{"id":71817,"date":"2026-04-15T11:54:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T09:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/?p=71817"},"modified":"2026-04-15T11:54:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T09:54:43","slug":"on-the-realization-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/on-the-realization-of-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Realization of the World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Art, like nature, is \u201crealized\u201d through those who observe it. Human beings create reality because they can turn something that is intuited spiritually into something perceptible in the sensory world.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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No artwork without an observer. This insight has become programmatic for modern art. C\u00e9zanne spoke of \u201cmaking real\u201d and \u201crealizing\u201d to make it clear that the creative process of the artist and the observer does not consist in depicting a given reality but in creating a new reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What applies to the created product of art also applies to nature as it\u2019s perceived. In C\u00e9zanne\u2019s case, this means that both Montagne Sainte-Victoire and the painting are realities only to the degree that they are brought forth through the act of seeing. Both first become real in the eye of the viewer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through and throughout the human being, reality births itself\u2014through the human ability to make something that is intuited spiritually into something perceptible in the sensory world. A spiritual being descends, step-by-step, into sensory appearance; it \u201cincarnates,\u201d as it were. Or to put it another way: we can become witnesses to a metamorphosis in which a heavenly being of the periphery transforms into a centric, earthly form of existence that, ultimately, I can point to with my finger. Ideally, this process of realization passes through four stages: from pure spiritual intuition, through inspiration (related to hearing), to pictorial imagination (related to seeing), flowing out finally into an objective, thing-like comprehension of the subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In encounters with the world of birds, these four stages can unfold in an almost archetypal manner. For example, when walking through a landscape or during a particular season, a specific bird species may occasionally come to mind. Around early April, while gazing at the spring-blue sky above the old city in Bern, it might be the Alpine Swift: \u201cYes, it could already be back from its winter quarters.\u201d Or, at a secluded fishing pond, the Kingfisher: \u201cIt could be here right now!\u201d Such premonitions often arise more or less intuitively from within, work their way up into consciousness, and knock on the inner door\u2014at first without any sensory manifestation at all. This first stage of the encounter resembles a quiet intuition in which, by awakening to it, one finds oneself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One can purposively engage with such intuitions, for example, by actively beginning to weigh the conditions required for the respective bird species. In doing so, we cultivate a receptivity to the being in question. When this leads to a harmonious overall picture\u2014one with which we can reach an inner agreement while keeping the kingfisher in mind\u2014then we become convinced of its presence. The kingfisher is certainly present in this way, no matter whether it will go through the further stages of its \u201cincarnation\u201d or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next moment, we may consider that we\u2019ve heard something of the bird with our outer senses. Was it just my imagination, or did I actually hear something? \u201cYes, there in the distance! Listen!\u201d Barely audible to the ear, one hears the call of the kingfisher both inwardly and outwardly\u2014like an inspiration: \u201cI\u2019m here! Seek me, hear me! Try to grasp me!\u201d At this inspirational stage, the manifestation-body of a bird is only voice. A \u201cvocal\u201d being makes itself heard from the surroundings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a third step, the appearance\u2014often fleeting at first\u2014manifests for sight. \u201cThere, look there, there it is!\u201d But, like a shooting star, this image was granted to me alone. No other human eyes were given this view. Brief yet unmistakable, the kingfisher appeared in a colorful image, reflecting on the water\u2019s surface, darting across it. A sparkling moment\u2014and already the image is gone again. What remains is a remembered mental image that refers back to the imagination we experienced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fourth and final step consists, finally, in corporeal objectification, in thing-ness, reification, fixation\u2014in sensory sensation. \u201cBehold, there he sits upon the branch!\u201d For this step, we nowadays mostly use binoculars and a field guide: we capture the bird in the viewfinder of our optical magnifiers, classify it taxonomically, and identify it as a specific species\u2014even though this means that we avoid catching it by hand. It\u2019s rare these days to see a bird catcher striding through the meadows with a net. Today, it\u2019s only the research-oriented bird catchers with trackers and transmitters or the incorrigible Mediterranean bird catchers, who\u2014both just as much\u2014\u201carrest\u201d the bird\u2019s original peripheral nature in the physical act of grasping it in the hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a captured bird is a miserable picture. The bird\u2019s essence belongs to the beauty of its plumage as it appears in flight, the soulful resonance of its song, and the freedom of the intangible vastness of the sky. To discover the bird even before it appears sensorially; to pay attention to it when it calls out to me; indeed, to renounce its objective fixation and leave it as a fleeting visual apparition\u2014all of this restores its freedom and its connection to its spiritual origin\u2014and thus its dignity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Translation <\/strong>Joshua Kelberman
Photo<\/strong> Moe\/Unsplash<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Art, like nature, is \u201crealized\u201d through those who observe it. Human beings create reality because they can turn something that is intuited spiritually into something perceptible in the sensory world. No artwork without an observer. This insight has become programmatic for modern art. C\u00e9zanne spoke of \u201cmaking real\u201d and \u201crealizing\u201d to make it clear that the creative process of the artist and the observer does not consist in depicting a given reality but in creating a new reality. What applies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9211,"featured_media":71091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9097,8788,8839],"tags":[11776,11783,8824],"class_list":["post-71817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-essay-en","category-nature-experience","tag-ausgabe-11-2026-en","tag-english-issue-16-2026","tag-spotlights"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71817"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71852,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71817\/revisions\/71852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}