something be idealised which in ancient times did
not want to be idealised but that the divine humanistic be kept
in contrast to the all-too-human aspect? This question was
never stated on the physical plane yet it is answered in the
further development of art. It is basically also being answered
in the history of humanity.
It
will always be part of extraordinary interesting facts that one
man in Greece, who so deeply descended into the Greek life that
he through his own destiny, to a certain extent, he prepared
the redeemer destiny — Socrates traditionally didn't
represent and ideal type of Hellenism but more something of a
Satyr or Faun.
It
is as if world history itself wanted to create the specific
human out of the subhuman.
715
Greek sculpture, 4BC, Socrates, scale down copy (London,
British Museum)
Here we see in the continued progress in the shaping of
something which had not been achieved in the ideal humanistic
form in Greek counter art, in the Satyr- and Faun art, by
wanting to achieve a breakthrough as a human form only
originating from the cosmos.
The
individually human conforms according to spiritual lines and
forms obtained only from the cosmos. Oriental forms we must
always look for in the cosmic, but western form in the
individually human.
So
we see, the moment humanity wanted to conquer the pagan, just
then the Christ-type entered in order to penetrate the
specifically human into the commonly typically cosmic element.
Just observe how that penetrates the typical ...
715
Socrates (London, British Museum)
Here we have a
716
Catacomb painting of a Christ depiction (Rome, catacomb of
Pontianus)
...out of a somewhat later time of ancient Christian art,
complete with an added beard, while many Christ representations
in the first centuries were beardless. We see how there is a
continual attempt to not only make the cosmic aspect in the
figure a reality, but to show how the cosmic element is at war
with the individuality, how the one is working against the
other. The cosmic element here still carries more weight, but
actually it outweighs only as tradition. What had to be
overcome in the oriental-Hellenistic still carried the most
weight, and would still outweigh it for a long time. Only
gradually the penetration of the specific enters as the
individually human element into the form. So we see how
gradually this happens.
I
have to show you the next image as a result:
717
Catacomb painting of Christ amidst his apostles.
Here you see — it belongs to the first centuries — how the
endeavour existed to maintain the whole arrangement of lines
originating from the cosmos, and so on, but as something
entering which is specifically human. As a result of this the
strange battle started which had particular importance during
these ancient centuries, the old battle of how Christ had to be
represented; should He correspond more to the Apollo beauty or
should He be represented as an individual human soul? The
endeavour was to represent Him as an individual man with a
soul. Now here is actually the peculiar thing, you see. Here
one accomplishes one of those reversals, as we have encountered
in other areas during the last days: to represent the human
individualism, simply by pulling up again what earlier had been
frowned upon. This was developing in the highest degree within
Greek trends while in the west, in Latin circles, the
continuation was being developed of something which once had
been quite oriental — to depict a certain cosmic figure. This
was in a time when the unfolding of art in the west dwindled
and one could not be sure about the correct explanation any
more.
Thus it happened that the depiction of the Christ-form itself
triumphed for the eastern, the oriental and Byzantine type of
depiction, while the Christ individuality was not included.
However, while artistic evolution was on a downwards path one
can say that this type degenerated, He no longer retained the
lofty dignity which the East wanted to give Him but He was
depicted as becoming, one could say, the downward trend of
humanity. He became the kind of representation of humanity's
characteristics which enter in a degenerative way. His hair was
parted, his beard took on particular forms, his expression
became such that people saw: the superhuman-cosmic was now
being conquered by the human aspect. However people were not
yet in the position to really depict this human element as a
kind of ideal-type.
We
see this exactly when we allow further Christ images to work on
us, for example even this very beautiful mosaic in Ravenna:
718
Mosaic: “Christ with Archangels crowning the Holy
Vitalis” (San Vitale in Ravenna) in which we find neither
great beauty, nor a cosmic-universal image, but in which we can
already see that an attempt was being made to bring in the
human element.
Even more clearly we can be impressed by the expressive images
in the mosaic of Palermo — the Monreale Dom, in the apse:
719:
Mosaic, 12th Century, Christ, and below Him, Our
Lady with the Child.
This is an image which evokes the most immensely impressive
thoughts through its wonderful craft of mosaic. However,
precisely within these images we see the battle of both streams
which we have been speaking about. Exactly as a result of this
battle, this image is one of the most interesting regarding
what we have ahead.
All
of this belongs to the general course of humanity's evolution.
