Download or read book Architecture Sculpture and Painting of the First Goetheanum written by RUDOLF STEINER and published by Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner. This book was released on 2017 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The planning, construction, and execution of the functional work of art that was the First Goetheanum was an endeavor that occupied Rudolf Steiner for the better part of seven years. Every detail, from the seemingly small-such as the shape and feel of the door handles-to the grand motifs of the paintings on the ceilings of the cupolas and the building's intended sculptural centerpiece, was lovingly designed to meet and inspire the individual human beings who would some day encounter it, not with didactic symbolism, but with the transparent reality of the spiritual foundation of humanity and the world, and the open possibility to both know this spiritual foundation and to work with it practically and artistically for the good of all. The lectures contained in this volume, which Steiner accompanied with just over 100 slides (here reproduced) were given to various audiences when the building was very near to completion, before it was destroyed by fire. Complemented by a Foreword by the esteemed architect Douglas Cardinal, as well as an important and revelatory Introductory essay by David Adams ("The Form-Function Relationship in Architecture and Nature: Organic and Inorganic Functionalism"), this volume of The Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner is essential reading for anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of the artistic motivation of Rudolf Steiner as an artist and architect, while also clearing up many of the misunderstandings that the building and its sculptural and painted components have inevitably given rise to, both then and now. Book jacket.
Download or read book A Life with Colour written by Caroline Chanter and published by Rudolf Steiner Press. This book was released on 2021-10-28 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Life with Colour is the first complete survey of Gerard Wagner’s biography and his artistic intentions, featuring dozens of illustrations and more than 120 colour plates. The life and work of Gerard Wagner (1906-1999) were closely aligned to the artistic-spiritual stream connected with the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. He first heard of the Goetheanum – and of its destruction by fire at New Year 1922/23 – whilst still a youth. In 1926, he made his first visit to Dornach, but his intended stay of a week turned into a lifelong sojourn of over 73 years. He found there an active, striving community with which he felt intimately connected. From the start, Gerard Wagner immersed himself in the various artistic impulses that Rudolf Steiner had instigated. This, together with an intensive study of anthroposophy, formed the basis upon which he forged his own approach to painting. The many years he spent in colour experimentation led him to discover objective principles within the language of colour and form that are an inspiration to many today. His paintings, first shown at the Goetheanum in the early 1940s, were exhibited internationally, most notably at the Menshikov Palace, Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia, in 1997. ‘[Wagner’s] whole being bowed before the mystery of colour in a loving, joyful yet serious way, full of devotion and dignity. His life and work itself became a living metaphor of the creative power of colour.’ – Christian Hitsch ‘ Caroline Chanter has not only accomplished a great and seminal study that illuminates the life and work of Gerard Wagner, but has done a great service also to the Goetheanum and its School of Spiritual Science.’ – Peter Selg ‘[Gerard Wagner was] a soul which on earth was devoted so selflessly and in such purity to the beings that are revealed… in forms and colours. He helped them to utterance and manifestation in this world of ours.’ – Sergei O. Prokofieff
Download or read book Architecture as a Synthesis of the Arts written by Rudolf Steiner and published by Rudolf Steiner Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 8 lectures plus extracts and notes (CW 286) This collection introduces Rudolf Steiner's vision of architecture as a culmination of the arts. Such architecture unites sculpture, painting, and engraving as well as drama, music and dance--a vital synthesis of all the arts working in cooperation through the common ideal of awakening us to our individuality and task in life. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Steiner's ideas did not remain abstract. Within his lifetime he was able to design and construct a number of buildings, including his architectural masterpiece, the Goetheanum--a center for culture and arts near Basle, Switzerland. In these lectures Steiner describes, with reference to the Goetheanum, the importance of an architecturally coherent and integrated community, and how this in turn affects social unity and harmony. These lectures offer a panorama of the development of architecture in parallel with the emerging human soul in human evolution. This is a valuable collection for all students of architecture, the arts, social science, and those looking for a deeper spiritual understanding of the art of architecture. Includes eight color plates and 30 black & white illustrations. CONTENTS: Part One: The Temple Is the Human Being An Art & Architecture that Reveal the Underlying Wholeness of Creation The Task of Modern Art & Architecture Proposals for the Architecture of a Model Anthroposophical Community at Dornach Part Two: Ways to a New Style of Architecture True Artistic Creation Art As the Creation of Organs through which the Gods Speak to Us A New Concept of Architecture The Aesthetic Laws of Form The Creative World of Color Appendix: The Evolution of Architecture at the Turn of Each New Millennium Notes & Color Plates Architecture as a Synthesis of the Arts is a translation from German of Wege zu einem neuen Baustil. "Und der Bau wird Mensch"
Download or read book Toward a New Theory of Architecture written by Rudolf Steiner and published by Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner. This book was released on 2017-02 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rudolf Steiner gave thousands of lectures in his lifetime, usually without notes, and, with very few exceptions, with nothing more than chalk and a blackboard if he chose to accompany his speech with some kind of visual illustration. A notable exception is the presentation that constitutes the main part of this book. Given in June 1921, in Bern just eighteen months before its tragic destruction by fire, this lecture and slide show (consisting of a hundred slides) is both the closest thing we have to a guided tour of the original Goetheanum by its architect and a profound statement of artistic purpose. In addition to the lecture and slide show that comprise the main content of this volume, the introduction by John Kettle serves to place Steiner's artistic contribution to architecture in the context of early twentieth-century Expressionism and Organicism. Frederick Amrine's thorough bibliographic essay highlights the most important secondary literature on Steiner's architecture and provides a sound entry to further exploration and study.
