The Four Temperaments
First year students represent the four temperaments for the Topics of Anthroposophy class. The question, ‘What was it like to be given this assignment?’ is answered here in the mood of each temperament.
Choleric, by Ashley Lockwood, Class of 2010
Being a choleric, I got right to work. I was even able to finish the project on the same day I started, surprisingly, within the hour. This seemed such an easy project for me. The idea just came to me that night: CARS! Why not show the four temperaments with cars as metaphors? For the melancholic, the obvious choice was a dark blue funeral hearse. It was a bit extreme but it really seemed to get the point across. For the phlegmatic I chose to represent it through a green tractor. Then onto the sanguine — that was easy — a yellow long skinny convertible. The red Corvette was, of course, used for the choleric. I placed them on a white board and made a road as a backdrop — and the choleric won the race! Dorit commented in class that I had invented a new game: Temperament Monopoly!
Phlegmatic, by Kate Roggeveen, Class of 2010
I had been expecting more reading assignments for homework, which I was just getting into a routine with, so I felt some resistance over this assignment. I like to have a clear goal and task and this was neither! It could be 2-D or 3-D, abstract or concrete, have one or many metaphors, and needed to be a pretty large size. I had associated the temperaments most closely with the four realms of nature: earth (melancholic), water (phlegmatic), air (sanguine) and fire (choleric). I decided to work very systematically each night building each section as a collage. Each night I slowly built them up, with the ideas coming as I worked steadily. The main representation for each was a geode for melancholic, a cactus for phlegmatic, a butterfly for sanguine and a prince
for choleric. Now can we please go back to reading assignment so I don’t feel so exhausted and have to clean another mess from a collage?
Sanguine, by Jessica Rimmer, Class of 2010
When I first learned about the assignment I was really excited to be doing another art project. Then the questions started rolling in. After all the discussion there were so many options… What was I going to choose, how was I going to include everything, and still be original? First I thought: flowers! But there are so many flowers to choose from… Next I thought: Buildings! Too materialistic…
What about musical instruments? Too boring… Maybe I can create a band and I can draw each member with the body type of each temperament and the corresponding instrument. But wait, I can’t draw very well. Time is running out, what am I going to do? Then it hit me when I opened the closet door and saw a cowboy boot — as clear as day! I will use shoes! A red stiletto heel, a green warm and fuzzy slipper, a yellow flowery flip-flop, and a blue rain boot. I will back-drop each shoe with the corresponding color and have them overlap in the areas that the temperaments overlap, and voila! it is finished.
Melancholic, by Wiene Frans, Class of 2010
When this assignment came I thought: “Oh great! There goes my relaxing weekend!” I knew my mind would be relentless in the pursuit of the true, deeper meaning of each temperament and the perfect visual representation. I decided to make a collage, something two-dimensional, so it could more easily be laminated and preserved (for eternity). This had to be aesthetically pleasing as well as instructional. I let myself be guided by the colors representing each temperament and the corresponding elements. I looked through stacks of magazines. The process of finding the right images was cumbersome and painstaking, and at times I wished I could just throw something on paper and not be so deeply invested in expressing my deepest insights. It took me all of the following week before I was ready to put everything together into a coherent whole, and finally, relax.
