Gerard van der Leeuw Quotes

Netherlands, Historian
March 18, 1890 – November, 18, 1950.

Gerard van der Leeuw was a Dutch historian and philosopher of religion. He is best known for his work Religion in Essence and Manifestation: A Study in Phenomenology, an application of philosophical phenomenology to religion. It was first published in 1933 under the German title Phänomenologie der Religion and translated into English in 1938.

Also known as Philosopher

The dance is the most universal of the arts, since, as Goethe justly said, it could destroy all the fine arts. It is an expression of all the emotions of the spirit, from the lowest to the highest. It accompanies and stimulates all the processes of life, from hunting and farming to war and fertility, from love to death. It enables, in turn other arts to come into being: music, song, drama. Despite all their riches, the dance is no formless complex, but a simple unity.

Gerard van der Leeuw
- Song
- Simple
- Emotion
The art of beautiful motion is far and away the oldest. Before man learned how to use any instruments at all, he moved the most perfect instrument of all, his body. He did this with such abandon that the cultural history of prehistoric and ancient man is, for the most part, nothing but the history of the dance.

Gerard van der Leeuw
- Beautiful
- Perfect
- Dance