Raphael’s Mission: in the Light of the Science of the Spirit

This lecture on Raphael points to an ever greater inwardness or internalizing of the human soul in the future development of humanity. Steiner’s large-format watercolours can be said to be an unmistakable further expression of this. Though it might seem improbable at first to link Raphael’s works so directly with the painting impulse of Rudolf Steiner, separated as they are by four hundred years. An underlying relation becomes apparent, nonetheless, despite the manifest contrast. The Madonnas of Raphael will self-evidently never be surpassed. Yet, the future development of art, always a daughter of the divine, implies, in Rudolf Steiner’s sense, an ongoing spiritualization. We begin to recognize Raphael’s relevance for today and for the future.A lecture given by Rudolf Steiner: from Ergebnisse der Geistesforschung. (Some Results of Spiritual Research). GA 62. Lecture IX, 30th January 1913 in Berlin. This unique English translation is by Peter Stebbing. Edited by James Stewart.