From 'A MODERN QUEST FOR THE SPIRIT' pp 67 - 86
by Ehrenfried Pfeiffer (1899 -1961), published in New York by Mercury Press in 2010. Originally published by Thomas Meyer, © Perseus Verlag Basel in 1999 under the title EIN LEBEN FÜR DEN GEIST, ISBN: 3-907 564-31-6
English translation from the German by Henry Goulden, © Mercury Press 2010, ISBN 978-1-935136-02-6
The fellowship Community, 241 Hungry Hollow Road, Chestnut Ridge. NY 10977
mercurypress@fellowshipcommunity.org
Reprinted with permission of the publishers, Mercury Press
In the context of the book, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, aged 20, had met Rudolf Steiner at Chsitmas 1919 in the Goetheanum, Basel, Switzerland and was engaged to start work as one who could do technical jobs.
The following article by Pfeiffer, entitled "Rodolf Steiner als Schöpfer einer neuen Bühnen - beleuchtungskunst" first oppeared in Das Goetheanum: Wochenschrift für Anthroposophie on March 3, 1940. The reproduction of the peom, below, has pencilled notes in Rudolf Steiner's original handwriting, indicating his directions for the lighting of a Eurythmy performance.
Rudolf Steiner as the Creator of a New Art of Stage Lighting
It
has been about twenty years since Dr Rudolf Steiner gave some
imdications which led to the development of that interplay of color
known to everyone who attends a eurythmy performance. While
previously, eurythmy programs displayed uniform lighting interrupted
by just a few nuances - red-white, red-white-blue, white-yellow - for
whole program parts, as a result of those indications a technical
solution was sought for stage lighting that permitted very fast
changes and transitions.
Dr
Steiner expressed to the writer of these lines that he envisaged for
the stage lighing in the Goetheanum an arrangement that would produce
as diffuse a light as possible, similar to soft daylight with its
light and color changes. He pointed to a skylight in the old
Schreinerei
[joiners'
workshop] and challenged him to notice how the stage would change if
the sun shone through or a cloud passed over the sun or it were a
dull day. "You should study the color display that arises when the sun is
suddenly obscured by a cloud, or emerges again from behind a veil of
clouds." Stage lighting was to be patterned after this to have
as "scattered" a light as possible. Light artificially
concentrated through lenses, such as produced by a spotlight, has the
character of something unnatural. For the stage of the first
Goetheanum building, which was also the small cupola room with its
architraves, pillars and cupola painting, one should aim to flood it
with multi-colored illumination coming, if possible, from all
directions. The figures should be surrounded in a cloud of light and
color. For this purpose one should work with special lighting
intensities and six colors {white, red, yellow, blue, green, violet}.
In order to achieve such a saturation of brightness, lights should be
placed six meters high laterally behind the pillars in addition to
footlights along the full width of the ramp.
On
the basis of these few indications, the installation of the stage
lighting of the Goetheanum was begun. Diffusion imitating daylight
was achieved by departing from the usual routines of stage technology. At
that time one mainly worked with flies, spotlights and similar
devices, i.e. directed light broken up or regulated by means of
reflectors and lenses. We built special light fixtures with convex
instead of concave reflectors, covered with matt but pure white
chalk. This enabled us to achieve a specially soft and intimate
mixing of color tones. The light fixtures were set up behind the
pillars of the small cupola so that nothing could be seen from the
auditorium. Since a light source stood behind each pillar, the whole
space was fully and equally flooded with light from the side as well
as obliquely from behind. An intensive colorful and yet soft mood could
be achieved. The only six-meter-high arrangement made possible a
richness not achievable with the high-rigging lofts of normal stages.
The closest to this effect on the usual stage would be with a
cylorama.
(Photo: From Goethe's West-Eastern Drama VIII Book of Suleika.)
Thyself in thousand forms thou mayst conceal,
Yet all , belovèd, straight thou art known to me;
Thou mayst fling over thee some magic veil,
Thou, the All-present, straight art known to me.
In the young cypress's most pure aspiring,
All- burgeoning-beauty, straight thou art known to me;
In the canals' pure life of waves untiring,
Thou, All-caressing, straight art known to me.
If beamlike flung in air the fount escape,
How gladly, All-sportive, thou art known to me;
If the cloud shape itself but to reshape,
All man-fold, in it thou art known to me.
In the pied carpet of the meadow shining,
All-diverse-starred, how fair thou art known to me;
Does ivy fling her thousand arms entwining.
O All-embracing, there thou art known to me.
When on the mount morn kindles, thou straightway,
The All-rejoicing. greeted art by me;
When, o'er me deepens the pure dome of day,
All-heart-dilating, thou art breathed by me.
What lore through outward sense or inward came,
Through thee, All-teaching, has been known to me;
And Allah's hundred names, if I should name,
A name for thee with each would sound to me.*
Goethe, March 14 1815
* The Ghazel is a litany of love parallel to the invocation of Allah by his ninety- nine other names. [Translation by Edward Dowden, President of the English Goethe Society. Published in 1914 by J.M Dent & Sons Ltd., London and Toronto. pp. (97) 142 - 143.]
The use of six colors gives rise to effects beyond those of merely the blending of blue and red for violet or blue and yellow for green. An intense green, for instance, can never be achieved through blending. This is particularly apparent when one not only carries out the lighting of a space, but takes note of those small changes created on a colored costume or veil by varying, mixed-color lighting as, for instance, in eurythmy. A "green" from a mixture of blue and yellow would bring out, for example, the yellow on a yellow ground and bright-red veil quite differently from a pure green illumination, which has a more dimming-down effect. While a light-blue veil in the same situation forms more of the resultants of green with "green," though the blue+yellow will intensify the blue, the yellow will dim it almost to grey. Thus innumerable variations are possible if one notes the interplay of the lighting with the colors of the costumes and veils. Lighting can accentuate, dim and extinguish. Depending on its change, the same garment can appear almost solid in space, or as a surface image, or even be lost, dissolved in an intensive fullness of color.
After the technical installation was so far advanced that all the light fixtures had found their most advantageous positions, with a switchboard that allowed for mixings at any intensity, Dr. Steiner quietly arranged a special stage-lighting rehearsal in order to study the color effects. A chair was placed in the middle of the stage under the small cupola with colored veils and costumes laid on it and illuminated by single colors at full strength. This yielded important insights regarding intensity. Intense red lighting from all sides can make a light-red garment almost white, but a red of identical shade disappear. The same with blue on blue, green on green. A sudden change to a most intensive red after green can make a red garment look black for a few moments, as long as the after-effect in the eye lasts. Indeed, through sudden determined changes the active capacities of the eye can produce all manner of "subjective" effects. All this was researched at this rehearsal in late summer, 1920, and final instructions given for color strengths. Anyone who saw the stage lighting in the old Goetheanum will remember in what fullness of light and color the whole space could shine. An unforgettable experience for those who could let the essence of continuously changing colors work upon them. For example the Prologue in Heaven (Faust) took about 40,000 watts.
