Goethe as collector 3

J.H. Tischbein der Ältere, Gamblers at the "Ridotto"

Nietzsche: “It is the work of the artist that invents the man who created it. ‘Great men’ as they are venerated are subsequent pieces of minor fiction.”

Some additional thoughts re Goethe as a collector and about Der Sammler und die Seinigen. The DKV commentary notes that Goethe’s journey to Italy, with the opportunity to view works of classical sculpture, was prefaced already by his father’s journey there as a young man. In that sense, Goethe and his father, like the English cognoscenti in Ruth Guilding's book, were representatives of a class of men who found inspiration in Italy.

Goethe reports in Dichtung und Wahrheit of his father’s patronage of local artists whose works hung on the walls of the home in Frankfurt. In this connection, Ernst Beutler mentions in his commentary (Gedenkausgabe, vol. 13) that there were few public galleries in German lands: in Dusseldorf, Dresden, Kassel, Pommersfelden. Even in Leipzig and Frankfurt, one’s access to paintings required a visit to the many private galleries, as the one depicted in Der Sammler. Interestingly, these private collections, including that of Goethe’s father, were  listed among the notable sights in travel guides.

What struck me in particular about Der Sammler was the emphasis on taste. The “rubrics” that I mentioned in the first post were a summation of what the “small academy” had perceived among the reactions of visitors to the collection. In the Fourth Letter, the collector wrote of the spontaneity of such reactions: “Kunstwerke reizen auf und vor ihnen genirt sich niemand, niemand zweifelt an seiner eignen Empfindung, und daran hat man nicht Unrecht, niemand zweifelt an der Richtigkeit seines Urteils …” Each of the one-sided tendencies of viewers and of collectors speaks to individual subjectivity. Goethe did not want to leave the matter there. Our appreciation of art should go beyond our own subjective reaction. It was necessary to leave aside the “insouciant Woosterism” of the English cognoscenti of whom Guilding writes. To do so clearly required study.

The DKV commentary notes that though Goethe saw quite a bit of art in his life, his viewing experience was actually quite limited. He even avoided informing himself of the large “Academy” exhibitions in Berlin and Dresden, while the exhibitions he curated in Weimar lacked an overview of the larger German artistic production of his time. In Goethe’s defense, however, I would say that it is not necessary to know all the instances in order to get an impression of what all the instances “express.”

Giulio Romano, The Fall of the Giants (1532-34)

For instance, I have not read a newspaper for years (or, similarly, followed the news on the internet), for which I am often criticized by friends. “How do you know what is going on in the world?” they ask. In general, however, I am quite aware what is going on in the world, simply by a quick glance at the headlines, but more important is an assessment of what the news "means." For instance, Turkey shot down a Russian jet the other day; but Russia, although Putin is angry, does not attack Turkey. I understand that for Russia to have acted (e.g., to have shot down a Turkish plane in retalliation) would have been “one-sided.” A lack of response may anger some Russians, but Putin is in this for the long run. He is playing a larger game. The incident itself is simply one of many incidents that fall under the rubric of “international affairs,” an abstract category under which can be subsumed many particulars. One cannot let oneself be distracted by the particulars but, instead, try to interpret their meaning within the larger international context.

So, the fact that Goethe did not have the knowledge of art works possessed by even a university graduate in art history does not vitiate his interpretation. Even miniature works sufficed. His mineralogical collection replicated the same purpose: small specimens as representatives of an “integral” idea and as avenues of  intuition, of “Anschauung.” Goethe, in contrast to the English collectors, was indeed a “library mouse.”

Johann Heinrich Lips, Portrait of Lavater

Der Sammler requires more study than I have given to it in these posts. I was initially attracted by the seeming abstractness of the discussions and sought to add a little flesh to my understanding. Thus, the images I have posted. The long second letter in Der Sammler concerns the length to which an obsession with exacting naturalism leads, and at one point Goethe appears to mock the life-size family portraits by Johann Heinrich Tischbein, father of Goethe's friend. The collector mentions in his own collection a portrait of his parents that is concealed behind a “blind” door that, when opened would cause the viewer some consternation.