We see how in a loop line the individual jumps over the
abstract cosmic aspect coming from the East, and lets it go
over to the West. I say: the abstracted cosmic element
transported over to the West! If you want to understand that
then you must above all completely enter into the art of being,
into a soul nature which was found in Romanism. Imagine how
this Romanism worked. You must free yourself from everything
which educated people are so inoculated with today because
Romanism has conquered the schools; our entire education is
Roman based. However we must not forget the actual content of
Romanism when we look at the first blossoming which drew its
content for two centuries from Greece, right up the blossoming
of Romanism under the Julian Empire. Roughly 150 to 200 years
before the Mystery of Golgotha and somewhat later se see how
Greek imagery, how Greek culture was conquered by
fantasy-deprived Romanism, how this fantasy-less Romanism took
over Greek content.
Rome became ever bigger in precisely this peculiar insult of
which I have spoken, the transference of abstracted cosmic
elements on human affairs. In Rome originated that distinctive
talent to launch world domination, the talent for world
domination which in ancient times — while the slandering they
were initiating had not yet happened, or taken over — the
peculiarity was the great oriental empire of the 3rd
post-Atlantean cultural epoch — that went over to Romanism.
World domination was actually the Roman Empire's ideal. To
bring the then total cultural world under Roman rule was the
Roman Kaiser's ideal. The content from Hellenism to Romanism
was prescribed by the desire to represent the individual.
Indeed, one finds in Romanism this Greek yearning to represent
individualism, even as ugliness, thus letting Latinism conquer
the Greek type. Initially there was resistance to do this
because the former desire was for the beautiful type and
because of this at first it didn't strike them as beautiful but
as ugly. It reminds us of the Latin old Faun- and Satyr-types,
which are elevated as the highest human quality. Gradually
within the Greek being itself came the cosmic Zeus type, the
Apollo, the Pallas Athena, Aphrodite in a state of decadence;
out of this came something which had formerly only lived in the
area of ugliness and now was being striven for in idolised
moral beauty.
From the West, in Romanism, quite a different Christ-type was
depicted, it was actually depicted as a consequence of the
pagan Apollo-type and this is due to the background of Italian
humanity in that century and their sculptural inventions
because they didn't have an inventiveness of their own, in fact
had none at all, because Romanism in essence was without
imagination.
We
can now continue. You see, we then find fallow centuries,
tendencies towards Hellenism but simultaneously decay in
Romanism. A time of hope only started in the time Augustine
appeared, but now from Greece conquering Christianity. The same
thing appears again: Romanism prepares to snatch spiritual
world domination, but suitably turns to the begotten content of
Greece. The same phenomenon again.
During this period Hieronymus translated the Bible into Latin.
Throughout the following centuries everything developed out of
Rome, the striving was to make Rome the earthly human central
point of world order. In order to inculcate the cosmic element
into this social structure of the world it was turned
completely abstract; this was the prevailing teaching. Art — in
as far as one can speak of art in this way — was on a parallel
path up to the 13th Century with suggestions coming
time and again from the East, building up whatever wanted to be
developed. So we see the then completed period in art form of
the image of Christ Jesus Himself brought nothing new because
the Greek-Oriental type was transported over to the West. This
is essentially what can be seen as expressed by Cimabue.
Now
we want again to hold on to the 13th Century form
which the Christ-type had taken on:
720a-7 Christ on the Cross by Cimabue.
Here with Cimabue we see something, one might say, which has
been flowing into souls during all the previous centuries. You
see what lives here which came over from the Orient into
Hellenism. We see in the image how earth and heaven are linked,
how heaven is as active in its essence as the earth too, is
active. Even in the depiction of the crucified Christ we can
observe the two streams weaving through one another, as I have
been speaking about.
Within the world of art itself artistic creativity could not
exist, while positive suggestions towards imagination was still
being received out of the East.
The
next image I want to show is done by Giotto:
720b-36 Giotto (?) The Crucifixion, Assisi, San Francesco
You
nearly see this Giotto painting developing out of the earlier
one (720a-7). You can still see the heaven activated by its
beings. Still, the complete descent created out of the
universality of the world has not taken place and entered into
the earthly world. We already see the earthly, which still
quite bashfully and shamelessly throbs in the Satyr- and
Faun-types, we see rising here, their control spreading,
idealizing, enforcing the human being, because what wanted to
be expressed here could only show itself when it was permeated
by Christ, through and through.
