Art As Spiritual Activity

This book introduces a new way for thinking about, creating, and viewing art.The most fundamental issue for the arts today ... is the spiritual foundation of the arts.... Steiner demonstrates that our individual creative activity is not solely a personal affair. Our creations do not originate out of nowhere, nor solely out of ourselves, but from an objective world of spirit with which we are intimately related in the depths of our being. He shows that our creations have significance beyond ourselves and beyond the recognition they receive: works of art are vehicles of spirit ual qualities. In bringing these spiritual qualities into the sphere of human life, the artist becomes responsible for the spiritual effects the work of art has on the artist, other people, and ultimately on human evolution.-Michael Howard, from the book Rudolf Steiner saw his task as the renewal of the lost unity of science, the arts, and religion; thus, he created a new, cognitive scientific-and-religious art in anthroposophy. The implications of his act -recognized by such diverse artists as Wassily Kandinsky and Joseph Beuys -are only now coming fully to light.In his introduction of more than 100 pages, Michael Howard takes the reader through these thought-provoking chapters: Is Art Dead? To Muse or Amuse Artistic Activity as Spiritual Activity The Representative of Humanity Beauty, Creativity, and Metamorphosis New Directions in Art.