[306] LECTURE XXV, Feb. 9, 1956 We spoke about symbols and characteristics of the representative, in contrast to the non-representative, symbols (the reflective symbols), and also in contrast to the psychological symbols which are actually signs and not symbols---they are, so to speak, symptoms (symptom means sign, not symbol). Therefore we concentrate on the representative symbols. I gave you characteristics of these symbols which appear in language, in history, and in religion, and also in the arts^a. I didn't

speak about the latter ones because they are the subject of today's lecture. Let us go into thespecial [sic.] character of the artistic symbols^b. I had a long time of hesitation before I decided to speak of artistic symbols at all, for the reason which those of you who know a little about history of art will immediately understand. There is such a thing as intentionally symbolic art, for instance produced by the so-called pre-Raphaelites at the end of the 19th century in England. There is symbolistic poetry; there is symbolistic drama, whereby not elements of the ordinary reality are used in order to symbolize something beyond this ordinary reality, but where special

symbols are invented which are especially characterized as symbols---angelic figures, forms in which the NON-realistic element is intentionally expressed. It was always my feeling that such a kind of art is bad art. For this reason I was hesitating to speak in terms of symbols at all, when I spoke of art, but this was a more accidental reason. There was another reason, more substantial, namely the experience that if you are, in a picture or in a piece of music or in a poem or in a drama, participating in its meaning, there is the character which belongs to every symbol---to point beyond