Three things can be distinguished. Firstly those forms which
exist in every cosmic soul are found in ancient art. You find
then the battle of the human soul in the first depictions of
Christian art. We are still in the kind of a battle as we have
before us here. The cosmic element is still everywhere — I mean
the spiritual cosmic, not the Copernican materialistic cosmic,
but the spiritual cosmic — sparkling everywhere, yet at the
same time from below the specific human soul is striving to
take on the form which the soul gives to the body, wanting it
to be revealed. This was the second element I want to present
to you where the two battle with one another, where the
human-soul opposes the cosmic-soul element. Perhaps this battle
is most intensively depicted by Giotto compared to other
artists. For this reason it is interesting that this particular
battle can always be studied in a Giotto. Giotto strives from
this one side quite significantly back to this model. He has a
strong naturalistic vein yet in him remains the non-specific,
one might say forms originating out of the spiritual world
which were not yet so completely mastered by Cimabue. In the
following image you see another “crucifixion” of
Giotto:
721a-35 Giotto: Crucifixion (Padua, Arena-Chapel)
The
previous painting was not even a real Giotto, perhaps
originating from someone else. Here we see Giotto in the most
genuine sense. See how the heaven is not only implicated but
definitely contributes to the image. Notice something entering
here, also with the Redeemer's form — and this is our main
focus today — something depicting the soul wretchedness in the
way the bodies are constituted. Here we already see the human
aspect coming in, which one never could see in an Apollo
form.
I
ask you now to not consider the fact I'm about to reveal as
inappropriate. What I want to say, I say reluctantly now and I
hope that you will be mistaken if you want to believe the facts
are inappropriate. Research orientated at truth results in
something extraordinary. When we delve into an image such as
this one by Giotto, we see a new element surface in the old
tradition, a Greek orientated idealization which could only
appear in the Faun and Satyr, a super-imposed idealisation of
the human if we look at a Giotto, and then we may essentially
put Giotto as an opponent to his master, Cimabue, who was
fructified from the Orient. How does something new happen to be
introduced here? — Now we arrive at something which is
difficult to say: it spread out from an external point, outer
territories of Europe which actually had their origin in
Central Europe itself, which we have often seen originating
from Central Europe: the very new impulse to configure the
individual human element within the soul. Very little Roman
blood flow for example in the present day Italians, really very
little. A great deal has flowed in — refer to historical
studies as far as ancient documents allow — much has flowed
into Central European blood: from this comes fructification.
The naturalistic, soul principle which lived in Giotto was
created by the fructification through Romanism, the
unimaginative Romanism plus this emanation from Central Europe.
Romanism was actually great only in ideas which pre-occupied
themselves, the social structure in the sense of abstract
cosmology; what one regards as “State” is really a
speciality product of Romanism, originating out of the Roman
soul. The state which wanted to spread out over everything is a
copy of what sprung in the Roman head where it originated.
We
now go to the next image, another Giotto:
721b-32 Giotto: Christ on the throne (Rome, St Peters)
Here we see a Christ. I have chosen this image because here
Giotto was most inspired to represent the old type of depiction
as it came from the East. Only, look at the face, how much
individuality he has brought into it! Look at each of these
fingers lifted in the right hand, how many individual soul
qualities have been brought into it, how in the best sense the
spiritual-naturalistic lives in it! Here one gradually enters
into the southern art in which the oriental essence is linked,
with the cosmic-oriental essence; here enters something we have
seen in images of Central Europe, something in its purity,
without the cosmological essence, merely out of the human soul
itself.
The
next image is once again a Giotto:
722a-21 Giotto: The Baptism of Christ. (Padua., Arena
Chapel)
Here too you see heaven and earth play into it. Now just look
at the Christ figure itself and you will find how Giotto made
the effort to allow the soul quality of the divine form to come
to expression, not only in the face but in the entire figure,
in the main bearing and hand gestures.
Here we have another Giotto, the evening meal:
722b-34 Giotto: Evening meal (Padua, Arena Chapel)
You
see Christ on the left side partly coming to expression as the
Greek Christ-type yet the effort to express the individuality
of soul is also being made. Everywhere this insertion is
apparent and so we see this extraordinary thing streaming forth
which in the highest sense is artistic, oriental and still in
the old Persian cultural impulse dependant on Central Europe,
one could say, having a rendezvous with the inartistic,
assessed purely on a State structured unimaginative basis.
Another Giotto:
723a-40 Giotto: Journey into Jerusalem (Padua, Arena
Chapel)
...
which I have chosen again to present the same phenomenon to
you. Just by taking these images of Christ in various biblical
scenes does one see how Giotto endeavours to bring the
individual expression into the soul nature.
723b-33 Giotto: Crowned by Thorns (Padua, Arena chapel)
We
want to bring these changes of the Christ depiction itself to
you as it took place through these centuries.
