"The art of the future will be an art of inner maturity. What leads to artistic activity will be sensed only at a relatively advanced age in life. It will no longer be assumed that one cannot have the necessary youth forces for artistic creation in later years--as is still often asserted today. It will be found that only by way of inner deepening augmented by spiritual scientific insight are the forces released that lead to artistic creation." --Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, February 7, 1915The painter Henni Geck convinced Rudolf Steiner to paint five watercolors featured in this book:

• The Moon Rider (The Dream Song of Olaf Asteson), January 1924
• New Life (Mother and Child), February 1924
• Easter (Three Crosses), April 1924
• The Archetypal Plant, May 1924
• Archetypal Human Being (or Archetypal Animal) July/August 1924

The paintings reproduced in this book--also including a selection from the works of the painter Gerard Wagner--arose from direct color experience and "imagination," as Steiner describes this inner capacity. The purpose of this volume is to focus on unique possibilities that can open up for the future of art in the world and become a means and path for spiritual-scientific inquiry.

"We are at a point in the fifth post-Atlantean age when current views must be directed to spiritual forms in art." --Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, August 31, 1918