Goethe and the visual arts

Abstract

The visual arts were for Goethe a subject of intense interest and concern. His work on them is not restricted to the writings on art and art theory collected in the five relevant volumes of the Frankfurt edition (FA i, vols. xviii-xxii); it also includes drawings, sketches, colour plates, copper engravings, illustrations to his theatre productions, portraits and scientific illustrations. Over his lifetime he produced an enormous body of texts on visual art, architecture, sculpture and painting. He knew personally many of the most talented artists of his time and had an intimate knowledge of much western and later also oriental art history. As a result of his travels in Italy and throughout Europe, he became acquainted with numerous prominent art experts, and through his initiatives as publisher, art critic and administrator he tried to promote certain artistic ideals and to influence the content and spectrum of ongoing artistic endeavours. He recommended travel to Greece, to the ruins of Paestum in Italy, and across Sicily in order that people might participate in his insights into the aesthetics of classicism, yet he also drew attention to the importance of local history as documented in both high art and popular culture, and his own literary work liberally mixes colourful scenes from the carnival and the marketplace, local history and everyday life.