About Formative Forces in the Plant World by Dick van Romunde is the culmination of decades of ‘inner observation’ of many members of the plant world in the manner of what has come to be known to as Goethean observation, after it’s principle founder and exponent, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The book guides the reader through the different stages of Goethean examination and contemplation of several plants and includes for each plant, delicately rendered colour drawings by artist, Elly van Hardeveld.

The following is excerpted from the Introduction of About Formative Forces in the Plant World:

“In Goethe’s views about the plant world, the results of which are written in his book Metamorphosis of Plants, art plays an important role and penetrates his whole work. His intensely experiential way of thinking differs from the approach to natural science typical in his time and still current today. This vitalized thinking is based upon a way of perceiving that leads to an inner rendering of the object. Goethe characterized this way of perceiving as based on a gift he called the talent of artistic rendering. Every human being can develop this talent by silencing intellectual thinking and judgment while remaining devoted to the act of perceiving. Through this activity, the perception has a stronger effect on a person’s organism and will ultimately bring about a conscious experience of artistic rendering. Through this process of perception a much clearer and more definite memory picture is created as a mental image. If this intensified image is repeatedly brought into one’s consciousness while excluding all other images, then the inner rendering activity is also re-experienced. This activity will sooner or later lead to a consciousness of the gesture; the gesture language of what is perceived – the leaf, the stem, the flower – will appear in one’s consciousness.

Following this path, Goethe felt that he could have a conversation, so to speak, with the plants through the help of the gesture language. He spoke about an open mystery in the plant world kept from those who do not yet know its gesture language, yet open because everyone can learn the language. Just as an actor perfects him- or herself in human gestures, the Goethean scientist creates for him- or herself the possibility of understanding the gesture language of natural phenomena.”

Dick van Romunde was born October 20, 1916 in the Netherlands. He studied elec­tro-technical engineering at Delft University of Technology and worked as a teacher in the Geert Groote School in Amsterdam for twenty-two years. Since 1971 he has worked with the Goethean Natural Science Foundation. He is the author of several books on natural science based on a phenomenological approach. He currently lives with his wife in Amerongen, the Netherlands.

Elly van Hardeveld was born April 1, 1938 in the Netherlands, and graduated from the Royal Academy of Art at The Hague. She currently teaches at several colleges in Apeldoorn, and pursues her inter­ests in nature, art, and classical music.

Other titles by Dick van Romunde: Perceiving Plants: Experiencing Elemental Beings

See also: New Eyes for Plants by M. Colquhoun & A. Ewald