Goethe and the Dutch Interior: a Study in the Imagery of Romanticism

Goethe and the Dutch Interior: A Study in the Imagery of Romanticism URSULA HOFF THE ANNUAL LECTURE delivered to The Australian Academy of the Humanities at its Third Annual General Meeting at Canberra on 16 May 1972 Australian Academy of the Humanities, Proceedings 3, 1972 PLATES PLATEI J. C. Seekatz, The Goethe Family in Shepherd's Costume (1762). Weimar Goethc National Museum PLATE2 A. v. Ostade, Peasants in an Interior (1660). Dresden Gallery PLATE3 Goethe, Self Portrait in Iris FraiFrt Romn (c. 1768). Drawing, Weimar Goethe National Museum PLATE4 J. Juncker, The Master at his Easel (1752). Kassel Gallery PLATE5 F. v. Mieris the Elder, The Connoisseur in the Artist's Studio (c. 1660-5). Dresden Gallery PLATE6 D. Chodowiecki, Werlher's Roam. Etching, from The Wallrrf-Richartz Jahrbuch, Vol. XXII, fig. 79 PLATE7 G. Terhorch, 'I'Instruction Patemelie1 (1650-5). Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam PLA~8 G. F. Kersting, The Embroidress (1811). Webar Kunstsammlungen PLATE9 J. H. W.Tibein, Goethe from the back lookinp out of a Window over Rome (c. 1787). Weimar Goethe National Museum PLATE10 G. F Kersting, Man Writing by a Window (1811). Weimar Kunstsammlungen PLATE11 G. F. Kersting, Reader by Lamplight (1811). Weimar Kunstsamdimgen PLATE12 G. F. Kersting, C. D. Friedlrich in his Studio (1811). Hamburg Kunsthalle PLATE13 Vincent van Gogh, Bedroom at Arles(188g). Chicago Art Institute The author gratefully acknowledges the kind assistance of the above galleries and museums for permission to reproduce photographs of works from their collections as plates in this paper. Australian Academy of the Humanities, Proceedings 3, 1972 HE theme of this paper is taken from the history of romantic art. As has often been remarked, romantic painters, rather than introducing a new Tstyle, developed new attitudes; and their attitudes often found expression in the revival or re-interpretation of certain themes which had been used by painters of previous centuries but which were now used in a different m0od.l One of these themes not previously dealt with in this context, is the domestic interior. Goethe appears in my paper in two roles: as a poet and writer, and also as a draughtsman and artist. His artistic output was considerable, and there had been periods in his youth when he had even felt doubts as to his true vocation. We shall meet him here participating in the creation of the imagery of romanticism and we note how the themes that attracted him early on, later acted as a bridge between him and the younger romantic painters, from whom he was divided in so many other ways. Goethe's artistic interests centred for the greater part of his life on the art of classical antiquity and on the classicism of his contemporaries, J. H. W. Tischbein and Philipp Hackert. Yet in his youth, particularly in the Sturm und Draw period, Goethe had a keen eye for the realist Dutch art of the seventeenth century. This taste for Dutch realism performed an important service in the development of Goethe's appreciation of art: it helped him to assert himself against the unbridled fantasy and opulence of the French rococo which dom- inated the taste of his father. Realism, close observation of nature later allowed him to link his scientific with his artistic interests and with Rousseau's 'return to nature'. The young Goethe grew up with the ideology and the taste of a kind of burgher's rococo. His father, following the principle that one should give work to living masters, occupied a number of painters in his house, the most important of whom was perhaps Johann Conrad Seekatz (1719-68): court painter in Darmstadt, who frequently stayed in Frankfort. Rath Goethe had himself and his family portrayed by this artist in Die Familie Goethe in Schdfertracht (The Goethe family in shepherd's costume) of 176.2~(Plate I). The scene is wholly fanciful: in the manner of the followers ofwatteau, Seekatz has created a kind of fgte chantpetre; Goethe's mother, wearing a bergere hat and a garment in elegant disarray, in keeping with the rustic setting, draws her husband's For a survey of this problem, see the important article by Jan Bialostocki, 'Romantische Ikonographie' in Stil imd Ikonographie, Dresden 1965, pp.1~6-81,and bibliog. a See Goethe, Dichtung und Wahrheit, Book I. 3Reproduced and discussed in: Bernard Gajek, Franz Getting, Jeni Gerres (cds), Coethes Leben und Werk in Daten undBildern, Frankfort a/M 1966, No. 37; Mario Praz, Conversa- tion Pieces, A Survey of the Informal Group Portrait in Europe and America, London 1971, p.202. Australian Academy of the Humanities, Proceedings 3, 1972 attention to the distant ruins. Rath Goethe, with a cloak picturesquely wrapped around his waist and shoulder, strikes a pose of benign attentiveness. Young Goethe, in tricorne hat, ties a pink ribbon around the neck of a lamb while Cornelia, his sister, stands by holding a doll. The putt! in the far distance embody those of Frau Rath Goethe's children who had died in infancy. This staged and laboured composition, which tells us little about the character and feeling of the people portrayed, is MI example of the 'lustorical' portrait group fashionable during the latter half of the eighteenth century, a form of portraiture brilliantly ridiculed by Oliver Goldsmith in a well-known passage in The Vicar of Wakefield (1766).'