One of the most important innovations in the realm of stage lighting was without doubt the suggestions of Rudolf Steiner for a color intensity which until then had not been striven for. One can certainly say, with regard to the earlier conventional stage lighting of the naturalistic theater, it required courage to undertake this journey into the realm of pure colors. As opposed to merely mood-setting sunset, afternoon or midnight stage lighting, Rudolf Steiner began with illumination of the eurythmy stage suitable to the soul and spirit of the character of the performance. What still alienated some in his earlier audiences were the frequent sudden changes - without gradual transitions. But contrasts don't seem to be present and justified only in the spirit or soul. They also arise in and around nature. One need only think of the above-mentioned suggestion to observe the play of color as a cloud passes over the sun. It is not so much a matter of seeing the sun and cloud, but rather of studying how objects on the ground or in a sun-illuminated space change. In such a case there are often quite sudden transitions, rich in contrasts. The blue colors are suddenly lost in uncertainty, darkness. Only the bright yellow and white lights still flash forth; at the moment when the sun reappears, at one stroke, blue and violet return to their original strength while the yellow and white lights, on the contrary, lose something.
Thus also the fact of sudden color changes reveals the pure essence of light. Altogether, Rudolf Steiner's way of applying stage lighting is the consequent artistic expression of what insight can be developed, perhaps from Goethe's Color Theory or his lectures on color, into the essence of light and color.
Now it would be wrong to think and speculate that the color changes for eurythmy were puzzled out or that that all these observations of the effects of coordinating costume, veil and lighting were premeditated. That could not be the case, because Rudolf Steiner's lighting was often written spontaneously into the textbook; it was never tried out on the stage whether this or that suited better, The lighting with its color nuances was determined the moment Rudolf Steiner was given the respective text of music selection. It was an a priori element of the composition or poetry. This came to expression in the way the lighting instructions were given, e.g., for pieces of music. Often only with a movement of the hand: "When the music goes like this (a broad raising, slowly climbing hand movement) you must use this color; when it goes like this (a horizontally undulating gesture), then that color." The stage-lighter had the task of empathetically interpreting in color the mood and movement of the melody according to the gestures and instructions. "With those notes (a prominent staccato movement) red must be added as well," etc. The first time the eurythmy figures were introduced in a lecture and their movement, character and feeling discussed in connection with costume and veil, Rudolf Steiner was asked whether the color given to the eurythmy figures also determined the stage lighting. Rudolf Steiner denied this, but added that every verse of a poem had a basic mood; one is tuned completely to A [Ah], another to I [Eee], still another to a consonant.This basic mood comes to expression in the lighting. With the lighting of the upbeat and final measure (whether silent or with music) these basic moods are repeated one after another, forwards or backwards. Often Rudolf Steiner wrote out a sequence of sounds in color. I can likewise make the observation that the color sequences had a most intensive connection less with the veil or costume, than often with the sound sequence of the eurythmy forms that followed in space.
The stage lighter must then become a eurythmist himself in order to follow the forms and carry out the changes at the right moment. Rudolf Steiner also left it to the stage lighter to find the right mixture of the blending nuances. He appealed to the artistic impulse. This kept the stage lighting from becoming something rigid or schematic. On the ordinary theater stage, the stage lighter is found amidst his machinery; the equipment and its respective resistance and current figures are indicated in a text book. The man often sees the stage incompletely or not at all. For the new art of stage lighting, this is unacceptable. Here, it is a matter of following the movements on the stage with alert attention and accompanying them through color eurythmy. Thus the stage lighter becomes an active co-player perceived by the audience through his effects. He represents an essential part of the harmonious effect of the whole.
If one wants to have a remote idea of the lighting effects of the old Goetheanum stage, two photos may be seen of the place under the small cupola. One is taken with stage lighting, e.g., scattered light from all sides; the other, with the central 8,000 watt ceiling light. In the first case, even in the black-and-white photo one can observe the soft mood, avoiding hard shadows through light saturation of the space, the gentle and yet plastic transition of the architrave and pillars. Especially noticeable is the "true-color", natural appearance of the cupola painting this made possible. By use of the six-colored lighting, every color of the cupola painting (just as of the moving figures on the stage in performances) came into its own. In contrast, the centered, concentrated lighting is selective, partisan and produces hard shadows. The concealing element of a color-saturated space is lacking, and one is faced with angularity.
The essence of Rudolf Steiner's indications for stage lighting has been preserved for us. In a scene from the Mystery dramas, portrayed eurythmically, Rudolf Steiner instructed the stage lighter to give each person a particular basic lighting. Each person should be enveloped in his or her individual garment of color and, on stepping forward, lend this color character temporally to the whole scene. Perhaps much more could have been created, especially for the Mystery dramas, since that period 1920-1924 was devoted mainly to the development of lighting for eurythmy. A wide field of artistic undertaking still lay open here. The burning of the old Goetheanum destroyed much here, also. The harmonious accord of architecture, light reflected by wood, the painting of the cupola and the most intensive flood of color with whatever was happening on the stage could not be restored again. Whoever experienced this at the time saw, for a few short years, possibilities in the realm of color which now, like the king's daughter in the fairy tale, await reawakening. For purely technical reasons, much could not be carried out on the new Goetheanum stage as it was before. Here the givens of a purely functional stage must be reckoned with. Above all, that harmony within the small cupola room could naturally not be attained again. What, however, survives is the living memory from which the new art of stage lighting can develop further.
*
One fundamental idea was that light should be used diffuse, like sunlight coming thru a window and as light appears in nature - not concentrated by lenses as in floodlights. "In light which passes through a lens and is concentrated, there is an element of untruth", he said. I had great fights later on with the performers, who wanted to have floodlights upon their persons, but I never gave in, defending Rudolf Steiner's original instructions. This is the way I learned to become stubborn and persistent and to carry out an idea. I believe I was not much liked by others if I did not yield to their whims.
It was at the same instructive meeting that Rudolf Steiner said to me, "Halten Sie sich immer an Frau Doktor". [Always follow Frau Doktor, i.e. Marie Steiner], a task which some ten, fifteen, twenty years later caused many problems. At the time Frau Marie Steiner* paid but little attention to the young man; he was just a stage hand.
It was clear to me that the technological part of the stage lighting, as far as electric installation was concerned, could follow routine instruction principles, but that the instruments for the lighting had to be built by ourselves, for there was, at the time, just nothing developed which would fulfil the demands of Rudolf Steiner - including the switchboard. So, a workshop was set up in the Kesselhaus [Boiler House], where the electrician, Bollinger and an apprentice, Stracke, began to build the various apparatus according to my specification, and often I had to put in a hand myself.
