Werther at his desk

Whenever I pick up a book I always look in the index to see if Goethe is mentioned. Eighteenth-century studies invariably include him, if only incidentally. The exhibition catalogue for "Rooms with a View" has Goethe in the index and also refers to his influence on certain of the painters included in the exhibition. One of the painters, Carl Ludwig Kaaz, is said to have had a close friendship with Goethe. As Sabine Rewald writes, Kaaz gave Goethe instruction in gouache and watercolors when he was in Karlsbad. More important perhaps was Carl Gustav Carus, who was also a professor medicine and whom Goethe invited to collaborate with him on his morphological publications. Unfortunately, Carus did not think highly of Goethe's color theory; Goethe thus broke off their correspondence.

The above painting, though not in the exhibition, is included in the catalogue. It is by Georg Friedrich Kersting, whom I mentioned in my first post on this exhibition in connection with the portrait of Louise Seidler. As Rewald writes in the catalogue: the figure's "artfully disheveled blond hair is in tune with his 'Werther'-inspired costume": blue jacket, yellow vest, and grey pants.

"Im Herbst"

There are so many charming paintings in "Rooms with a View: The Open Window in the 19th Century," an exhibition now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The work at the left, however, painted by Anton Dieffenbach (1831-1914) in 1856, reminded me immediately of a poem by Goethe. The poem is "Im Herbst" (In Autumn) and, as in Dieffenbach's painting of Window in Sunlight, describes grape leaves climbing up a trellis outside the window.

Fetter grüne, du Laub,
Das Rebengeländer,
Hier mein Fenster herauf.
Gedrängter quillet,
Zwillingsbeeren, und reifet
Schneller und glänzend voller.

Euch brütet der Mutter Sonne
Scheideblick, euch umsäuselt
Des holden Himmels
Fruchtende Fülle.
Euch kühlet des Monds
Freundlicher Zauberhauch,
Und euch betauen, ach,
Aus diesen Augen
Der ewig belebenden Liebe
Voll schwellende Tränen.

("Autumn Feelings": Flourish greener, as ye clamber,/ Oh ye leaves, to seek my chamber,/ Up the trellis'd vine on high!/ May ye swell, twin berries tender,/ Juicier far, -- and with more splendour/ Ripen, and more speedily! O'er ye broods the sun at even/ As he sinks to rest, and heaven/ Softly breathes into your ear/ All its fertilizing fullness, While the moon's refreshing coolness/ Magic laden, hovers near; And, alas! ye're watered ever/ By a stream of tears that rill/ From mine eyes -- tears ceasing never,/ Tears of love that nought can still.)

Goethe wrote the poem in 1775, shortly before he left for Weimar. "Autumn Feelings" of the English refers to the title Goethe gave the poem in 1789, when he first published his collected writings, at which time he also did some revisions to the earlier texts. According to Metzler's Goethe-Lexikon (one of my favorite reference books), the poem is typical of Goethe's early lyric work, especially the "intimate relationship" it suggests between "I" and nature. The "cosmic powers" of the sun and the moon cause the grapes to grow, but also the tears of the poet, watering them with "the creative natural power [Naturkraft] of love." The last word of the poem -- Tränen (tears) -- adds an elegiac note. Though the title of Dieffenbach's painting is Window in Sunlight, a rather dark mood is suggested, which makes we wonder if Dieffenbach knew Goethe's poem.