For
Members of the Anthroposophical Society. Not to be copied.
Z 147.
Two
pictures by Raphael
“The School of Athens” and the
“Disputa”
Part
of a Lecture given by Rudolf Steiner at Berlin,
5th
May 1909.
This
book cannot be renewed.
Two
Pictures by Raphael
“The School of Athens” and the
“Disputa.”
Berlin, 5th May 1909
..
.. .. .. A study of two of the most significant pictures in the
world can help us to see the way in which the Theosophist
should make his life's ideal into the very content of his soul.
By means of these two pictures Raphael was able, in an age of
great artistic development, to give utterance to the
impressions and feelings which passed through his soul
concerning the evolution of mankind through many centuries. The
picture called “The School of Athens” (so-called in
Baedeker,
but it would be better if this name were allowed to
disappear), and the picture called the “Disputa”
— what do these, pictures represent when we study them in
order to discover the great thoughts that underlie them, as
well as the artistic impression they make upon us?
I
have had the opportunity of seeing these pictures several
times; as you know, they are in Rome, at the Vatican, in the
famous Raphael Room ... You can always see people standing
there with their guide-books and reading: This is
Socrates,
that is
Plato,
that other is
Aristotle,
and so on. They are
immensely pleased when Baedeker enables them to discover
whom this or the other figure represents, whether this one here
is a bishop or an early Father of the Church, whether another
is Paul or Peter or Moses … But how little has all this
to do with the artistic value of the pictures! I should like to
suggest by rather a grotesque supposition how one can approach
such pictures in an artistic way. In this case the artistic and
theosophical methods of approach are one and the same.
We
know that there are inhabitants of Mars, although they are of
course very different in appearance from the inhabitants
of Earth. For us however they are very real beings. To be sure,
we do not interest ourselves in that wild idea of some modern
visionaries as to whether it might not be possible to draw the
theorem of
Pythagoras
in lines of electric light over a great
tract of Siberia and in this way set up communication
with the inhabitants of Mars. We will leave such dreaming to
the materialistic visionaries of our day. Anyone who
takes his stand on the ground of reality knows that the
inhabitants of Mars are of quite a different nature from those
of Earth. But now let us suppose that one of these Mars
inhabitants were to descend to Earth and let us imagine that he
visited the Vatican picture-galleries and saw there these two
pictures by Raphael. We could not expect that he should at once
study the whole history of Greek philosophy and the whole
spiritual development of the Middle Ages, in order that we
might be able to converse with him in our own way. For it
would, you know, seem quite ridiculous to him if we were to
begin explaining, “Here is Augustine, there is
Ambrose,” and so on. If he could speak an earthly
language at all, he would probably reply, “I do not know
these gentlemen!” We have a general
acquaintance with them, having assimilated certain ideas
about them — whether right or wrong need not concern us
now. The artistic impression produced upon one by these
pictures is not altered in the least because the beholder
happens to be an inhabitant of Mars, who knows nothing of Mr.
Aristotle or Mr. Plato or Mr. Socrates; for the artistic
impression depends solely and entirely upon what confronts us
in the picture, and makes itself best felt when we pay
no attention at all to anything but what speaks from the
picture itself. The inhabitant of Mars would therefore really
be the best observer from a purely artistic point of view.
Let
us try to enter into the feelings of such a one on his first
descent to Earth, who has not been given a handbook of Greek
and Mediaeval philosophy. He would say to himself: “I see
figures, human figures, in these pictures — but I see no
figures like them among the men of to-day.” For indeed it
is hardly likely that among the people standing there with him
and looking at the pictures he should recognise any as being
persons of like dignity and importance.
He
would however become aware in the pictures of something that
must have grown out of the life of Earth itself. He would read
in them that the inhabitants of Earth desire to say something
which is not connected with any particular moment of time, but
with the whole of Earth. He could contemplate the one picture
and say “Here I see very remarkable forms, — two
figures in the centre, and on their right and left other
figures. I notice a certain expression — the uplifted
hand of the one, the hand of the other pointing to the
ground,” — and so on. (He would see all this
without having any knowledge of Plato or Aristotle.)