As office, with its huge drawing boards, we used the East wing of the Glasshouse, where originally the huge glass windows were carved. The West wing, to become the home of the laboratory some twenty-five years later, was still used for glass carving. It was mainly Frau Turgenieff who worked there, a Russian of great artistic talent, and a Polish Lady (S.) whose name I forgot [=Emma Stolle].
This office had huge dimensions: one round room, about 27 feet high and 30 feet diameter. Herr Aisenpreis had his drawing desk there and I occupied the other half of the room, getting used to large dimensions. Once, much later, when I had to use other offices and, especially right now, with only a cubbyhole of office, I always missed these dimensions.
Having thought and experienced so much while wandering thru field and woods, I learned to think and ponder while walking, never having liked sitting before a desk, so this large office suited my peripatetic trends just right.
Rudolf Steiner had created a new art – Eurythmy – the art of motion of the body in tune with the inner motion of the spoken word. Dance is not the right term, for it is not of the nature of the ritual temple dance of old and, of course, eurythmy has nothing to do with modern dances at all. The formation of sound, vowel or consonant, releases finer motions within the human body, fluids, skeleton, muscles – the expression of the sounds via the larynx, vocal chard, mouth and lips carried outward by the breath, is only a small fraction of the entire processes which leads to speech. In eurythmy, the attempt is made to express, through motion of the body members, the original force or law which lives in the production of sound. (It would be simple to describe this in terms of etheric and astral body, but I am trying at this stage of affairs to avoid the anthroposophical terminology; this will be introduced later on).
When I came to Dornach there was only a small stage, temporarily, in the Schreinerei [joiners' workshop], the workshop where the woodwork, lumber etc. was prepared for the building. In this Schreinerei was a lecture room for Dr. Steiner's lectures, parted from the stage by a blue curtain. This hall would hold about about 300 people. The stage had one foot-ramp and two Soffitten [flies] and most primitive switches to switch on or off white, blue, red or yellow bulbs. Usually a whole section of an eurythmy performance was clad in white-yellow, another in blue-red, etc. That is a rather monotonous setting.
Rudolf Steiner explained that he would like to follow the mood of a verse or a poem, a line even or any specific motion, with color changes of the lights. This necessitated the building of rheostats easy to handle that would "play" colors in lighting like one would play tunes on a piano. What technology had to offer was much too clumsy and heavy to allow fast, flowing, dynamic changes. I decided to build a system of fluid rheostats to be operated by a short keyboard (a kind of color-piano) which enabled to mix the different colors of the stage lights instantaneously and in every direction desired. This color keyboard was finished and put to operation in May/June, 1920. While it had still many faults, it was an instrument to play color and to be used for that which Rudolf Steiner wanted to develop as color changes to the poems, verses, bars of music, motions - changes which followed one another in swift succession. He would write the colors in the books of poetry to be performed, which I handed to him, or the notes of music, sometimes even only indicating with a gesture which sentence he wanted. I had built a little cubbyhole with the color piano near the left corner of the stage, sitting on a footstool and having the full view of the stage. Some of the eurythmists would come into that corner to view the stage, and I must say we had a jolly good time in this corner. During the rehearsal Frau Marie Steiner had an armchair on a platform in the audience section, to watch and give instructions and to recite herself. She was not particularly interested in my work at the time, taking it for granted that Rudolf Steiner would tell what to do with regard to the lights and I would carry out accordingly. I had a free hand to carry out the instructions by Rudolf Steiner and don't remember that I have ever been corrected or reprimanded. In fact, nobody showed much interest in this specific work, taking it for granted. The role assigned to me was like to a Heinzelmännchen [elf], whose help one takes, but never sees it.
Rudolf Steiner would come to the main rehearsal which was, if possible, run like a performance with little interruption, sitting beside Frau Marie Steiner and observing the procedure or performance, giving advice as to veils, colors, movements. It was a perfect example of cooperation, where everyone concerned did his share without much coaching, arguing, etc. These main rehearsals were quite different from the anteceding study and trials where, to the contrary, much discussion and arguing went on - in the absence of the master. Since I always, and still, dislike arguing, I did not attend the pre-rehearsals, but only the main rehearsal, taking in a way a chance that things worked all right at the performance the next day. It was at one of these rehearsals that Rudolf Steiner called me for the first time by my Christian name (Ehrenfried). Climbing out of my cubbyhole and walking up to the throne, as we called the setup where he and Frau Marie Steiner would sit, I heard the following discussion: Frau Marie : "Was rufen Sie da? [What did you call him then?]". Rudolf Steiner "Was haben Sie dagegen, Erherfried ist doch ein schöne Name." [What do you have against it? After all, Ehernfried is a beautiful name.] Frau Marie, which was typical for her attitude in general, did not like such informality as done by Rudolf Steiner, as to call somebody by first name. In fact, I remember only three cases when he did, and it made me very happy to feel included. Anyhow, a personal relationship had developed, which cannot be otherwise labelled, for he took a fatherly interest in my little affairs and being. A few days later I met Rudolf Steiner in a small passage to the left of the stage. He took both of my hands, drew me somwhat near and looked deeply with his dark eyes into mine and said, "Sie nehmen es mir doch nicht übel, dass ich Sie Ehrenfried nenne?" [You do not mind that I call you Ehrenfried?] This again was so typical for Rudolf Steiner, who respected so much the freedom of the other that he excused himself for calling the other by his first name. It was at this moment, when we met eye to eye, that I perceived something of the true being Rudolf Steiner, his eternal being, and I felt that something of it flowed over to me and filled my whole being and heart, something from or for which I lived henceforth. While many saw in Rudolf Steiner the great lecturer, the teacher, the esoteric teacher, the Initiate, the man far above on a pedestal, I was henceforth the human being, the man who struggled, who fought, who suffered, who loved, whose kindness was above any other kindness I ever experienced in life. I experienced also the shyness, that mysterious force which plays from human to human being when one soul opens its gate to another, as one does in true love. I "recognized" Rudolf Steiner in the sense as is described in the Gospels when the to-come-Apostle men saw Jesus and "recognized" the Christ, which became the cause of their Apostolic mission. So I recognized the spirit beings and powers in the moments which acted through the man Rudolf Steiner. A very tender relationship emanated from this - tender especially because I did not belong to the Haute volée, adepts, be-shots of the Society. Years later, 1938/39, and almost another ten years later, by way of an exchange with the then ailing Marie Steiner shortly before her death, I had an exchange of thought about this "recognizing" of Rudolf Steiner, and she confirmed that she had a similar experience, which prompted her to follow him and prepare his path. I know from a few remarks that another personality, close to him, Frau Doktor Ita Wegman had the same experience.