Download or read book The Goetheanum written by Hans Hasler and published by Rudolf Steiner Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I first saw the Goetheanum as a fifteen-year-old through binoculars. I was fascinated and wanted to know more about this incredible building. What am I seeing? Why these forms? What happens in this building?' Hans Hasler.
Download or read book The Goetheanum Cupola Motifs of Rudolf Steiner written by Peter Stebbing and published by Steiner Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gerard Wagner's paintings of Rudolf Stiener's Goetheanum cupola sketches bring these works to a wide audience that would otherwise have little access to or knowledge of those representations of Steiner's artistic spiritual vision contained in the first Goetheanum and lost to the fire that destroyed that great building. Wagner re-created those archetypal motifs in new ways over a period of decades. They constitute an artistic high point of Wagner's work as a whole, but they cannot be separated from the Goetheanum itself, nor can they be fully understood except in the context of anthroposophic spiritual science. In this sense, The Goetheanum Cupola Motifs of Rudolf Steiner points to the historic and spiritual importance of the first Goetheanum building. Rudolf Steiner's lecture on October 25, 1914, and his lecture on the paintings of the small cupola on January 25, 1920, are published in English here for the first, along with color photographs from 1922. Also included are the little-known colored etchings of the Goetheanum window motifs made by by Assya Turgenieff with Rudolf Steiner, as well as other centrally important contributions to an understanding of this new direction in art. Though the main emphasis is on visual examples, the book achieves something more than simply cataloging these works of art. The book conveys, too, a sense of the artistic process itself. Thus, Gerard Wagner's observations here have a special relevance. In addition to the two lectures by Rudolf Steiner and the paintings by Gerard Wagner--in full color--The Goetheanum Cupola Motifs of Rudolf Steiner presents essays from Peter Stebbing, Louise Clason, Assya Turgenieff, and Gerard Wagner. "Along with the architectural and sculptural forms of the double-domed first Goetheanum, the cupola paintings further epitomized the artistic conception of this unique building. The painting motifs extending over the surface of the two cupolas encompassed the evolution of the world as a whole, from its creation by the biblical Elohim to the great epochs of Lemuria and Atlantis that followed. Traversing the post-Atlantean cultural epochs, the beholder was gradually led to the building's central motif: the Mystery of Golgotha as the mid-point of world evolution, with its implications for the future development of the Earth and humanity." --Sergei O. Prokofieff (from his foreword) CONTENTS: Foreword by Sergei O. Prokofieff Preface The Renewal of the Artistic Principle / Rudolf Steiner Goethe and the Goetheanum / Rudolf Steiner The Artists Who Originally Worked on Painting the Cupolas of the First Goetheanum / Peter Stebbing Recollections of the Years of Painting in the Small Cupola of the First Goetheanum / Louise Clason I. THE MOTIFS OF THE LARGE CUPOLA The Large Cupola Sketch-Motifs of Rudolf Steiner Large Cupola Studies of Gerard Wagner A Further Development of the Large Cupola Motifs / Peter Stebbing II. THE MOTIFS OF THE SMALL CUPOLA The Paintings of the Small Cupola / Rudolf Steiner Small Cupola Studies of Gerard Wagner The Question of the North Side: "Counter Colors" or "Complementary Colors"? / Peter Stebbing III. THE COLORED GLASS WINDOW MOTIFS Indications of Rudolf Steiner for Engraving the Window Motifs / Assya Turgenieff On the Windows of the First Goetheanum / Rudolf Steiner The Red Window Middle Motif Metamorphosed (Paintings of Gerard Wagner) APPENDIX A Path of Practice in Painting / Gerard Wagner Biographical Sketches About the Painter Gerard Wagner / Peter Stebbing Selected Bibliography
Download or read book The Language of Color in the First Goetheanum written by Hilde Raske and published by Rudolf Steiner Press. This book was released on 2023-05-25 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rudolf Steiner’s architectural masterpiece, the double-domed building known as the first Goetheanum, featured decorated ceilings that were designed and partly painted by Steiner himself, utilizing vegetable colors and a new layering technique. Steiner emphasized that he was seeking a new artistic conception based on a conscious understanding of the nature of color. Contemporaries report the extraordinary effect of the domed ceilings’ paintings combined with the multicolored light emanating from the engraved glass windows. The cupolas depicted the creation and ages of the world, the initiators of the various cultural epochs and the figure of Christ. Tragically, the ‘complete work of art’ that was the first Goetheanum burned down on New Year’s Eve 1922 – so today we can only get an impression of the lost paintings and windows from Rudolf Steiner’s pastel sketches and drawings and a handful of photographs. In this lavish volume, the result of decades of research and study, Hilde Raske provides a detailed examination of the artistic work on the two cupolas, including Rudolf Steiner’s draft sketches and his written and verbal statements. Featuring 30 color and more than 100 black-and-white illustrations, this printing is a high-quality facsimile of the long out-of-print original edition from 1983.
