Handwork and Handicrafts - Waldorf Research Institute

37
After he had sketched the pattern for embroidery for the cushion, he drew a number
of short firm strokes along the bottom seam and said: “The lower edge must be strongly
emphasized; it must be clearly defined. The side edges must be too, but less so as you
approach the top. The lower edge must be especially strong (there is no seam along the top).
Then on the back of the pillow (Plate 3, fig. 24), you can embroider something in all four
corners, or you can embroider in the middle, to show that one cannot lie there” (Plate 3,
fig. 25).
The following observations can emerge from these indications from Steiner
concerning the cushion, if one considers separately the embroidery on the cushion on the
one hand and the accentuation of the three edges on the other. Looked at in this way, the
decorative and the constructive (the accentuation of the edges where the parts are joined
together) elements of the cushion are shown separately from one another (figs. 23a & 23b).
The cushion is only complete through the bringing together of these two principles, which
are here characterized as straight line and curve.
23a
23b
Steiner once drew the attention of a visitor to the first Goetheanum to the interplay
of curve and straight line in the forms of the building. He said something like the following:
“Look how everywhere the curves pass over into the straight lines or have some relation
to them. It is through the harmonious interplay of the two that the true meaning of the
building comes about. When the eye follows this play of lines and forms, when the human
being experiences the straight and curved lines, only then does the building become a work
of art in the human soul.”
Curves and straight lines, decorative and constructive, point, like light and shade,
to polar forces in the world. When these establish a harmonious or rhythmic relation to one
another, the work in question neither succumbs to the hardening forces of the earth, nor,
through becoming nebulous and illusory, loses its connection with the conditions of earthly
life.
It is certainly not without significance that Steiner recommended for teachers of
handwork the study of mathematical laws. “Study Dr. von Baravalle’s book The Pedagogy of
Physics and Mathematics,” he said. “This book can be of great value for handwork too.”