*
The stage lighting was perfected and worked out in more details until the final illness and death of Rudolf Steiner. The task to establish the same principles in the Goetheanum was difficult for many technical reasons, but was finally solved, One night Rudolf Steiner came alone to the building for an inspection and trial to see what the new installation would do. This was a peculiar experience - he alone in the audience space - Frl. [Miss] Käthe Mitscher, the untiring stage manager of the eurythmy performances, was sent away, and so we tried many different combinations, different combinations, and when all lights were on, some 25,000 candle powers, Rudolf Steiner said: "more light". It appeared then that we had reached the maximum capacity which the electrical facilities, transformers and supply of current would give, and there was no way to increase it because there was just no more current. Such problems were discussed as to make a person (indicated by colored veils and costumes over chairs on the stage) completely disappear (red light with utmost intensity on red veil and costume) and to create all kind of contrasts. The person should appear and disappear from "cloud of color" wrapped in color which changes continuously with the mood of that which is said.
It was as though Rudolf Steiner was sitting there and drinking in all the light and color, becoming color through and through. And so I felt, as in one's teen-ages everything becomes music, harmony or dissonance, I felt now that color can transmit a similar experience: the harmony, or dissonance which demands solution, that which is so dryly called the weaving light and color, but one can completely penetrate it, dissolve it or make it tight, physically hard or transparent, so that the actor actually emanates that which he performs as color and light as he speaks the word and makes the motion (as in euryrthmy). I knew, and Rudolf Steiner guided, how one could create an impression so that one could release - visibly - that which emanates as color from etheric and astral body, to become perceptible to the spectator.
This was the art of stage lighting which Rudolf Steiner wanted to create in the Goetheanum, adequate to the entire purpose of this building. And we had one performance, late at night, on this memorable day, at least, with no spectator of this new art of the light and its colors.
Alas, circumstances later on prevented that this art ever could be developed. To me it meant, as I had – as a youth – once seen open the heavens and heard the heavenly music and harmony, I had once seen the light and weaving colors, and I knew from experience what it meant when Rudolf Steiner taught about the light: "Des Lichtes webend Wesen, es erstrahlet…" [The Light's weaving essence, it radiates…], The Portal of Initiation, Sc. III.
Preparatory to this moment probably was that I had read, during the last year in Stuttgart, on weekends where my parents had a weekend house in Sillenbuch, with my parents Goethe's Farbenlehre [Theory of Color] and made Goethe's experiments, just looking at the phenomena, with no speculation about it.
In the Anthroposophical movement there were many study groups on Goethe's Farbenlehre, which more or less repelled me because of the abstract, intellectual, pseudo-scientific approach to the problem. One talked about the light and color, but actually did not experience the Light –experience was what counted to me, not speculation, theory about a thing.
In all these years there were probably only two or three occasions that people ever asked me: and what did Rudolf Steiner really intend when he created the Art of Eurythmy–stage lighting? Marie Steiner, fourteen years later, was one. A few years ago, artists at the Goetheanum and the man then in charge of the stage lighting asked me to give a lecture on the subject to a small group. It was then that the word dropped: well, this being what Pfeiffer says, casts such a new point of view that it seems we had been moving in the wrong direction. I had noticed this to come for many years, but saw no possibility to interfere with the procedures – anyhow, life had brought other tasks – but the circumstances which led to my resignation to continue stage lighting at the Goetheanum some seven years after the above-described scene with Rudolf Steiner were such that I could not possibly resume any contact or activity in this direction, and so that the Art of Stage Lighting which Rudolf Steiner wanted to create belongs to the lost arts.
With his art of lighting on the stage for eurythmy and Mystery Plays, Rudolf Steiner had a specific purpose in mind: to surround the performer with a color-filled space which was in continuous fluctuation according to the mood (Stimmung) of the spoken word. In order to understand this, one could imagine a landscape or room which is penetrated, filled by sunlight. Then clouds move, intermittently covering the sun, and light and shadows are changed – only that in this case the clouds are colorful, and we would have not only the interchange of light and shadow, but the play of colors.
It was obvious that – in order to produce the desired effects, also the technical arrangement of light and color spending [emitting] equipment had to [be] constructed and designed in such a way that swift changes were made available. On a small stage this is no problem. On a large stage, as the one to build into the second Goetheanum, there were technical limitations: a) by the size of the stage opening; b) by the height of the light-emitting fixture above the stage floor, i.e., the ceiling height; c) by the available electrical current (kilowatts). Since light diminishes at the rate of the square of the distance, it was obvious that the ceiling height was a set condition. In planning the stage of the second Goetheanum, the portal opening height of the stage was set as of six meters. Accordingly the light fixtures would be dimensioned; this meant at the maximum intensity the full use of the available electric power. This would have enabled the operator of the lighting to meet the purpose of Rudolf Steiner's lighting art.
Alas, the artists demanded differently. For the sake of historical truth I must state here, as much as I regret to do so, that very little understanding for Rudolf Steiner's original idea was shown. One artist demanded as only item "plenty of red"; another one, very ambitious, could not have the stage opening and width large enough for her little inflated ego, demanded and finally forced a portal opening of 9 meters and accordingly a larger width and ceiling than the one which was technically provided for. This reduced the light intensity to exactly one half of the planned one and made it impossible ever to achieve the effects which Rudolf Steiner had in mind. There was not enough power available to adjust the equipment to this demand. This writer, since he found only deaf ears, could not carry out the original impulse and decided to resign. The regret that he could not carry out the task assigned by Rudolf Steiner influenced him so much (one may say hurt him so much) that he wanted never to deal with any of these problems, even though some twenty-five years later he was asked to give advice. This event was a typical illustration to the very interesting problem that the artist has not only to an artist, performer as it may be or a creative artist with imagination, inspiration and idea, but he has also to master the problem of the material with which he works. Not even the best violinist can give a perfect performance if he has an instrument built from knotty, unseasoned wood, or a painter having color, not light-fast or else dull (cf. Leonardo's unsuccessful attempts to create new, brilliant but not lasting color). To coordinate artistic creation with the technology of the available material is an absolute must, and the artist becomes only a master if he can harmoniously blend his art with the material and can find that material which gives his art performance the adequate foothold and environment.
This principle applies to all and every art, even the art of living, ot the "art" of being a human being. While technology should not rule art, Art should cast its beauty upon technology and create such means as will favour this art to the best.
The artist has to be a technologist lest his creation becomes [a] perishable piece [of] work. The genius has to become a talent too, has to make painstaking efforts to create adequate means of expression. No eurythmist serves the spiritual impulse of the this art, as a visible expression of the spoken word, who believes that the flaying arms and moving body are all that is needed. A eurythmy performance remains incomplete, even with the most beautiful movements, colorful garments and veils, as long as these are surrounded by dull, weak light and color and not bathed into an almost unearthly intensity of light and color. The true artist would have to yield to and accept the given technological conditions, without which this aim remains incomplete. To demand the impossible is not Art. To use the available, possible means in a such a way that it becomes integrated part of the performance is art. Then the artist has mastered the matter, as Michelangelo did when he carved a David out of a misshaped block of marble.
