Call for Nature’s Moods contributions
The Visual Art Section is calling artists to submit work for a conference and exhibition in 2022 on the theme of Nature’s Moods by Rudolf Steiner.
In June 2022 it will have been one hundred years since the painter and sculptor Henny Geck asked Rudolf Steiner for a course that would help painters to explore objective spiritual laws. This is why Rudolf Steiner, in the summer of 1922, created nine ‘Nature’s Moods’ in pastel as training sketches, adding more in the coming years.
Following his lectures on The Nature of Colour of May 1921 (GA 291) where Rudolf Steiner talked about ‘image and lustre colours’, one is surprised at the motifs he then gave to the painters. Not colour qualities but processes in nature – Sunrise and Sunset, Shining Moon, Blossoming and Fruiting trees, Summer Trees and Moonset – constitute the starting point of this path of development. A subtle path is inspired that aims at the inner essence of these processes and that focuses on the effects of light in their cosmic appearance and in nature as objects of practice.
Studying natural phenomena
The faithful study of sense-perceptible natural phenomena is a necessary foundation from which one then listens more deeply into the effects of light in the natural phenomena before expressing them as colour experiences. How does the light behave when the sun rises? Which colour nuances are the ones that are effective? And how is it when the sun is setting: are other colour moods added then? Where do colder and warmer hues dominate, and what does this mean for the overall composition? What forms are inspired by the individual colours and the motif itself? What inner colour experiences are evoked in the painter or observer and how does this affect the soul’s moral attitude? And do we begin to perceive nature differently after working with the sketches?
For a hundred years, artists with all kinds of background and orientation have studied Rudolf Steiner’s training sketches on Nature’s Moods.
Intensive study week
Starting with the first generation of Henny Geck’s students, Gerard Wagner, Walter Roggenkamp, Fritz Billing and others took up these motifs in multiple ways and developed them further. The generation after them approached them differently again. As a way of honouring and documenting this work and of experiencing the creative impulses that have radiated out from it since then, the Visual Art Section will hold an intensive week at the Goetheanum from 1 to 8 August 2022 that will be devoted to the Nature’s Moods sketches and the diverse approaches to them that have been cultivated over the past hundred years. The Section is calling on artists who have worked with the sketches to introduce their work and outline their approach. A selection of the pictures and approaches submitted will be chosen for the conference and exhibition.
The intensive week will give artists the opportunity to share their different ways of working with the sketches and serve as an introduction to these approaches for interested lay-persons. Starting on 1 August 2022, there will be an exhibition of sketches by Rudolf Steiner and works by Henny Geck, Gerard Wagner, Elisabeth Wagner-Koch, Walter Roggenkamp, Fritz Billing and others. The Section is looking forward to contributions, particularly also from younger artists.
Please submit your documentation in digital or printed form, including a short description of your work, to the Visual Art Section.
Contact Goetheanum, Visual Art Section, Nature’s Moods, Rüttiweg 45, 4143 Dornach, Switzerland, sbk@goetheanum.ch