Theos-Talk Archives (November 1997 Message tt00344)

>> I remember visiting a Waldorf school a few years ago and was taken wit=
h all
>> the colored murals and graphics painted all over the school. The chil=
drens
>> drawings also displayed the same uniform use of colors and color shadi=
ng,
>> so I assume there was some symbolism taught in color usage. Also, all=

>> painting and drawings looked to be done with pastels or water colors -=
-none
>> of the basic crayons and markers used by most schools.

> Sorry Pam, I don't. More info on my next post.
> The colour method you speak of is Goethean.


In Dornach, Switzerland in 1921, Steiner gave a series of three lectures
on the subject of his understanding of colour. They were given in
response to requests from the other painters working in the Goetheaneum
at the time. These have been published, along with extracts from his
notebooks, by the Rudolph Steiner Press, London, under the title
"Colour" =A91971 (ISBN 0854403108).

Based largely on his understanding of Goethe's "Theory of Color," which
Steiner had edited for publication in 1890-91, they speak of the subject from
both its practical artistic aspects to psycho-spiritual and
transformative (or metamorphic) ones. There is an interesting inquiry
into the occult science behind colour and a proposed new understanding
of color as an living organism to be considered on its own terms as pure
natural force. He suggests that artists try to "paint so as to have the
form arise out of the work of the colours. Pretty "avant" stuff for
1921, although he was not alone by any means, i.e., Kandinsky had
already published his seminal "Concerning the Spiritual in art" with its
important chapters on color (in part influenced by Theosophy) seven
years earlier.

Incidentally, for anyone on the list who might be able to attend, The
Berkeley Art Museum in Berkely, CA is currently holding an exhibition
called "Knowledge of Higher Worlds, Rudolph Steiner's blackboard and
chalk drawings": colored chalk drawings created by the scholar and
mystic who drew to illustrate lectures given between 1919 and 1924.
Through Jan. 4.

It's always interesting to see the graphic and visual attempts to
articulate esoteric teachings.

---------------

>> Do you know what colors Steiner equated the streams forming the pentag=
ram?

I don't know the answer to that question, but I've wanted to make a
small comment on this subject for a few days now. It seems, by what was
written about the pentagram, that the mere act of drawing this geometric
form on the skin can be somewhat occultly efficacious. If this is so,
then why couldn't the same be said for such things like the alipana
designs drawn by the women of rural India (that I spoke of last week),
despite the fact that it is a folk art tradition and these women may
have had no esoteric training in either Tantra or Yoga? (I would argure
that the tradition probably has some instructions given regarding its
supposed intent when it is passed along.) But basically, if it occultly
functions, it functions. Whether you are aware of how or why or not.
IMO, it doesn't matter either, how precisely or mechanically you draw
the forms, or what the local embellishments might be, because the
underlying geometry is the key to its power and that is present as
archetype.

Most "yantra" and "mandala" type diagrams are highly concentrated, yet
simply represented geometric codes for deep and penetrating mystical
knowledge or experience. They cut across time and space, being found one
way or another in just about every known culture. The information is
there, but some people may only see a pretty triangle, for example.

"Let s/he who has eyes to see, see."

This throws similar folk art traditions that are based on such forms,
like Amish Hex Signs, Oriental prayer rugs, Russian Icons, Greek art
(with its underlying use of Platonic and Pythagorean geometry) and
decorative designs from almost all cultures, etc, into a different
light.

When I hear some art critics "pooh pooh" what they call the "merely
decorative," I pause to consider this. On the other hand, sometimes a
triangle is just a triangle, or is it?

Mark
--------
WITHOUT WALLS: An Internet Art Space
http://www.withoutwalls.com