Download or read book Goetheanism written by Rudolf Steiner and published by Rudolf Steiner Press. This book was released on 2024-10-28 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘There will be a resurrection – a resurrection that should not be imagined politically… but it will be a resurrection. Goetheanism still rests in the grave as far as external culture is concerned. But Goetheanism must rise again.’ In the first winter following the Great War, Rudolf Steiner appealed to the spirit of Central Europe – which he characterized as Goetheanism – that had been languishing for decades. Only such a spiritual force could provide answers to the pressing social, national and international questions of the time. A new constellation of polar, hostile opposition had emerged after the war, with the East and Bolshevism on one side, and the victorious West and Americanism on the other. In the middle, with no apparent role or hope for the future, was the defeated Central Europe. But this ‘centre’, beseeched Steiner, should not become a vacuum. Rather, it needs to discover its true, world-historical task. In this context, with deep seriousness and urgency, Rudolf Steiner speaks of the work of Goetheanism, which begins with understanding the threefold human being and leads to threefolding the social organism. Steiner goes on to describe the decisive role of the consciousness soul in the present epoch, and how Schiller’s Aesthetic Letters and Goethe’s Fairy Tale relate to contemporary challenges. He discusses a multitude of seemingly diverse but interrelated themes, such as the migration of peoples in the past and present, the thinking of John of the Cross, and the modern path of spirit cognition. The first English publication of these lectures features an introduction by Christian von Arnim, notes and an index. Twelve lectures, Dornach, Jan.–Feb. 1919, GA 188
Download or read book The Spiritual Background to the First World War written by Rudolf Steiner and published by Rudolf Steiner Press. This book was released on 2024-05-24 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the unprecedented global conflict of the First World War as an overarching theme, Rudolf Steiner addresses timeless issues such as the search for harmony between peoples and nations, the development of the human capacity for love, the contemporary presence of Christ, and the questions of reincarnation and life after death. Speaking in the German city of Stuttgart during and after the war years, Steiner discusses the perpetual tension between East and West – particularly in relation to Europe. The war, he says, arose principally out of the Anglo-Saxon peoples' determination 'to exercise world-domination'. Knowing that Slavic culture is destined to be the precursor of the sixth cultural epoch, Western national interests resolved to make Eastern Europe – specifically Russia – 'the field for socialist experiments'. These events were aggravated by the failure of the Central European peoples in their own world-historical task, to 'rise to a broad sense of vision' as intermediaries between the two groups. Throughout, Steiner refers to the work of individual Folk Souls, but distinguishes them from the scourge of nationalism – especially when it is based on blood – whilst emphasizing the sovereignty of the individual human being. Although more than a century old, the enduring themes of these previously-untranslated lectures will resonate with many readers today. The main text is supplemented with an introduction by Simon Blaxland-de Lange, editorial notes and an index. Sixteen lectures, Stuttgart, Sept. 1914–March 1921, GA 174b
Download or read book Art and Theory of Art written by Rudolf Steiner and published by Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner. This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Author's Summary, 1888 Four Essays Written between 1890 and 1898 Eight Lectures between 1909 and 1921 (CW 271) "The challenge of saying something about art was personal for Rudolf Steiner. He experienced it as deeply connected with his biography. It is not for nothing that, in the last lecture of this volume, he points to his repeated attempts to develop a new approach and new forms of expression for speaking about art. We find at least three forms of this attempted approach in this book." --Zvi Szir (from the introduction) The subject, practice, and vital importance of art was a thread that ran through Rudolf Steiner's life, from his early work as a scholar of Goethe, through his time as an editor of a literary and arts journal in Berlin in the 1890s, and to his two and a half decades as a spiritual researcher and teacher. Understanding and articulating the significance of art was a perennial challenge for Rudolf Steiner. This volume of Steiner's Collected Works is unique in that it showcases a survey of both early written works and later lectures to anthroposophic audiences, and in doing so presents a picture of a lifetime of intensive effort to convey something essential about the arts. Beginning with his early philosophical work and literary criticism at the end of the nineteenth century and on into his later lectures, this volume follows Steiner's endeavor to reveal in words the mystery obscured by the vague concept of what "art" is. Viewed as a whole, this volume forms one of the most provocative collections of the twentieth century on the subject of art. It offers a unique analysis of the origin, foundation, and method of the creative process. This book is a translation of Kunst und Kunsterkenntnis: Grundlagen einer neuen Ästhetik, 3rd edition, published by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland, 2010 (GA 271).