Now
think of the first tentative efforts we found in the ancient
Christian art. Certainly a great deal depends on the material,
but that materials were applied, that it was particularly used
for these ideas, that is the important aspect which we see
here. Now:
724a-31 Giotto: Resurrection (Padua, Arena Chapel)
Everywhere you'll find the confluence of both streams of which
I have spoken, confirmed. Perhaps at the same time you'll
notice the intensity which works further with the Greek
Christ-ideal type, because in the background, one could say, in
the sleeping powers of the artists it was present
everywhere.
Now
we come a little further. I have now chosen an image from the
14th century, by Orcagna depicting Christ as the
World Ruler:
725
Andrea Orcagna: the Youngest Court (Florence, St Mary,
Novella)
It
comes out of the church of Saint Mary Novalla in Florence. Here
you clearly see the old type as an endeavour for a complete
individualisation, the soul gently appearing.
With this we are already in the 14th century. The
various developmental streams of human culture move at
different speeds. Up to here we don't only see the influence of
the Greek Christ type but we also see some of the inspirational
powers found in oriental art. I would like to state a fact and
not a criticism: in all these images it does not come to be
expressed what the Roman worldwide church domination within its
full historical rights had initiated itself since the
9th century. The Greek influence actually existed in
art with little influence from central Europe.
Understand, this had to be so, from the second half of the
9th century it went well in Rome. Everyone knew, as
I expressed it once, this `Eastern Being' had to be kept back.
The western world had to be permeated with it out of the basis
of the life of the folk striving towards something higher. Out
of this we see a sentiment which I have characterised for you,
which I identified with the liberated city culture, this free
city culture which has its point of origin from central Europe
and spread itself over various other territories. These free
city cultures had the urge to express the specifically human
soul element. Now in the 9th century Rome understood
and thus considered this European impetus and carried it into
account.
The
specific western form of Catholicism which spread through the
institutionalised world churches was by contrast being held
back in the Orient, and this Catholicism came to a specific
expression in those artists and their art as most wonderfully
expressed by Fra Angelico:
724b-65 Fra Angelico: Evening Meal.
Here firstly we see — when we have an understanding for
such things — the western Catholic element poured out in art.
The differences between the previous (725) and this image
(274b-65) as well as the previous Evening Meal (722b-34) and
this image (724b-65) are unbelievable, because in these images,
as it lives in well loved art, the western catholic sentiment
is alive. Look at the forms into which the sacrifice has been
brought, woven equally into the composition as a reminder of
the Last Supper before the event of Golgotha. You don't only
see the Last Supper but you see the continuation of the evening
meal within the composition of the catholic sacrifice. Catholic
sentiment is poured out over the image of the evening meal and
particularly over the figure of the Redeemer. Here, primarily,
the Redeemer is shown as a model in art to western priests. In
reality He had been there much earlier, in outer reality.
Thus we see the Roman world domination church spread its rule
also over art in a totally decisive manner. In addition we can
say Giotto created his artistic offering of Francis of
Assisi out of a freed individual soul. Here we can see Fra
Angelico who paints as well as Messe reads in San Marco in
Florence. An aura of Catholicism permeates these images. He
isn't an individual sacrifice, but paints the church with
it.
No
less you see this in the following image of
726a-64 Fra Angelico: Crucifixion
Catholicism paints into the art.
I
ask you please to look closely at the next image and see how
the being of the Catholic art actually is alive in the Catholic
organization, that even in world domination, one could say, the
organisational power of the Catholic Church works right into
the realm of supernatural beings.
726b-68 Fra Angelico: World domination
We
find this now increasing with another friar, of which I want to
show you the following image:
727
Friar Bartholemeo: Christ and the Four Evangelists
Here we see the third stage in this interesting process. Look
at the interplay of a new freshness as a resurrection out of
old Hellenism. This entered now again, the old Greek
influence.
So
we notice how for a long time the individualized soul concept
of the Christ-type, which is of interest to us today,
prevailed. Take the entire design as it evolved from the cosmic
forces working from the beginning, which are then taken up as
the individualised soul through the Greek impulses influencing
it ever more, and how through this it became increasingly
individualised. How was Christ individualised, my dear friends?
Now we see how antiquity so recently intervened just a little
but it is already in it. It is again working from the
characteristic towards the typically-beautiful. This is notable
as being continuous, because this is actually the secret of the
Renaissance. These images I want to show you in conclusion are
the starting point for the Renaissance artist, we see how the
Renaissance artists completely renewed a rise in Hellenism but
they didn't enter into that which conquered the form of an
individual.
