Knowledge of Higher Worlds: Rudolf Steiner's Blackboard Drawings

Steiner, Rudolf; Rinder, Lawrence (Editor); Kugler, Walter (Essays); Baas, Jacquelynn (Foreword)

ISBN 10: 0295976845 / ISBN 13: 9780295976846

Published by University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 1997

About this Item

Rare out-of-print material. 1997 copyright by The Regents of the University of California. Matte black pictorial wraps, light shelf, corner wear. Cover features white titles over Steiner's catalogue b.b. drawing #34 entitled "Agriculture Course". Unique oversize 9" x 9" design with heavy stock cover with slightly protruding front and back flaps wrapping nearly to interior spine. Heavy stock coated pages, near fine; no writing. Bind fine. A very attractive portfolio volume. Presented here are Rudolf Steiner's black board drawings with Steiner lecture excerpts adjacent, selected by Walter Kugler. The designs are cosmic, elusive and ethereal. Also, biographical-type essays by Kugler and Lawrence Rinder. A catalog of the first American exhibition of Rudolf Steiner's blackboard drawings at the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum. The drawings were created by the scholar and mystic during his lectures from 1919 to 1924, and preserved in the form of color chalk on black paper. Each color illustration is accompanied by a quote from the lecture during which the drawing was made. Includes two introductory essays, and a checklist of the exhibition. Surrealist writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges comments: --- "Did Rudolf Steiner dream these things? Did he dream them as they once occurred, at the beginning of all time? They are far more astonishing than the demiurges and serpents and bulls found in other cosmogonies." Rudolf Steiner recorded his view of the world in numerous books. He gave more than 5,000 lectures in which he explained his ideas with minimal notes. When describing especially difficult subjects, Steiner frequently resorted to illustrating what he was saying with colored chalk on a large blackboard. After his earlier lectures, the drawings were erased and irretrievably lost. After the autumn of 1919, however, thick black paper was used to cover the blackboards so that the drawings could be rolled up and preserved. The Trustees of Steiner's Estate in Dornach, Switzerland, possess more than a thousand such drawings. A selection of these drawings was first shown to the general public in 1992, and since then, exhibitions in Europe, America, and Japan generated great interest. Contents: "Foreword by Jacquelynn Baas; An Aesthetic Perspective by Lawrence Rinder; Writing in Cosmic Images by Walter Kugler; Blackboard Catalogue with Lecture Excerpts by Rudolf Steiner; Checklist of the Exhibition; Biography and Selected Bibliography". 133 pages. Insured post. Size: 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" Tall.

Seller Inventory # 021900

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Knowledge of Higher Worlds: Rudolf Steiner's Blackboard Drawings
• Publisher: University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0295976845
• ISBN 13: 9780295976846
• Binding: Soft Cover
• Illustrator: Steiner, Rudolf
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Fine

About this title

Synopsis

A catalog of the first American exhibition of Rudolf Steiner's blackboard drawings at the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum. The drawings were created by the scholar and mystic during his lectures from 1919 to 1924, and were preserved in the form of color chalk on black paper. Each color illustration is accompanied by a quote from the lecture during which the drawing was made. Includes two introductory essays, and a checklist of the exhibition. No index. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German