Goethe in Italy

Today I had a reminder of what did interest Goethe in Italy. We went again to see the exhibition of paintings by the Netherlandish painter Jan Gossart (1478-1532). Gossart might have remained true to his roots in Late Gothic Mannerism had he not traveled to Rome in 1508-9, where he made copies of antique sculptures.

It was still somewhat rare for Northern artists to travel to Italy to get a firsthand look at these works. Albrecht Dürer had already traveled there in the 1490s (when Columbus was crossing the Atlantic!). The experience had a great effect on Gossart's style, as can be seen especially in the sculptural quality of the subjects of his post-Italian paintings, whether it be the Virgin or a burgher from Bruges. The figures seem to stand forth from their background. I love the painting at the top, the Carondelet Diptych, from 1517. From the look in his eyes, the infant Jesus would seem to be a regular little terror, as if he would love to tear himself from Mary's arms and run after something beyond our view. (Click on image to enlarge.) For once I think the Met has named this exhibition correctly: "Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures."

In the two years Goethe spent in Rome and southern Italy, he studied the works of antiquity closely, as well as such "moderns" as Raphael and Michelangelo. He immersed himself in Wincklemann's works. Goethe had been a sketcher from childhood, but it is hard to believe that he still imagined when he went to Rome that he might become an artist himself, despite being famous throughout Europe as an author. Most of his friends in Rome were other German artists, who taught him a lot about drawing and painting. In the end, he was wise enough to see that he didn't have the talent to be a visual artist. The experience, however, was crucial for what would later be known as Weimar Classicism.

Image sources: Musée du Louvre, Paris; Universiteitsbibliothek Leiden Prentenkabinet

Goethe in Italy

Goethe's departure for Italy, in 1786, took place in greatest secrecy, of which some of his closest confidantes (Charlotte von Stein, among them) learned only after the fact. Goethe's father had traveled in Italy after his studies and later impressed on his son his own enthusiasms. Goethe went to Weimar when he was twenty-six and spent the next ten years immersed in administrative duties, while his literary efforts took a back seat. He seemed to become a different person, leaving all his youthful enthusiasms behind. When he finally made the trip to Italy, he was almost forty years old. It seemed to be now or never. As the detail from the above painting conveys, enthusiasm for Italy encompassed a lot of people in the 18th century.

To a scholar of Goethe, an interesting aspect is how little Goethe devotes to describing Italians or Italian customs. If you want to know about plants, minerals, rocks, architecture, monuments, and so on, Goethe is your man, though much of what he includes in his letters and later accounts (e.g,, Italian Journey) is artfully constructed rather than representing a spontaneous travel account. He mentions, for instance, meals taken, but he never discusses the characteristics of Italian cooking. A good contrast are the books of Friederike Brun, who traveled in Italy a decade after Goethe but whose Italian portraits were published before Italian Journey. Goethe had access to her books, and, though I have not yet investigated it, I think he was probably guided by her to some extent. (Like Goethe, she was also unnerved by the Roman Carnival.)

Thus, I enjoyed a recent exhibition of "vedute" and "capricci" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Italy Observed: Views and Souvenirs, 1706-1899. "Vedute," meaning views, are essentially topographical, while capricci are much more fanciful and idealized. The vedute portray those aspects of everyday life that Goethe seemed to ignore, like the scene above of a beggar outside a colonnade, drawn by Francesco Guardi ca. 1780-90, thus the very period when Goethe was in Rome. He even fails to mention that one could purchase souvenirs of the sites, e.g., the fan below with an image from the excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii, from the same period. We go to Goethe to learn other things.