* The family of the Vicar want to be portrayed by an itinerant painter; it is decided that they should all be drawn together in one large historical family piece. This would be cheaper, since one frame would serve for all, and it would be infinitely more genteel for all families of any taste were now drawn in this manner. As we did not immediately recollect a historical subject to suit us, we were contented each with being drawn as independent historical figures. The Vicar's wife is drawn as Venus, the Vicar in his own role, the small children as cupids, and 'Sophia was to be a shepherdess, with as many sheep as the painter could put in for nothing . .' The taste exemplified by Scekatz's painting was gradually superseded in the later eighteenth century by a predilection for the direct, the simple and natural, qualities which collectors and painters had begun to admire in the work of the small masters of the Dutch seventeenth century. The growing popularity of Dutch art is evident from the growth in numbers of reproductive engravings of such work. Unlike Rubens and van Dyck in the southern Netherlands, Dutch painters had not commissioned engravers to reproduce their paintings; such engravings, however, become numerous in the eighteenth century, made mainly by French engravers, bringing Dutch art to the notice of collectors outside Holland. In England, Dutch scenes replace Italian scenes on the walls of interiors seen in Conversation Pieces: Zoffany represents an interior in the house of Sir Lawrence Dundas at 19 Arlington Street, London, painted in 1770, where the picture over the mantel- piece is a seapiece by Jan van de Capelle.6 The bronzes on the shelf below incidentally demonstrate that this new realist taste did not conflict with the taste for classical antiquity. In Germany, Dutch paintings were acquired by both princely and bourgeois collectors. The collection of the gallery at Kassel, still famous for its fine Dutch masterpieces, was assembled during the early eighteenth century by Landgrave William VIII (1682-1760).' The Landgrave was the godson of the Stadthouder * Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of WakcfW, Pt I, Ch. XVI. See Mario Praz, Aft Illustrated History of Interior Decoration from Pompeii to Art Nouveau, London 1964, p.149,illus. 112, in the collection of the Marquess of Zetland. Erich Herzog, Die Gemildegalcri der staatlicke~ Kunstsattwlungen Kassel, Hanau 1969, PP.15-24.41. 44 Australian Academy of the Humanities, Proceedings 3, 1972 William III of Orange and spent his years of military service at The Hague. While in Holland he became familiar with Dutch collectors and connoisseurs and began to acquire Dutch paintings at auction. Later he negotiated directly with several major Dutch collectors. The Kassel collection was known to Goethe whose entry may still be seen in the visitors' book at the date of I October 1783. The Dresden Gallery. which, as we shall see presently, importantly affected Goethe's taste, owned a vast accumulation of works by the Dutch small masters.' In Frankfort itself in the later eighteenth century many ordinary citizens collected paintings chiefly by Dutch artists, and its painters were much inspired by Dutch art. In Dichtung und Wahrheit Goethe refers to Dutch traits in the work of the following painters: Schiitz 'who industriously continued the tradition of Saftleven', Jnncker 'who carried out neat paintings of flowers and fruit, still-lifes and people quietly working in the general manner of the Dutch', and Trautman 'who took Rembrandt as his model with the result that he was once invited to paint a companion picture to one of Rembrandt'~'.~ Throughout the eighteenth century there was much rivalry between the princely houses and the bourgeoisie in their collecting of Dutch art, with the result that prices rose and Dutch owners felt tempted to part with their collections. During the French occupation of Holland, many Dutch families became impoverished and the exodus of Dutch works of art increased. Goethe's out- look was much affected by the naturalism of the Dutch style. In Dichtung und Wahrheit, Book 13, he remarks on the beautiful Frankfort collections and quotes the painter Nothnagel-either Johann Andreas (1729-1804) or his brother Johan Christian l3enj. (1734-after 1762)-as having helped him to fulfil his greatest passion, namely to scc nature in art.

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