“There are also persons doing something or other in
various parts of the picture. And around all these human beings
is nothing but quite simple architectural forms. It can however
also be seen that in the hearts and souls of these people
something is living. That can quite clearly be
noticed!”
Now
suppose the inhabitant of Mars turns his attention to the other
picture. It has quite a different appearance. There he sees,
down below, a world which looks much the same as our external
world to-day. Up above, he finds a scene that could only be
represented by bringing together things which do not belong
together in the external world. For there we behold human
forms among the clouds — and yet in such a way
as to recall something quite real and true. And higher up
still, above this interweaving of the forms of clouds and men,
figures are to be seen on a golden background which have little
left to remind one of the human form. What would the visitor
from Mars say, — who knows nothing of the spiritual life
of Earth, and only judges the pictures by what they themselves
tell him?
He
would be compelled to say: “These men have the Earth
around them; but there are times when they feel the need to
express a world the physical eyes do not see, a world
completely remote from the senses, and which they can only
represent by clouds and human forms interwoven together, and by
forms on a golden background that bear no resemblance to man.
There must therefore be something by means of which these
men are able to raise themselves; they must have inner forces,
stronger than all, they meet with in the world of sense. That
other world must have come into some relation with them.”
And he would ask himself the question: “How did these men
come into touch with that other world?”
He
would then see the wonderful group which we call “God the
Father,” “God the Son,” and “The
Dove” as the expression of the Spirit; and, below, an
Altar, and upon it the Host, the symbol of the Lord's Supper.
Since the evolution of Mars is not yet so far advanced as the
evolution of Earth, there is nothing on Mars like what we have
on Earth in the two thousand years' tradition of Christianity.
The visitor from Mars would accordingly not know what this
picture represents. But from the relation of the groups on the
right and left to the central group he could see that through
the power of the symbol something is being given to the
souls which opens to them the higher worlds.
Our
visitor would then examine the pictures more closely and
discover that in the first picture there are all manner of
figures, but among them in particular two female figures, one
on the right hand and one on the left. And remarkable figures
they are! As one looks at them it is evident that they differ
totally in their expression and even in their dress. Let us
study them a little.
Looking at the one on the left (we are standing in front of the
so-called “School of Athens”), we see in the whole
expression something indicative of the Earthly kingdom of
sense here below, and of what the senses directly give us. Male
figures stand all around; and one dimly feels that what dwells
in the heads of these men belongs to the world of sense. What
presents itself to us in the female figure? Her expression
conveys to us that which is living in the heads and souls of
the men, until we come to her white garment, the garment of
innocence, showing us that the force which comes from the mere
working of the things of sense has not yet been active in her.
We understand the countenances of the men when we understand
what this female figure expresses.
And
now let us pass to the other female figure on the right-hand
side of the same picture. She is quite different, and already
begins to notice what the men are doing. Whereas the left-hand
figure indicates only the physical environment, the right-hand
figure is following what the men have done, her gaze follows
what the human spirit has brought forth. Even if we know
nothing of Greek Philosophy, we can quite clearly see that
there is an advance from the left to the right side of
the picture. On the right hand we see what the men have made of
their environment. (It really goes much further; it is
expressed also in the colour.)
Now
these two women appear also in the other picture, which is
called the “Disputa.” Here again we see the figure
first on the left, where people are standing, contemplating
with rapture the symbol in the centre. We are looking into
early times when the Christian religion was still entirely a
religion of feeling, when Wisdom itself was still
nothing but feeling. On every countenance we can see a kind of
enthusiasm for Christianity, and all hearts are filled
with warm feeling. This is reflected too in the female figure.
