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 �sthetik, 3rd edition, published by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland, 2010 (GA 271).
Author Biography:
Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was born in the small village of Kraljevec, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Croatia), where he grew up. As a young man, he lived in Weimar and Berlin, where he became a well-published scientific, literary, and philosophical scholar, known especially for his work with Goethe's scientific writings. At the beginning of the twentieth century, he began to develop his early philosophical principles into an approach to systematic research into psychological and spiritual phenomena. Formally beginning his spiritual teaching career under the auspices of the Theosophical Society, Steiner came to use the term Anthroposophy (and spiritual science) for his philosophy, spiritual research, and findings. The influence of Steiner's multifaceted genius has led to innovative and holistic approaches in medicine, various therapies, philosophy, religious renewal, Waldorf education, education for special needs, threefold economics, biodynamic agriculture, Goethean science, architecture, and the arts of drama, speech, and eurythmy. In 1924, Rudolf Steiner founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world. He died in Dornach, Switzerland. Zvi Szir is mand artist and teacher and co-founder of the New Art School in Basel, Switzerland. He has extensively practiced and researched art and art history, philosophy, and anthroposophy. His articles on art history and 21st-century philosophers have appeared in Das Goethanum magazine. Zvi has focused especially on the art of Joseph Beuys. Dorit Winter, MA, brings a cosmopolitan background to all her undertakings. Born in Jerusalem in 1947, she attended kindergarten in Zurich, primary school in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and junior and senior high schools in New York City, graduating from the Rudolf Steiner High School in 1964. Dorit began her Waldorf career in 1973 as a German and class teacher at the Rudolf Steiner School in New York City. Seven years later she joined the Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School, where she coordinated the founding of a new high school. In 1989 she became founder and director of Rudolf Steiner College's satellite teacher training program in San Francisco. In 2001 she accepted the directorship of Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training, from which she retired in 2014. She is active as mentor, teacher, tutor, and translator. Her translations include Who Was Ita Wegman, vol. 1, by J.E. Zeylmans van Emmichoven, The Joy of Profession by Christof Wiechert, as well as numerous articles.
Clifford Venho is a poet, translator, author, editor for SteinerBooks, and movement artist. He was born in New York City and studied English and creative writing at the State University of New York at New Paltz. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Dewdrop, Modern Literature, Chronogram Magazine, and La Piccioletta Barca, among other publications. His translation of Novalis' Hymns to the Night was published by Mercury Press (2015). He is also a translator at Chadwick Library Edition, focusing on the translation of works by Austrian philosopher and spiritual thinker Rudolf Steiner. His essays on Shakespeare, the art of eurythmy, and Rudolf Steiner have appeared or are forthcoming in The Decadent Review and Being Human. He teaches courses in eurythmy and poetry at Eurythmy Spring Valley, New York.