Download or read book Art and Anthroposophy written by and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Steiner's idea of art included the renewal of society in general and more particularly certain human endeavors such as science, economy, and religion. He was convinced that his approach would in turn lead to a fundamental renewal of contemporary art. In his introduction, Mattke writes "to the extent that we humans adopt a modern mindset, the more we will be divided from the reality that surrounds us." In response to this profoundly challenging situation, Steiner recommends that we do not assume a New Age paradigm, or a "back-to-nature" attitude such as Rousseau advocated. Rather, according to Steiner and anthroposophy, contemporary humanity needs to develop and practice new ways of thinking, feeling, and willing in order to reconnect to the spiritual character of human life and of the cosmos in a conscious way. Steiner's conception of art is one of the ways to effect this reconnection. Today's art calls for an individual encounter from ego to ego, for conscious work to meet the artist's intentions and foremost for intense work on one's own habitual thought systems and so called "normal" feelings. Losing the crutches of trained intellectual conclusions as well as the comfortable wellness of one's familiar feelings is surely an intense learning process, a real threshold experience. Art & Anthroposophy includes articles ranging from a very personal account of conversations between Margarita Woloschin and Rudolf Steiner; the significance of the First Goetheanum; an article by David Adams on Joseph Beuys; and a tribute to Beppe Assenza by Arthur Zajonc.
Download or read book The Individuality of Colour written by Elisabeth Wagner-Koch and published by Rudolf Steiner Press. This book was released on 2009-12-09 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What is postulated here is not the dogmatic laying down of a way of working. Rather the aim is to make evident one possible means of access to an experience of the color world ... and guide actual practice to Rudolf Steiner's sketch motifs--to their eminent educational power--for we recognize in them a path that can become of great significance to the developing human soul." (from the introduction) This unique workbook describes the early stages of training for painters, teachers, as well as for beginners. The stages are based on recommendations by Rudolf Steiner for the development of a renewed art of painting for our time. The book draws on Steiner's indications for teaching painting in the first Waldorf school, his lectures on color and art, and sketches he made for painters. Together, they form a self-contained system of exercises for a new, spiritually alive art. (Photo: The authors, Gerard Wagner and Elisabeth Wagner-Koch, in the garden of their house in Dornach, Switzerland.)
Download or read book Art History written by Rudolf Steiner and published by Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rudolf Steiner understood that the history of art is a field in which the evolution of consciousness is symptomatically and transparently revealed. This informal sequence of thirteen lectures was given during the darkest hours of World War I. It was a moment when the negative consequences of what he called the age of the consciousness soul, which began around 1417, were made most terribly apparent. In these lectures he sought to provide an antidote to pessimism. After describing the movement of consciousness from Greece into Rome, coupled with influences from the Orthodox East, he showed how these influences transformed as the Middle Ages became the Renaissance. The process that begins with Cimabue and Giotto develops, deepens, and becomes more conscious in the great Renaissance masters Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Then this movement continues with the Northern masters, D rer and Holbein, as well as the German tradition. One entire lecture is devoted to Rembrandt, followed by one on Dutch and Flemish paintings. Themes are woven together to show how past epochs of consciousness and art live again in our consciousness-soul period. Replete with interesting information and more than 600 color and black-and-white images, these lectures are rich and dense with ideas, enabling us to understand both the art of the Renaissance and the transformation of consciousness it announced. These lectures demonstrate (to paraphrase Shelley) that artists truly are the unacknowledged legislators of the age.
