Beauty: Difference between revisions

From AnthroWiki
VisualWikitext
No edit summary
No edit summary
Line 16: Line 16:


[[File:GA170 088 en.gif|center|600px|Drawing from CW 88, p. 88]]
[[File:GA170 088 en.gif|center|600px|Drawing from CW 88, p. 88]]
According to Steiner's aesthetics, the beautiful is not the appearance of an ideal, an abstract spiritual, in a sensual dress, as the [[German idealists]] in particular thought, but the sensual is so elevated and ennobled in it that it itself already appears as a spiritual. Art, which seeks to make the beautiful appear, does not emerge from the intellect, but from the creative will full of wisdom.<ref>As an after-effect of German idealism, art was increasingly seen, especially in the German-speaking world, as the embodiment of more or less abstract ideas, ideals or even ideologies. As a result, the understanding of beauty was largely lost. It is a basic evil of artistic creation if the artist wants to think beforehand what he is supposed to create afterwards. Art must spring from direct action. Reflection may only begin when the work has already been completed. Until then, thinking must be limited to purely practical questions of craft and must not interfere with the actual process of artistic creation.</ref>
In nature outside, as in human life, that which is spiritually essential in it often appears only fragmentarily and incompletely and is concealed by many purely external coincidences. The task of the artist is to clear away the debris of unessential coincidences and to bring to full manifestation that which in nature and in human life is predisposed but not completed. Steiner's aesthetics are very largely based on Goethe's artistic work, who himself thought that beauty was "a manifestation of secret laws of nature, which would have remained hidden to us forever without its appearance"<ref>Goethe: ''Sprüche in Prosa''</ref>.


== Literature ==
== Literature ==

Revision as of 09:03, 16 May 2022

Beauty is, according to spiritual science, the revelation of a spiritual entity in the outer sensual appearance.

„The beautiful is a manifestation of secret laws of nature, which would have remained eternally hidden from us without its appearance.“

– Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Maximen und Reflexionen[1]

This is especially true for human beings themselves. To strive for beauty is therefore one of the three fundamental virtues of the initiate, along with wisdom and goodness. The expression of one's facial features, the gracefulness of one's movements, one's posture and one's entire outer conduct of life should thereby become more and more the expression of one's own inner being.

The cosmic origin of beauty

Beauty appears in the highest degree where the whole cosmos, the archetype of all beauty, is imaged in an earthly being with the help of the formative powers of the etheric body.

„But because a being is formed from the periphery of the universe, that which, according to the original meaning of this word, is the essence of "beauty", is imprinted upon it. Beauty is namely the imprint of the cosmos, with the help of the etheric body, in a physical earth being.“ (Lit.:GA 82, p. 57)

Cosmically, beauty has its origin on the Old Moon and will find its perfection on the New Venus.

„On the Moon then begins that which contains the aesthetic sphere. That will be completed on Venus. We can draw it something like this: Moon, Venus completed; so here we have the development of beauty. You see, this overlaps.“ (Lit.:GA 170, p. 88f)

Drawing from CW 88, p. 88
Drawing from CW 88, p. 88

According to Steiner's aesthetics, the beautiful is not the appearance of an ideal, an abstract spiritual, in a sensual dress, as the German idealists in particular thought, but the sensual is so elevated and ennobled in it that it itself already appears as a spiritual. Art, which seeks to make the beautiful appear, does not emerge from the intellect, but from the creative will full of wisdom.[2]

In nature outside, as in human life, that which is spiritually essential in it often appears only fragmentarily and incompletely and is concealed by many purely external coincidences. The task of the artist is to clear away the debris of unessential coincidences and to bring to full manifestation that which in nature and in human life is predisposed but not completed. Steiner's aesthetics are very largely based on Goethe's artistic work, who himself thought that beauty was "a manifestation of secret laws of nature, which would have remained hidden to us forever without its appearance"[3].

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.

References

  1. ↑ Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Maximen und Reflexionen. Aphorismen und Aufzeichnungen. Nach den Handschriften des Goethe- und Schiller-Archivs hrsg. von Max Hecker, Verlag der Goethe-Gesellschaft, Weimar 1907. Aus Kunst und Altertum, 4. Bandes 2. Heft, 1823
  2. ↑ As an after-effect of German idealism, art was increasingly seen, especially in the German-speaking world, as the embodiment of more or less abstract ideas, ideals or even ideologies. As a result, the understanding of beauty was largely lost. It is a basic evil of artistic creation if the artist wants to think beforehand what he is supposed to create afterwards. Art must spring from direct action. Reflection may only begin when the work has already been completed. Until then, thinking must be limited to purely practical questions of craft and must not interfere with the actual process of artistic creation.
  3. ↑ Goethe: Sprüche in Prosa
Retrieved from "https://en.anthro.wiki/index.php?title=Beauty&oldid=10174"