In Memory of Theo Faiss

Background

Edith Maryon

Edith Maryon was born in London on 9 February 1872. Educated there and in Geneva, she later studied at institutions including the Royal College of Art. Between 1899 and 1912, when living in London, Maryon exhibited numerous works, particularly at the Royal Academy of Arts and the Walker Art Gallery.

Maryon began exploring occult beliefs at least as early as 1909, and in 1912 travelled to Germany to meet Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy—a spiritual movement with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy. In January 1914, she travelled to Dornach, Switzerland, where Steiner had resolved to centre the anthroposophical movement and build the Goetheanum as its headquarters. After a brief return to London in April, Maryon came back to Dornach around June or July. From then until her death in 1924, Maryon rarely left. She became a close collaborator of Steiner; among other contributions, she was heavily involved in creating both the monumental sculpture The Representative of Humanity, and the eurythmy figures depicting an anthroposophical form of movement art.

Theo Faiss

Theo Faiss was born in Brazil on 1 July 1907. He was the first of four children of Albert and Ida Faiss. The parents had lived in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1904 and knew Steiner from that time; after a stint in southern Brazil from 1905 to 1911, they returned to Europe. In the first half of 1913 they settled in Dornach to be near an anthroposophical institute.

By October 1914, Faiss, then seven years old, was well liked and considered responsible by the local community. He was the oldest male member of the household, for his father had been called up for military service in the German Army. Partly to fill his father's absence, Faiss sometimes ran errands using a small wooden cart, including for Steiner. On the afternoon of 7 October, Steiner's housekeeper asked Faiss to run an errand nearby. By dusk, he had still not returned; the ensuing search involved much of the town and discovered his body beneath an overturned horse-drawn wagon laden with furniture.

Faiss's body was laid out in a corner of a building nearby, and Steiner visited daily. Steiner offered a eulogy at the funeral, held on 10 October, and closed by reading a mantram, or blessing, addressed to the "Spirit of his soul, active guardian". Two months later, Albert Faiss died in hospital, having contracted pneumonia and rib inflammation on the battlefield. Steiner delivered a eulogy on 27 December, stating that the father was "now being welcomed by the soul of the precious child", with whom "we know your soul to be united now".

Maryon, who had returned to Dornach three or four months earlier, likely experienced these events firsthand. She may also have known Theo Faiss and his mother; during her stay in Dornach at the beginning of the year, too, it is possible she met his father.

Significance

In at least fifteen speeches and lectures, Steiner repeatedly found spiritual meaning in Faiss's death, and linked it to the anthroposophical movement. Starting with his eulogy, Steiner explained Faiss's death as an intentional spiritual event rather than mere coincidence. In a lecture that evening, he described the death as "a remarkable experience of karma" in which Faiss was "summoned back by spiritual powers": "We see clearly that, in order to bring about the fulfillment of this karma, the wagon was led to that spot, and then the wagon was overturned so that the karma of that particular individual might be fulfilled".

As Steiner explained it, Faiss's death provided a spiritual sheath protecting the Goetheanum, which was then under construction. In June 1915, for example, he declared that the building "has been enveloped to quite a wide extent by the enlarged etheric body of this child as by an aura". Steiner made a drawing during the lecture, showing what he understood to be the boundaries of this "etheric aura".

Fire

On the night of New Year's Eve 1922 and morning of New Year's Day 1923, the Goetheanum burned to the ground, possibly due to arson. Anthroposophists have offered a variety of interpretations for why it was able to do so, if protected by the aura of Faiss. To Maryon's biographer Rex Raab, Faiss "contributed through his sacrifice to the fact that the building, when it fell prey to the flames and dissolved into the Earth's atmosphere, was able to 'sacrifice' itself in the right way, so as to form, from then on, a special protective sheath for the entire Earth".

Judith von Halle, by contrast, explains the fire by stating that Faiss's protective sheath had come to an end in October 1921. The interpretation relies on Steiner's belief that humans develop in seven-year spiritual cycles: forming what he termed an etheric body over the first seven years, an astral body from seven to fourteen, and the remainder of one's terrestrial being from fourteen to twenty-one. To von Halle, Faiss's October 1914 death, shortly after his seventh birthday in July, meant that his etheric body had only just become fully formed. In death, as it would have done in life, she states, Faiss's body continued to "age" through his astral cycle, during which he offered protection to the Goetheanum. In October 1921, therefore—seven years after Faiss died—von Halle concludes that he passed to the next cycle, and the protection ended.

Description

Maryon created two versions of In Memory of Theo Faiss. Both are dated 1921; Raab terms them the first (earlier) and second (later) versions based on stylistic characteristics.