Mein Vater trat mit meiner Mutter am Arme gleichsam heraus und erschreckte durch die Wirklichkeit, welche theils durch die Umstände, theils durch die Kunst hervorgebracht war. Er war abgebildet, wie er, gewöhnlich gekleidet, von einem Gastmahl, aus einer Gesellschaft, nach Hause kam. Das Bild ward an dem Orte, zu dem Orte, mit aller Sorgfalt gemahlt, die Figuren aus einem gewissen Standpuncte genau perspectivisch gehalten und die Kleidungen, mit der größten Sorgfalt, zum enschiedensten Effecte gebracht.

Apparently Tischbein's painting still survives. Such a perspectival treatment is also seen in the same artist's painting of gamblers in Venice, in which Tischbein also placed himself. In the letter to Schiller concerning Der Sammler, Goethe mentions Giulio Romano as belonging to the category of "Skizzisten," which seems somewhat at odds with the naturalism of the painting of The Fall of the Giants above, from Sala dei Giganti in the Palazzo del Te, in Mantua. And I had to wonder whether Goethe had seen Lips' portrait of Lavater.

Picture credits: Galerie Neuse

Goethe as collector 2

Kleinkünstler: Marie Sibylla Merian (ca. 1705)

The English had collected so much Classical statuary that by the late 19th century a German scholar, Adolf Michaelis, traveled to England and wrote a catalogue entitled Ancient Marbles in Great Britain (1882). As Nigel Spivey writes in his review of Ruth Guilding’s book, most of what Michaelis documented in private collections has now been disbursed, and Michaelis recommended back then already that private collections be nationalized. He was also disturbed at the sad state of many of the ancient works. For instance, those that were outdoors were covered with lichen and other undergrowth.

As I wrote in my previous post, the 18th-century collectors were Woosterish in their enthusiasm for Classical sculpture, and documentary assessment was left to such “foreign boffins” as Michaelis. As Spivey writes of the collectors in Guilding’s study, “the gentleman is not a library mouse.” Which brings me to Goethe’s Der Sammler und die Seinigen. Can there be another more exemplary “library mouse” than the collector in this short work of Goethe’s, who, after all, refers to the setting of the discussions that take place as “unsere kleine Akademie”? And to what extent does the collector and his attitudes correspond to Goethe?

Charakteristiker: Raffael, Adam and Eve

When I turned to Der Sammler recently (WA I, 47, pp. 121–227), I discovered that it was well marked up, indicating that I had read it carefully at one time. Clearly it had not stuck with me, and I attribute this fault in myself  to Goethe’s abstract language when talking about art (which contrasts with the immensely visual comparisons that characterize his poetic oeuvre).

I notice that I underlined the following comment of the collector on the viewer’s response to a work of art: “Das Höhere was in uns liegt will erweckt sein, wir wollen verehren und uns selbst verehrungswürdig fühlen.” Goethe scholars have encountered endlessly such apercus. One gets the point, but one can't quite see what is meant, and Goethe doesn’t help matters by neglecting to give examples.


Interestingly, there is very little scholarly commentary on Der Sammler, but the DKV edition notes the influence of Schiller in the argument for “eine integrale Betrachtung der sichtbaren Gestalt des Kunstwerks.” Thus, “the small academy” draws up rubrics that address the one-sidedness  (Einseitigkeiten) with which artists create and viewers respond to works of art and which ultimately fail to produce “the integral” or “the ideal,” in the work or in the imagination. The different varieties of one-sided practice or appreciation correspond to subjective tendencies of individuals (here is the influence of Kant’s aesthetics). It is only by combining two or more such tendencies that “ein Werk höherer Art” can be produced, one that unites both “Ernst” and “Spiel.”

Undulisten: Corregio, Jesus

Since Goethe gives no examples, the pictures here are meant to supply what he meant by the following: “Nachahmer” (“es fehlt ihm die Kunstwahrheit als schöner Schein”); “Imaginanten” (“Der Imaginant schadet die Kunst unendlich, weil er sie über all Gränzen hinausjagt”); “Charakteristiker”; “Undulisten” (prefers “das Weichere und Gefällige ohne Charakter und Bedeutung”) ;”Kleinkünstler” “Skizzisten” ("Der Skizzist spricht aber unmittelbar zum Geiste …  Der Geist spricht zum Geiste, und das Mittel wodurch es geschehen sollte, wird zu nichte"). Except for the “Imaginant,” I did not make up these examples; they are taken from a letter to Schiller of June 22, 1799. Of course, none of these are examples of statuary, but the rubrics are applicable to painting.

Imaginant: Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare