The Spirit in Human Evolution - Waldorf Research Institute

Making the Invisible Visible
Since the discovery and recognition of prehistoric art at the end of the last
century and the beginning of this, our relationship to art as such has radically changed.
It is one of those historic moments of synchronicity that the discovery coincided with
the breakthrough of modern art. The change in attitude to art that characterized the
new challenge was aptly formulated by one of the great theorists and practitioners of
modern art, Paul Klee. In an often-quoted phrase he defines the new task of art: “Art
does not show the visible but makes the invisible visible.” We may reflect that this
axiom holds true for all art, however naturalistic. Art always reveals some element of
invisible intention. This certainly holds true for prehistoric art.
In a way all art deals with two worlds that meet in the human being. The
great transition between nineteenth century Impressionism and twentieth century
Expressionism is only the most marked recent and conscious manifestation of two
fundamental artistic experiences that reach back to the earliest, primal artistic endeavour.
Children too, in their early drawings reveal both expressive and “impressionistic”
tendencies, the latter representing the outer perceived world, the former, the expression
of inner forces.
Wassily Kandinsky, in describing the sources of his own art in his book Concerning
the Spiritual in Art wrote about these two paths leading to art. 40 He described in fact
three types of art, the third being a kind of synthesis of the first two:
1. The direct impressions of “outer Nature” which come to expression in artistic form.
2. Unconscious, suddenly arising expressions of inner processes, that is impressions
of “inner nature.” I call these improvisations.
3. Of a similar nature, expressions which occur to me and which are worked on in a
long, almost pedantic way, continuously corrected. Here conscious reason, intention
and functionality play a central role. Only here, feeling rather than calculation hold
sway. I call these kind of pictures “compositions.”
Ways of Seeing
Kandinsky’s three types of art form offer a useful model for understanding
prehistoric art. Art is a way of seeing. If we can empathize with the way of seeing implicit
in the cave paintings and other prehistoric art forms, we can begin to grasp how the
artists experienced the world and themselves. By patient observation and “observational
thinking,” to use Goethe’s phrase, we can let the language of prehistoric art speak to
us. We need, of course, to see the art in its context, which is not easy when our access
to caves is limited, when museum showcases provide a sterile environment, and even
color reproductions do little justice to either the presence or context of Paleolithic art.
We also need to imitate the gestures of the artists, understand their techniques, re-enact
the activity of making the work, since there is no doubt that the creation of the work
may have been as important, as ritual, as the end result. It is this involvement in the art
which so marks the work of Immanuel Anati and Jean Vertut from the many academics
who have interpreted prehistoric art.
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40
Quoted in Randebrock, E.,1981, Impressionismus und Expressionismus, pp48–49.
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