Here you have the Evening Meal of Andrea del Sarto which is in
Florence.
728
of Andrea del Sarto: Evening Meal.
Again there are beautiful forms, with still a touch of cosmic
consciousness which the Greeks still had, something of the
traditions of a cosmic element brought into the forms but
purely out of tradition and no longer from direct observation,
with direct feelings as found among the Greeks. We discover it
here; this is brought further by Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and
Michelangelo. We see something developing here which is
particular to Leonardo da Vinci, in this image of the baptism
by Verrocchio, the teacher of Leonardo.
729a-92 Verrocchio: Baptism of Christ
The
same motive done by Masolino during the same time period:
729b-50 Masolino: the Baptism of Christ
Yet
again I want to include the image “The Baptism” by
Giotto:
722a-21 Giotto: the Baptism of Christ
Look at the Baptism where the battle is still on between the
two principles, without the Greek influence, also without the
antique Greek impact, without the impact from antiquity, to the
new Greek, the Christian impact particularly strong.
Now
we bring out the two other images:
729a-92 Verrocchio: Baptism of Christ
729b-50 Masolino: the Baptism of Christ
You
see how the Renaissance works. Out of a Verrocchio comes a
Leonardo; perhaps Leonardo even worked on these paintings
too.
Now
I would in closing still show 2 paintings, in which you would
be able to see what came over from the North, from Central
Europe and how all of this mixed into the others. We have a
northern product here, the Man of Sorrows, by
Dürer:
730a-303 Dürer: Man of Sorrows
Here we have the endeavour without a cosmic aspect: the human
Christ. Where Fra Angelico poured the Catholic aspects over his
artistic creations, here we see the formation against world
domination, here we see how the human individual wants to
depict His Christ. Here a single human being worked on one
image. While Fra Angelico painted in the San Marco Church in
Florence, the whole Catholic sentiment painted with him. Here a
single person worked on his biblical depiction. This became
fixed in this particular time. Later the Renaissance came but
moved South, mixing with other influences.
I
still have another image which depicts a similar kind of
thing:
730b-311 Dürer: Christ on the Cross.
These things should show us how through the centuries the
Christ image changed. I have demonstrated this with these two
images from later centuries. I would like in the further
progress of these ideas, if it is possible, to show you how
these Christ images develop further. A world history can be
written since the Mystery of Golgotha by simply describing the
changes in the development of the Christ paintings and images.
Everything which in reality contributed to it is expressed
clearly. One could continue with this right up to the
present.
Christ depictions are researched at the present time: years ago
I saw a whole collection of Christ images in an exhibition, the
one more hideous than the next! Today the attempt is to make
reflections of present events thus reflecting the chaos leading
up to events in which we live. If we try — without this
tendency I've just spoken about in the creation of Christ
figures — if we try to introduce what lies within this form in
the spiritual world, shaped initially by our first efforts
through painting, as good as it gets with limited material,
then it does appear as a further progress on this cultural line
of the realities of humanity's unfolding.
RUDOLF
STEINER
731
Painting (Plant colours) in the small cupola of the First
Goetheanum, Dornach, detail with the central motif, with part
of the architraves.
732
Painting (Plant colours) in the small cupola of the First
Goetheanum, Dornach, Central Motif: The Representative of Man
between Lucifer and Ahriman.
733
The Representative of Man between Lucifer and Ahriman, design
for the painting of the small cupola of the First Goetheanum,
Dornach. Pastel.
734
Painting in the small cupola of the First Goetheanum, Dornach.
Section: Bust of The Representative of Man.
735
Visage of The Representative of Man, pencil sketch.
736
Wood sculptural group: The Representative of Man between
Lucifer and Ahriman.
737
Wood sculptural group: Detail: The Representative of Man.
738
Maquette for the wood sculptural group, a Plaster of Paris
cast.
739
Wood sculptural group, detail: Head of The Representative of
Man, side view.
740
Wood sculptural group, detail: Head of The Representative of
Man.
741
Study of the head of The Representative of Man, plasticine.
It
is really good in the present time to fructify ourselves with
such ideas which can be gained from cultural areas of art, and
see a bit of the truth, because in the present time gods will
be offered to mankind to be worshipped, while mankind will have
no talent for seeing the truth.
In
our time (1917) it is possible to say that four fifths of the
world should ally itself against a fifth, in a time when so
much indifference is accepted, it is time for recorded concepts
to be taken out of the history of humanity's evolution and to
revise them a little.
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