This deed of Michelangelo was one of the greatest masterpieces of artistic creation, if for nothing else, then at least for the reason that he had overcome gravity and created a free-standing figure that is standing on its feet as a living man and not using such supports or crutches as one sees frequently in monuments, a lean-to to a pole, a tree, or, which is worst, a stock or iron rod along the back or through the belly of a horse to hold the structure.
Art which masters the material does not need crutches.
*
Well, this period which started with my assignment to come to Dornach and was intensively connected with the preparing of the technological arrangement at the first and second Goetheanum had come to an end after about seven years, two years after the death of the great master.
In the meantime, other situations and conditions and conditions had arisen, so that for the writer no problem or hardship was created otherwise; but the regret that the original impulses could not be carried out does not relieve him before his own conscience, of feeling a failure. However, as Rudolf Steiner once said, One who is striving esoterically can admit only two reasons for giving up a thing once begun: a) the recognition of an error; b) the fact "daß einem der Stuhl vor die Türe gesetzt wird" [that one's door is barred with a chair]. Since in this case the reaction of others concerned was such that he could not carry out what he wanted, the second reason applies.
This in a way influenced the writer such that in the future he tried to adjust his beginnings and to conduct his behaviour and aims in such a way that the danger of the chair put outside was reduced to a calculated minimum. This meant that he had to adjust his goals to a reachable distance in accordance with his means, talents, abilities and to strive for something which he could achieve, so to say, under his own steam – alone or else with the help of understanding and cooperating friends. Within other things, he learned that he had not only to convince himself, or as one would say in U.S.A, to sell the idea to himself, but that he had to create enthusiasm for the execution of his ideas.
That I have not been able to create interest in the stage lighting idea Rudolf Steiner's and understanding for the involved technicalities was due to several factors, one being my own shyness in contact with human beings. I liked to listen, but if there were more than three people, the throat just felt strangulated. The other reason is one of fundamental difference between the method of approach of the so-called artist (eurythmist in this case) and of the one who underwent the same time a scientific Anthroposophical training. Doing the technical job as outlined was looked upon as something inferior, since electricity was involved; this belonged anyhow for many to the "underworld"; so one did not understand or accept the one who handled this "material" as anything worth of consideration.
At many occasions, the annual meetings of the Society, f.i. [for instance], the arts and artists were always highly appraised by some speakers, but little recognition was given to other work. In this lack of recognition for the work of the scientific mind, the researcher, I see a major reason that the Anthroposophical Society and the Goetheanum has today an "art" (we don't need to evaluate how good or perfect it is), but has very few scientists which can devote a full time to their assignments as the artist could. They always had to earn something as a side issue in order to maintain their contribution to the Goetheanum. Who doubts this statement may study the annual financial reports and compare the sums which are allotted to the arts and stage work with the sums which were allotted to the laboratories.
One satisfaction cold be had, though, which outweighed all other disappointments of a Cinderella existence otherwise in these early years. At one general meeting, I believe it was in 1912, after once more the artists had been appraised by many, Rudolf Steiner mentioned one should not forget the work Ehrenfied Pfeiffer has contributed with the stage lighting to the arts at Goetheanum. But hereto is to say that Rudolf Steiner had always an open interest in the activities and growth of this young man.
One of the most important innovations in the realm of stage lighting was without doubt the suggestions of Rudolf Steiner for a color intensity which until then had not been striven for. One can certainly say, with regard to the earlier conventional stage lighting of the naturalistic theater, it required courage to undertake this journey into the realm of pure colors. As opposed to merely mood-setting sunset, afternoon or midnight stage lighting, Rudolf Steiner began with illumination of the eurythmy stage suitable to the soul and spirit of the character of the performance. What still alienated some in his earlier audiences were the frequent sudden changes - without gradual transitions. But contrasts don't seem to be present and justified only in the spirit or soul. They also arise in and around nature. One need only think of the above-mentioned suggestion to observe the play of color as a cloud passes over the sun. It is not so much a matter of seeing the sun and cloud, but rather of studying how objects on the ground or in a sun-illuminated space change. In such a case there are often quite sudden transitions, rich in contrasts. The blue colors are suddenly lost in uncertainty, darkness. Only the bright yellow and white lights still flash forth; at the moment when the sun reappears, at one stroke, blue and violet return to their original strength while the yellow and white lights, on the contrary, lose something.
Thus also the fact of sudden color changes reveals the pure essence of light. Altogether, Rudolf Steiner's way of applying stage lighting is the consequent artistic expression of what insight can be developed, perhaps from Goethe's Color Theory or his lectures on color, into the essence of light and color.
Now it would be wrong to think and speculate that the color changes for eurythmy were puzzled out or that that all these observations of the effects of coordinating costume, veil and lighting were premeditated. That could not be the case, because Rudolf Steiner's lighting was often written spontaneously into the textbook; it was never tried out on the stage whether this or that suited better, The lighting with its color nuances was determined the moment Rudolf Steiner was given the respective text of music selection. It was an a priori element of the composition or poetry. This came to expression in the way the lighting instructions were given, e.g., for pieces of music. Often only with a movement of the hand: "When the music goes like this (a broad raising, slowly climbing hand movement) you must use this color; when it goes like this (a horizontally undulating gesture), then that color." The stage-lighter had the task of empathetically interpreting in color the mood and movement of the melody according to the gestures and instructions. "With those notes (a prominent staccato movement) red must be added as well," etc. The first time the eurythmy figures were introduced in a lecture and their movement, character and feeling discussed in connection with costume and veil, Rudolf Steiner was asked whether the color given to the eurythmy figures also determined the stage lighting. Rudolf Steiner denied this, but added that every verse of a poem had a basic mood; one is tuned completely to A [Ah], another to I [Eee], still another to a consonant.This basic mood comes to expression in the lighting. With the lighting of the upbeat and final measure (whether silent or with music) these basic moods are repeated one after another, forwards or backwards. Often Rudolf Steiner wrote out a sequence of sounds in color. I can likewise make the observation that the color sequences had a most intensive connection less with the veil or costume, than often with the sound sequence of the eurythmy forms that followed in space.
The stage lighter must then become a eurythmist himself in order to follow the forms and carry out the changes at the right moment. Rudolf Steiner also left it to the stage lighter to find the right mixture of the blending nuances. He appealed to the artistic impulse. This kept the stage lighting from becoming something rigid or schematic. On the ordinary theater stage, the stage lighter is found amidst his machinery; the equipment and its respective resistance and current figures are indicated in a text book. The man often sees the stage incompletely or not at all. For the new art of stage lighting, this is unacceptable. Here, it is a matter of following the movements on the stage with alert attention and accompanying them through color eurythmy. Thus the stage lighter becomes an active co-player perceived by the audience through his effects. He represents an essential part of the harmonious effect of the whole.