And now when we pass to the other side of the picture we see
again a progress. Here we have the Christian philosophers who
have brought their knowledge to bear on the whole content of
the Christian Wisdom.
There is St. Augustine dictating, and the woman writing it
down. We could really reconstruct a great part of the history
of man from the whole way in which Raphael has worked out this
motif, with his great knowledge and understanding and his
wonderful artistic powers. All that is living in the souls of
the men is brought to expression in this woman figure, which we
find four times repeated in the pictures.
The
above is no more than a first rough sketch for a
consideration of these pictures. The two paintings have
to be studied together one after the other. They are an
expression of what happened from the pre-Christian age down to
the later part of the Middle Ages, and they express it in
artistic form. Just imagine how great and mighty must have been
the impression made upon a really sensitive soul who saw these
pictures, first one and then the other, and said to himself:
— “I am myself inter woven into this onward path of
Wisdom, which mankind follows in the course of evolution; I am
part of it, I belong to the march of events as it is shown in
these pictures.” For the man who understood the sense of
evolution in those days really felt this. He looked back to the
pre-Christian age when men were surrounded only by the world of
sense, just as the architecture surrounds the people in the
picture; and he beheld too a time when through the entrance of
Christ Jesus into human evolution the spiritual was revealed to
mankind. He felt that he belonged to all this; he felt
how his own existence takes part in the life of thousands and
thousands of years. What lived in men's souls was borne along
the flow of fantasy and streamed into the hand of the painter,
who painted these pictures in order that men should meet in the
outer world that which dwells in the inner world. For the
Theosophist these pictures can he an earnest call and summons
to inscribe the great ideal into his soul.
Let
us look with the eye of the spirit at the
“Disputa.” In the centre we see “God the
Father,” then “God the Son” or Christ, and
below, the Dove or the Holy Spirit. And now let us recall many
other pictures that are to be found in various galleries.
Whenever you have opportunity to visit picture galleries, you
will find pictures of this kind, created out of good and great
traditions. You will often meet with the following motif,
— Christ coming forth from a figure like a bird, Christ
being born as it were from a winged being. For the whole
mystery of Christ, His whole descent from the higher worlds was
formerly felt as a kind of breaking loose from a nature which
had itself been born as a higher world, — higher even in
the spatial sense. Hence the descent out of a birdlike
form. Christ born from the bird, — let us hold the motif
before our soul, and with that study the
“Disputa.”
Here we find another “bird-being,” — the.
Dove of the Spirit. The Dove of the Spirit, what a great riddle
that is among all the Christian symbols! Much, very much is
contained within it. The painters of the future will have to
paint what comes to birth from out of this Dove of the Spirit.
This Dove of the Spirit is a transitory symbol; something else
will take its place in the Trinity. The day will come when from
the Dove of the Spirit will be born, as it were, the human soul
that is liberated by the wisdom of
Theosophy.
Every human soul
that has the will to receive the spirit of Theosophy will be
born again at a higher stage — spiritually, in a new
form. This Dove of the Spirit will break its form, and from it
will come forth the human soul which will have for its
life-blood the spiritual conception of the world which meets us
to-day in its first form as Theosophy. Other figures, new
figures, will be around the symbol. And these liberated ones
will show in their countenances what is living in their souls,
— how through the events of the spiritual world as they
reveal themselves to one who can rise above the world of sense,
the soul is set free, and how then these liberated souls can
each confront every other with real brotherly love.
And
so it seems to me good that we should sometimes have these
pictures before us, inasmuch as they are at the same time a
prophetic foreshadowing of a third picture, A pre-Christian
conception of the world is expressed in the first picture; the
second expresses what has come about through Christ in the
world of form; and what will come about through the Spirit,
which has been sent by Christ and will divest itself of its
coverings, will be expressed in the third picture that can
stand before the soul of every Theosophist as a great and
mighty ideal. This picture cannot be painted yet, for the
models are not yet here; but in our own souls the two pictures
must already be finding their completion in the third
…
|