Download or read book The Arts and Their Mission written by Rudolf Steiner and published by . This book was released on 1964 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Human and Cosmic Thought written by Rudolf Steiner and published by Rudolf Steiner Press. This book was released on 2024-05-08 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What convinces us of the truth of a point of view? Why do we find it difficult to understand or accept differing perspectives? What are the inner foundations of our knowledge? In these concentrated and aphoristic lectures, Rudolf Steiner speaks of twelve main philosophical standpoints, and the importance of comprehending each one of them. Appreciating the variety of world-views not only sharpens our thinking and makes it more flexible, but helps us to overcome a narrow-minded one sidedness, promoting tolerance of other people and their opinions. The future of philosophy rests not upon defending one single perspective and refuting all others, but in learning to experience the validity of all points of view. Steiner goes on to explain how each philosophical standpoint is coloured by a particular 'soul mood', which influences the way we pursue knowledge as individuals. He characterizes the work of several thinkers in this way, throwing light on their unique contributions to human culture. Through such insights into the true nature of human thinking, we are led to understand the quality of cosmic thought, and how the human being is a 'thought which is thought by the Hierarchies of the cosmos'. This revised translation is complemented with an introduction by Robert McDermott, editorial notes and appendices by Frederick Amrine and an index. Four lectures, Berlin, Jan. 1914, GA 151
Download or read book From the History of the Dornach Hill written by Angela Locher and published by Temple Lodge Publishing. This book was released on 2024-11-25 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on Marie Steiner-von Sivers’ distinctive collaboration with Rudolf Steiner, From the History of the Dornach Hill… offers an engaging, lively narrative of the early decades of the anthroposophical movement. Utilizing eye-witness accounts and primary sources, Angela Locher creates vivid images of the developing arts at the Goetheanum – in particular eurythmy, speech formation and the dramatic arts – but also describes many fascinating aspects of general anthroposophical history. The latter include the period of cooperation with the Theosophical Society; the design and building of the first and second Goetheanums; travels, tours and visits overseas with Rudolf Steiner; the pivotal Christmas Conference of 1923/4; stage performances including the Mystery Dramas; and Rudolf Steiner’s unexpected death and its aftermath. Locher structures her absorbing study around the life of Marie Steiner – from her birth in 1867 and childhood in Russia to her eventual passing in Switzerland in 1948. ‘I have written this book especially for subsequent generations of eurythmists, actors and speakers who could not experience what had been achieved in the previous century… the vital processes of the development of eurythmy and the dramatic arts. These created the foundation on which we stand today, and from which we can carry on into the future.’ – Angela Locher 'This work by Angela Locher can be greeted with enthusiasm… In view of the difficult challenges of our time, more people than ever are beginning to experience that the arts are not merely a beautiful addition to life but are profoundly connected to our humanity.' – Virginia Sease
Download or read book From Jesus to Christ written by Rudolf Steiner and published by Rudolf Steiner Press. This book was released on 2024-11-18 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Knowledge of the cosmic significance of Christ and his mission, once experienced intuitively, has faded over the centuries. As theologians and historians of the Church critically scrutinized the Gospel records, their focus shifted from a gnostic vision of Christ to the human figure of 'the simple man', Jesus of Nazareth.In these enlightening lectures, Rudolf Steiner shows how 'the Mystery of Golgotha' (his term for the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ) can be understood as the pivotal event in human history, and the Gospels as 'initiation documents' that can serve to guide us on a path of spiritual development. He contrasts elements of the religious thinking of Jesuitism with Rosicrucianism – particularly in relation to the effect on human will – and discusses the characteristics of the two Jesus children in the contrasting accounts by Luke and Matthew. Steiner demonstrates how the great religious traditions of Zarathustra and Buddha helped prepare the way for the events of Palestine. In the process he clarifies controversial topics in Christian theology, such as the resurrection of the physical body of Jesus Christ.The emphasis throughout these lectures is on rediscovering the esoteric path to Christ and awakening to a new revelation manifesting in our time: Christ as the 'Lord of Karma'. This edition features a revised translation and is complemented with editorial notes and appendices by Frederick Amrine and an introduction by Robert McDermott.Eleven lectures, Karlsruhe, Oct. 1911, GA 133