If one wants to have a remote idea of the lighting effects of the old Goetheanum stage, two photos may be seen of the place under the small cupola. One is taken with stage lighting, e.g., scattered light from all sides; the other, with the central 8,000 watt ceiling light. In the first case, even in the black-and-white photo one can observe the soft mood, avoiding hard shadows through light saturation of the space, the gentle and yet plastic transition of the architrave and pillars. Especially noticeable is the "true-color", natural appearance of the cupola painting this made possible. By use of the six-colored lighting, every color of the cupola painting (just as of the moving figures on the stage in performances) came into its own. In contrast, the centered, concentrated lighting is selective, partisan and produces hard shadows. The concealing element of a color-saturated space is lacking, and one is faced with angularity.
The essence of Rudolf Steiner's indications for stage lighting has been preserved for us. In a scene from the Mystery dramas, portrayed eurythmically, Rudolf Steiner instructed the stage lighter to give each person a particular basic lighting. Each person should be enveloped in his or her individual garment of color and, on stepping forward, lend this color character temporally to the whole scene. Perhaps much more could have been created, especially for the Mystery dramas, since that period 1920-1924 was devoted mainly to the development of lighting for eurythmy. A wide field of artistic undertaking still lay open here. The burning of the old Goetheanum destroyed much here, also. The harmonious accord of architecture, light reflected by wood, the painting of the cupola and the most intensive flood of color with whatever was happening on the stage could not be restored again. Whoever experienced this at the time saw, for a few short years, possibilities in the realm of color which now, like the king's daughter in the fairy tale, await reawakening. For purely technical reasons, much could not be carried out on the new Goetheanum stage as it was before. Here the givens of a purely functional stage must be reckoned with. Above all, that harmony within the small cupola room could naturally not be attained again. What, however, survives is the living memory from which the new art of stage lighting can develop further.
*
One fundamental idea was that light should be used diffuse, like sunlight coming thru a window and as light appears in nature - not concentrated by lenses as in floodlights. "In light which passes through a lens and is concentrated, there is an element of untruth", he said. I had great fights later on with the performers, who wanted to have floodlights upon their persons, but I never gave in, defending Rudolf Steiner's original instructions. This is the way I learned to become stubborn and persistent and to carry out an idea. I believe I was not much liked by others if I did not yield to their whims.
It was at the same instructive meeting that Rudolf Steiner said to me, "Halten Sie sich immer an Frau Doktor". [Always follow Frau Doktor, i.e. Marie Steiner], a task which some ten, fifteen, twenty years later caused many problems. At the time Frau Marie Steiner* paid but little attention to the young man; he was just a stage hand.
* Frau Marie Steiner-von Sivers (1867-1948) was a Russian-born Swiss artist, leader of the Section for the Arts of Eurythmy, Speech, Drama and Music at the Goetheanum, who became Rudolf Steiner's second wife in December, 1914.
It was clear to me that the technological part of the stage lighting, as far as electric installation was concerned, could follow routine instruction principles, but that the instruments for the lighting had to be built by ourselves, for there was, at the time, just nothing developed which would fulfil the demands of Rudolf Steiner - including the switchboard. So, a workshop was set up in the Kesselhaus [Boiler House], where the electrician, Bollinger and an apprentice, Stracke, began to build the various apparatus according to my specification, and often I had to put in a hand myself.
As office, with its huge drawing boards, we used the East wing of the Glasshouse, where originally the huge glass windows were carved. The West wing, to become the home of the laboratory some twenty-five years later, was still used for glass carving. It was mainly Frau Turgenieff who worked there, a Russian of great artistic talent, and a Polish Lady (S.) whose name I forgot [=Emma Stolle].
This office had huge dimensions: one round room, about 27 feet high and 30 feet diameter. Herr Aisenpreis had his drawing desk there and I occupied the other half of the room, getting used to large dimensions. Once, much later, when I had to use other offices and, especially right now, with only a cubbyhole of office, I always missed these dimensions.
Having thought and experienced so much while wandering thru field and woods, I learned to think and ponder while walking, never having liked sitting before a desk, so this large office suited my peripatetic trends just right.
Rudolf Steiner had created a new art – Eurythmy – the art of motion of the body in tune with the inner motion of the spoken word. Dance is not the right term, for it is not of the nature of the ritual temple dance of old and, of course, eurythmy has nothing to do with modern dances at all. The formation of sound, vowel or consonant, releases finer motions within the human body, fluids, skeleton, muscles – the expression of the sounds via the larynx, vocal chard, mouth and lips carried outward by the breath, is only a small fraction of the entire processes which leads to speech. In eurythmy, the attempt is made to express, through motion of the body members, the original force or law which lives in the production of sound. (It would be simple to describe this in terms of etheric and astral body, but I am trying at this stage of affairs to avoid the anthroposophical terminology; this will be introduced later on).
When I came to Dornach there was only a small stage, temporarily, in the Schreinerei [joiners' workshop], the workshop where the woodwork, lumber etc. was prepared for the building. In this Schreinerei was a lecture room for Dr. Steiner's lectures, parted from the stage by a blue curtain. This hall would hold about about 300 people. The stage had one foot-ramp and two Soffitten [flies] and most primitive switches to switch on or off white, blue, red or yellow bulbs. Usually a whole section of an eurythmy performance was clad in white-yellow, another in blue-red, etc. That is a rather monotonous setting.
Rudolf Steiner explained that he would like to follow the mood of a verse or a poem, a line even or any specific motion, with color changes of the lights. This necessitated the building of rheostats easy to handle that would "play" colors in lighting like one would play tunes on a piano. What technology had to offer was much too clumsy and heavy to allow fast, flowing, dynamic changes. I decided to build a system of fluid rheostats to be operated by a short keyboard (a kind of color-piano) which enabled to mix the different colors of the stage lights instantaneously and in every direction desired. This color keyboard was finished and put to operation in May/June, 1920. While it had still many faults, it was an instrument to play color and to be used for that which Rudolf Steiner wanted to develop as color changes to the poems, verses, bars of music, motions - changes which followed one another in swift succession. He would write the colors in the books of poetry to be performed, which I handed to him, or the notes of music, sometimes even only indicating with a gesture which sentence he wanted. I had built a little cubbyhole with the color piano near the left corner of the stage, sitting on a footstool and having the full view of the stage. Some of the eurythmists would come into that corner to view the stage, and I must say we had a jolly good time in this corner. During the rehearsal Frau Marie Steiner had an armchair on a platform in the audience section, to watch and give instructions and to recite herself. She was not particularly interested in my work at the time, taking it for granted that Rudolf Steiner would tell what to do with regard to the lights and I would carry out accordingly. I had a free hand to carry out the instructions by Rudolf Steiner and don't remember that I have ever been corrected or reprimanded. In fact, nobody showed much interest in this specific work, taking it for granted. The role assigned to me was like to a Heinzelmännchen [elf], whose help one takes, but never sees it.
