Social optimism

What substance is the material for the social art? The architect uses  physical laws to create buildings of stone, wood or whatever. The sculptor has as his substance materials like marble or wood and must know how to form them with the forces of forming. The painter has as a material the paint, but his substance are the colours. The composer must know musical theory, but his substances are the tones, the intervals, the rhythm and so on. The poet must have knowledge about vowels and consonants, the metre, but his substance is the Word as a speakable and understandable Word. A fairly new art is eurythmy. This artist must know everything possible about the Word, as it is consisted of vowels and consonants, he must know to experience inwardly what these sounds really are, but his substance is the movement of the human body. Herein he will have to express artistically what  human Speech is.

What is the substance of the social art? It must be love, nothing more, and nothing less than true love. It is not physical love, the act of making love with a more or less beloved partner. Not the idealistic magnificent ideas that can never be realized. Not the ideal state of Plato or 'Utopia' of Thomas More. Not a hope of global peace and love. It must be true love, a substance between the You and the I, so it must be very modest, wanting to work in a very small circle - that becomes wider and wider though.

What does the artist do? He forms his substance so, that it takes shape in a more perfect way than nature can ever form this substance. Nature takes the love-substance and models new human beings through this medium of love. Greater perfection is not possible, one would say. Still, it is possible for the human being to form the love-substance so  that it leads to encounters between people that are 'not natural',  not bound by destiny, but are super-natural, breaking the boudaries, making something more out of it than nature ever could. No new physical body emerges through this kind of love, but a new form of being human.

Love is: beginning over and over again, without remembering all the pain that has been there before, forgetting all the troubles and sorrows - just beginning anew, with all the optimism of a young child and all the wisdom of an old wise woman or man. The awe, the marvelling, the open questioning while seeing and listening, the absolute faith in the fulfilling of the highest love possible between people, these are the instruments to model the substance. So an invincible social optimism grows - because all the experiences in life that contradict this optimism will never lead to pessimism. Every new moment there is a new chance - encountered with awe, marvelling, open questioning and absolute optimistic faith.

Michelangelo, detail of The creation of Adam (Sistine chapel, Rome)Social optimism by Mieke Mosmuller