First version

The first version of the relief is 71.5 cm (28.1 in) tall and 33.5 cm (13.2 in) wide—a slightly elongated double square. It is signed by Maryon and dated 1921; the date is partly damaged, leaving the month illegible. The relief is divided horizontally into three stylistic elements.

The bottom third depicts three individuals. Their upper bodies rise out of a motif that is both plant-like and flame-like. A woman, likely Faiss's mother, is on the right; of the five figures depicted in the relief, hers is the only face that is concave. On the left is the figure of a man—possibly Faiss's father or Steiner—with hands clasped to his chest in prayer. A third figure, presumably Theo Faiss himself, is in the middle and slightly above them—in physical rather than spiritual form, with outstretched hands.

The middle portion of the relief also depicts Theo Faiss, this time in spiritual form. Smaller than the physical Faiss below, the spiritual version is doll-like, and rises upwards. Its head is bowed slightly forward, and its hands are raised; the whole body is held by, and rests against the chest of, a spiritual being, seemingly a guardian angel.

The upper third of the relief shows this guardian angel. One hand cradles the spiritual Faiss; the other gestures upwards, towards higher realms.

Second version

The second version is a variant of the first. The width is the same—33.5 cm (13.2 in)—but the height, 67 cm (26 in), is slightly shorter, making the work an exact double square. Like the first, it is signed and dated 1921.

The second version contains only the two upper elements of the first: the guardian spirit lifting the spiritual form of Faiss. These figures appear more relaxed than in the first version. The bottom portion, where the first version depicts the earthly Faiss, his mother, and a man identified as either his father or Steiner, is absent.

Themes

Two thematic interpretations of In Memory of Theo Faiss have been offered. In the first, the relief relates to the moment of Faiss's death. In the second, it relates to the end of Faiss's spiritual protection over the Goetheanum.

The first interpretation was put forth by Raab. According to him, the work depicts the moment of Faiss's sacrificial death and his passage into the spiritual world. Faiss's outstretched arms suggest that he is ready for sacrifice; he is to be reborn in the spiritual world like a butterfly. His father clasps his arms as if in prayer, meanwhile, as if submitting himself to God's will. The angel figure, for its part, appears as a messenger from heaven sent to retrieve Faiss's soul, just as the Roman god Mercury, the traditional guide of souls (psychopomp), escorted souls to the underworld. Taken as a whole, under this view the work is the sculptural embodiment of the mantram with which Steiner eulogized Faiss, asking that his soul be entrusted to the spirits.

To von Halle and Martina Maria Sam, by contrast, the work relates to events years later. Von Halle states that it shows the moment seven years after Faiss died, when, she says, Faiss passed on to the next seven-year cycle, and his protective sheath over the Goetheanum came to an end. She therefore interprets the work as having been created around October 1921, the seventh anniversary of Faiss's death.

To von Halle, furthermore, the concavity of Faiss's mother's face in the first version shows that she is grieving in the earthly sphere. Whereas Raab sees Ida Faiss's expression as one of resignation to her fate, von Halle sees it as one of adoration and devout gratitude after having spent seven years spiritually supporting him. Also unlike Raab, who sees the male figure on the left as Faiss's father, von Halle identifies it as Steiner—with convex face, operating beyond the threshold of the spirit world—offering his thanks to Faiss, on the one hand, and expressing concern and praying for continued protection, on the other. The lack of continued protection is, according to von Halle, why the Goetheanum was able to burn as it did at the end of 1922. Similarly, Sam suggests that the work "is directly connected to the fire". Stating that Maryon would have designed the work in consultation with Steiner, she suggests that it may represent the "metamorphosis of Theo's task in an artistic form".

Beyond the specific event depicted, Raab terms the work the "true monument" to Faiss and his death. He states that the work serves a dual role as a "living memento mori", evoking mortality while keeping alive the memory of Faiss.

Provenance

The first version, wrote Raab, "nearly disappeared into oblivion". It was discovered as thirteen dusty plaster fragments by Emil Estermann; he gave them to A. John Wilkes, an English sculptor who restored many of Maryon's and Steiner's original models and casts around 1965. He reassembled the pieces, after which a new cast was made, with the break lines barely visible.

Neither the original nor the mould of the second version is still present in the Goetheanum's studio. It was unknown to Raab—who had already written the chapter of Maryon's biography discussing the relief—until April 1991. At this point he became aware of a bronze version in the Netherlands, although the owners (F. I. Steffelaar-Moulijn and W. Steffelaar) did not know how it ended up there. Raab noted that Maryon's surviving correspondence indicated that she had friendly contacts in the Netherlands, as well as Dutch friends in Dornach, and speculated that she may have offered it as a gift, such as in exchange for hospitality.