Rudolf Steiner would come to the main rehearsal which was, if possible, run like a performance with little interruption, sitting beside Frau Marie Steiner and observing the procedure or performance, giving advice as to veils, colors, movements. It was a perfect example of cooperation, where everyone concerned did his share without much coaching, arguing, etc. These main rehearsals were quite different from the anteceding study and trials where, to the contrary, much discussion and arguing went on - in the absence of the master. Since I always, and still, dislike arguing, I did not attend the pre-rehearsals, but only the main rehearsal, taking in a way a chance that things worked all right at the performance the next day. It was at one of these rehearsals that Rudolf Steiner called me for the first time by my Christian name (Ehrenfried). Climbing out of my cubbyhole and walking up to the throne, as we called the setup where he and Frau Marie Steiner would sit, I heard the following discussion: Frau Marie : "Was rufen Sie da? [What did you call him then?]". Rudolf Steiner "Was haben Sie dagegen, Erherfried ist doch ein schöne Name." [What do you have against it? After all, Ehernfried is a beautiful name.] Frau Marie, which was typical for her attitude in general, did not like such informality as done by Rudolf Steiner, as to call somebody by first name. In fact, I remember only three cases when he did, and it made me very happy to feel included. Anyhow, a personal relationship had developed, which cannot be otherwise labelled, for he took a fatherly interest in my little affairs and being. A few days later I met Rudolf Steiner in a small passage to the left of the stage. He took both of my hands, drew me somwhat near and looked deeply with his dark eyes into mine and said, "Sie nehmen es mir doch nicht übel, dass ich Sie Ehrenfried nenne?" [You do not mind that I call you Ehrenfried?] This again was so typical for Rudolf Steiner, who respected so much the freedom of the other that he excused himself for calling the other by his first name. It was at this moment, when we met eye to eye, that I perceived something of the true being Rudolf Steiner, his eternal being, and I felt that something of it flowed over to me and filled my whole being and heart, something from or for which I lived henceforth. While many saw in Rudolf Steiner the great lecturer, the teacher, the esoteric teacher, the Initiate, the man far above on a pedestal, I was henceforth the human being, the man who struggled, who fought, who suffered, who loved, whose kindness was above any other kindness I ever experienced in life. I experienced also the shyness, that mysterious force which plays from human to human being when one soul opens its gate to another, as one does in true love. I "recognized" Rudolf Steiner in the sense as is described in the Gospels when the to-come-Apostle men saw Jesus and "recognized" the Christ, which became the cause of their Apostolic mission. So I recognized the spirit beings and powers in the moments which acted through the man Rudolf Steiner. A very tender relationship emanated from this - tender especially because I did not belong to the Haute volée, adepts, be-shots of the Society. Years later, 1938/39, and almost another ten years later, by way of an exchange with the then ailing Marie Steiner shortly before her death, I had an exchange of thought about this "recognizing" of Rudolf Steiner, and she confirmed that she had a similar experience, which prompted her to follow him and prepare his path. I know from a few remarks that another personality, close to him, Frau Doktor Ita Wegman had the same experience.
*
The stage lighting was perfected and worked out in more details until the final illness and death of Rudolf Steiner. The task to establish the same principles in the Goetheanum was difficult for many technical reasons, but was finally solved, One night Rudolf Steiner came alone to the building for an inspection and trial to see what the new installation would do. This was a peculiar experience - he alone in the audience space - Frl. [Miss] Käthe Mitscher, the untiring stage manager of the eurythmy performances, was sent away, and so we tried many different combinations, different combinations, and when all lights were on, some 25,000 candle powers, Rudolf Steiner said: "more light". It appeared then that we had reached the maximum capacity which the electrical facilities, transformers and supply of current would give, and there was no way to increase it because there was just no more current. Such problems were discussed as to make a person (indicated by colored veils and costumes over chairs on the stage) completely disappear (red light with utmost intensity on red veil and costume) and to create all kind of contrasts. The person should appear and disappear from "cloud of color" wrapped in color which changes continuously with the mood of that which is said.
It was as though Rudolf Steiner was sitting there and drinking in all the light and color, becoming color through and through. And so I felt, as in one's teen-ages everything becomes music, harmony or dissonance, I felt now that color can transmit a similar experience: the harmony, or dissonance which demands solution, that which is so dryly called the weaving light and color, but one can completely penetrate it, dissolve it or make it tight, physically hard or transparent, so that the actor actually emanates that which he performs as color and light as he speaks the word and makes the motion (as in euryrthmy). I knew, and Rudolf Steiner guided, how one could create an impression so that one could release - visibly - that which emanates as color from etheric and astral body, to become perceptible to the spectator.
This was the art of stage lighting which Rudolf Steiner wanted to create in the Goetheanum, adequate to the entire purpose of this building. And we had one performance, late at night, on this memorable day, at least, with no spectator of this new art of the light and its colors.
Alas, circumstances later on prevented that this art ever could be developed. To me it meant, as I had – as a youth – once seen open the heavens and heard the heavenly music and harmony, I had once seen the light and weaving colors, and I knew from experience what it meant when Rudolf Steiner taught about the light: "Des Lichtes webend Wesen, es erstrahlet…" [The Light's weaving essence, it radiates…], The Portal of Initiation, Sc. III.
Preparatory to this moment probably was that I had read, during the last year in Stuttgart, on weekends where my parents had a weekend house in Sillenbuch, with my parents Goethe's Farbenlehre [Theory of Color] and made Goethe's experiments, just looking at the phenomena, with no speculation about it.
In the Anthroposophical movement there were many study groups on Goethe's Farbenlehre, which more or less repelled me because of the abstract, intellectual, pseudo-scientific approach to the problem. One talked about the light and color, but actually did not experience the Light –experience was what counted to me, not speculation, theory about a thing.
In all these years there were probably only two or three occasions that people ever asked me: and what did Rudolf Steiner really intend when he created the Art of Eurythmy–stage lighting? Marie Steiner, fourteen years later, was one. A few years ago, artists at the Goetheanum and the man then in charge of the stage lighting asked me to give a lecture on the subject to a small group. It was then that the word dropped: well, this being what Pfeiffer says, casts such a new point of view that it seems we had been moving in the wrong direction. I had noticed this to come for many years, but saw no possibility to interfere with the procedures – anyhow, life had brought other tasks – but the circumstances which led to my resignation to continue stage lighting at the Goetheanum some seven years after the above-described scene with Rudolf Steiner were such that I could not possibly resume any contact or activity in this direction, and so that the Art of Stage Lighting which Rudolf Steiner wanted to create belongs to the lost arts.
