​Painting in Living Color for Grades 1, 2, and 3 is a handbook for teaching a way of painting which is based
on Rudolf Steiner's indications for a modern art of painting. Through a new way of working with color, this
painting process seeks to connect the soul and spirit of the human being with the soul and spirit of the world
around us, and to the spiritual world which animates all life. Color experience provides a path to the spirit
and is the foundation for the new ideal in painting: "Paint Form out of Color". The ideas and exercises given
in these manuals also follow Steiner's Waldorf Pedagogy, the modern path of education suited to the needs
of our time which address the reality of the whole human as a being of body, soul, and spirit. Only from this
foundation can a real method of education be developed. There is an urgent need in our time for a way of
educating children that not only includes science and technology but also awakens imagination and educates
the feeling and willing faculties of children. This educational movement is intended to raise cultural expres-
sion and development of the arts to an equal footing with the sciences.

"The future requires that we base general education upon concepts that can serve as a foundation for Imagi-
native Thoughts, not just thoughts taken from science and industry. As improbable a this may seem now, in
the future we will be unable to properly interact socially if we do not teach people Imaginative concepts. ...
In the future we must be able to understand the world in pictures."

R. Steiner

GA 296, Lecture 3, Education as a Force for Social Change

A path becomes visible that is oriented to Rudolf Steiner’s training motifs; quite incidentally, although the book is actually about Gerard Wagner, one also learns about essential aspects of Steiner’s painting indications. This gives the book a special value. In the second part of the book, which deals in depth with Wagner’s method, Wagner describes the composition of a Steiner motif using detailed text. Here the special approach, which is based strictly on a sense of balance embodied in the waking experience of colour, becomes particularly clear. This approach is also set in relation to the Goetheanum building impulse, which has the human being as its basic measuring instrument. How this is done makes clear an essential aspect of the anthroposophical art impulse which is another significant achievement of the book. One is left somewhat alone with Albert Steffen’s reviews of Steiner’s colour lectures in the appendix. You have to look for the references to Wagner’s pictures on your own. Here, for example, the exercises of the colour gestures catch the eye, or ​Steiner's depiction of animals and plants can be followed by images of the same.
Overall, the book is a valuable and essential addition to the published catalogues of Wagner's paintings and the detailed biography of Gerard Wagner by Caroline Chanter titled A LIFE WITH COLOUR.

​Below are some examples of Wagner's metamorphic paintings and the painting titled "Youth" which are contained in this wonderful new book.
Future Blogs will contain more of the topics devoted to metamorphosis in the painting process.