Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

What does emerge clearly from a consideration of American paintingand its context is that a distinct and original culture had emerged in thenortheast part of the United States by the end of the third quarter of the 19thcentury. One gets the impression that a strong concern for—one might almostsay an infatuation with—religious values dominated this culture. On theone hand, its bearers had escaped from what they undoubtedly felt was anundesirable constraint on religious life in Europe. On the other hand, theirsheer awe before an as yet unspoilt sublimity of Nature on a new continentproduced an apocalyptic mind-set, as Albert Gelpi has implied in his contributionto the catalog (“White Light in the Wilderness”). The temptationto rape this virgin beauty could neither be resisted nor morally justified —adilemma that only accelerated in the 20th century and left a fundamentallytragic flaw in the American character. Undoubtedly it is this flaw that gavean opportunity for Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings to infiltrate Americanconsciousness with spectacular results, particularly since about 1830.Inasmuch as an increasingly analytical concern with the interactionof atmospheric conditions, light and color characterized Western art as awhole in the 19th century, it does not seem feasible to attribute this specificimpulse to the sphere of any one folk soul. Instead, in such spheres musthave existed a general formula, common to all nations, for the mental andemotional set within which individual artists of one or another folk extractionapproached this problem.Whence, therefore, is the inclination of artists of all nationalities atthis time to pursue the problem of light? For an insight into this phenomenonanthroposophy refers us to an even deeper level of the human consciousnessand, accordingly, to an even higher realm of the spiritual world. Outof this deep level the thought may sometimes form itself in the minds ofthe cultural vanguard: now is the time for. … And again common parlancehas a word that haunts Western historians: Zeitgeist, of which Steiner says:In every age there is something that transcends the Folk Soul, whichcan bring various Folk Souls together, something that is more or lessuniversally understood. This is the Zeitgeist … to use an unfortunateterm which is in common usage. Each epoch has its particularZeitgeist. …[That] of the Greek epoch is different from that of our age.…To the materialist of today the Spirit of the Age is an abstraction,devoid of reality; still less would he be prepared to accept the Spiritof the Age as an authentic entity. Nevertheless, the term “Spirit ofthe Age” conceals the existence of a real Being who is three stagesabove men. It conceals the identity of …the Archai. 896