With his art of lighting on the stage for eurythmy and Mystery Plays, Rudolf Steiner had a specific purpose in mind: to surround the performer with a color-filled space which was in continuous fluctuation according to the mood (Stimmung) of the spoken word. In order to understand this, one could imagine a landscape or room which is penetrated, filled by sunlight. Then clouds move, intermittently covering the sun, and light and shadows are changed – only that in this case the clouds are colorful, and we would have not only the interchange of light and shadow, but the play of colors.
It was obvious that – in order to produce the desired effects, also the technical arrangement of light and color spending [emitting] equipment had to [be] constructed and designed in such a way that swift changes were made available. On a small stage this is no problem. On a large stage, as the one to build into the second Goetheanum, there were technical limitations: a) by the size of the stage opening; b) by the height of the light-emitting fixture above the stage floor, i.e., the ceiling height; c) by the available electrical current (kilowatts). Since light diminishes at the rate of the square of the distance, it was obvious that the ceiling height was a set condition. In planning the stage of the second Goetheanum, the portal opening height of the stage was set as of six meters. Accordingly the light fixtures would be dimensioned; this meant at the maximum intensity the full use of the available electric power. This would have enabled the operator of the lighting to meet the purpose of Rudolf Steiner's lighting art.
Alas, the artists demanded differently. For the sake of historical truth I must state here, as much as I regret to do so, that very little understanding for Rudolf Steiner's original idea was shown. One artist demanded as only item "plenty of red"; another one, very ambitious, could not have the stage opening and width large enough for her little inflated ego, demanded and finally forced a portal opening of 9 meters and accordingly a larger width and ceiling than the one which was technically provided for. This reduced the light intensity to exactly one half of the planned one and made it impossible ever to achieve the effects which Rudolf Steiner had in mind. There was not enough power available to adjust the equipment to this demand. This writer, since he found only deaf ears, could not carry out the original impulse and decided to resign. The regret that he could not carry out the task assigned by Rudolf Steiner influenced him so much (one may say hurt him so much) that he wanted never to deal with any of these problems, even though some twenty-five years later he was asked to give advice. This event was a typical illustration to the very interesting problem that the artist has not only to an artist, performer as it may be or a creative artist with imagination, inspiration and idea, but he has also to master the problem of the material with which he works. Not even the best violinist can give a perfect performance if he has an instrument built from knotty, unseasoned wood, or a painter having color, not light-fast or else dull (cf. Leonardo's unsuccessful attempts to create new, brilliant but not lasting color). To coordinate artistic creation with the technology of the available material is an absolute must, and the artist becomes only a master if he can harmoniously blend his art with the material and can find that material which gives his art performance the adequate foothold and environment.
This principle applies to all and every art, even the art of living, ot the "art" of being a human being. While technology should not rule art, Art should cast its beauty upon technology and create such means as will favour this art to the best.
The artist has to be a technologist lest his creation becomes [a] perishable piece [of] work. The genius has to become a talent too, has to make painstaking efforts to create adequate means of expression. No eurythmist serves the spiritual impulse of the this art, as a visible expression of the spoken word, who believes that the flaying arms and moving body are all that is needed. A eurythmy performance remains incomplete, even with the most beautiful movements, colorful garments and veils, as long as these are surrounded by dull, weak light and color and not bathed into an almost unearthly intensity of light and color. The true artist would have to yield to and accept the given technological conditions, without which this aim remains incomplete. To demand the impossible is not Art. To use the available, possible means in a such a way that it becomes integrated part of the performance is art. Then the artist has mastered the matter, as Michelangelo did when he carved a David out of a misshaped block of marble.
This deed of Michelangelo was one of the greatest masterpieces of artistic creation, if for nothing else, then at least for the reason that he had overcome gravity and created a free-standing figure that is standing on its feet as a living man and not using such supports or crutches as one sees frequently in monuments, a lean-to to a pole, a tree, or, which is worst, a stock or iron rod along the back or through the belly of a horse to hold the structure.
Art which masters the material does not need crutches.
*
Well, this period which started with my assignment to come to Dornach and was intensively connected with the preparing of the technological arrangement at the first and second Goetheanum had come to an end after about seven years, two years after the death of the great master.
In the meantime, other situations and conditions and conditions had arisen, so that for the writer no problem or hardship was created otherwise; but the regret that the original impulses could not be carried out does not relieve him before his own conscience, of feeling a failure. However, as Rudolf Steiner once said, One who is striving esoterically can admit only two reasons for giving up a thing once begun: a) the recognition of an error; b) the fact "daß einem der Stuhl vor die Türe gesetzt wird" [that one's door is barred with a chair]. Since in this case the reaction of others concerned was such that he could not carry out what he wanted, the second reason applies.
This in a way influenced the writer such that in the future he tried to adjust his beginnings and to conduct his behaviour and aims in such a way that the danger of the chair put outside was reduced to a calculated minimum. This meant that he had to adjust his goals to a reachable distance in accordance with his means, talents, abilities and to strive for something which he could achieve, so to say, under his own steam – alone or else with the help of understanding and cooperating friends. Within other things, he learned that he had not only to convince himself, or as one would say in U.S.A, to sell the idea to himself, but that he had to create enthusiasm for the execution of his ideas.
That I have not been able to create interest in the stage lighting idea Rudolf Steiner's and understanding for the involved technicalities was due to several factors, one being my own shyness in contact with human beings. I liked to listen, but if there were more than three people, the throat just felt strangulated. The other reason is one of fundamental difference between the method of approach of the so-called artist (eurythmist in this case) and of the one who underwent the same time a scientific Anthroposophical training. Doing the technical job as outlined was looked upon as something inferior, since electricity was involved; this belonged anyhow for many to the "underworld"; so one did not understand or accept the one who handled this "material" as anything worth of consideration.
At many occasions, the annual meetings of the Society, f.i. [for instance], the arts and artists were always highly appraised by some speakers, but little recognition was given to other work. In this lack of recognition for the work of the scientific mind, the researcher, I see a major reason that the Anthroposophical Society and the Goetheanum has today an "art" (we don't need to evaluate how good or perfect it is), but has very few scientists which can devote a full time to their assignments as the artist could. They always had to earn something as a side issue in order to maintain their contribution to the Goetheanum. Who doubts this statement may study the annual financial reports and compare the sums which are allotted to the arts and stage work with the sums which were allotted to the laboratories.
One satisfaction cold be had, though, which outweighed all other disappointments of a Cinderella existence otherwise in these early years. At one general meeting, I believe it was in 1912, after once more the artists had been appraised by many, Rudolf Steiner mentioned one should not forget the work Ehrenfied Pfeiffer has contributed with the stage lighting to the arts at Goetheanum. But hereto is to say that Rudolf Steiner had always an open interest in the activities and growth of this young man.
Retyped by Peter H Reeve, Norfolk, England in July 2018
© Put online with the permission of Mercury Press
