Walpurgis Night (Ernst Barlach)

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Title page of the book Goethe Walpurgis Night , woodcut by Ernst Barlach, 1922/23

Walpurgis Night is an artistically designed and illustrated book by Ernst Barlach based on the text Walpurgis Night from Faust I by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . It was published in 1923 by Paul Cassirer's publishing house in Berlin. It was printed in the Offizin Pöschel & Trepte printing company in Leipzig and Ernst Barlach produced 20 woodcuts for it. In 1955 there was a new edition by Hans Maria Wingler in Buchheim Verlag , Feldafing. Another new edition based on the original was published in 1967 by Droste Verlag und Druckerei GmbH, Düsseldorf.

Background and description

Goethe's work Faust I inspired many artists to illustrate and edit. The fact that the fist material was increasingly taken up again in Germany in the early 1920s, for example with Hans Wildermann in 1919, Willy Jaeckel in 1925 and Max Slevogt until 1926, is related to the question of the meaning of human existence after the end of the First World War . But Ernst Barlach was only interested in the Walpurgis night scene in the book project , in which Mephistopheles and Faust attend a nocturnal witch's ball on the Brocken and meet various beings from the realm of evil. Barlach was a representative of a realistic , but also German expressionist style of representation. His once “massive”, then again finely carved woodcuts for Walpurgis Night not only illustrate the dark events in a demonic way, so they are not a mere reflection, but translate them into the new artistic language of the expressionistic woodcut. Barlach had dealt with Goethe before; the poet was even a role model for him. Goethe's artistic and literary influence is palpable in all of Barlach's oeuvre and resulted in a great deal of material in his artistic work. With his woodcuts for Walpurgis Night , Barlach has created an image implementation that is equivalent to poetry, which has a life-affirming effect in its sensual, erotic excitement, just as the words of Mephistopheles describe it:

What do you say friend this is not a small room.
There just look! you hardly see the end.
A hundred fires burn in line;
You dance, you chat, you cook, you drink, you love;
Now tell me where there is something better?
- ( verse 4055 ).

With the print graphic cycle Walpurgisnacht Ernst Barlach has completely freed himself from the "narrowness of the post-Wilhelmine philistine world".

The book was published in 120 numbered copies and is in a box. The format is 32.5 × 25 cm. In addition to the printed woodcuts, a separate set of the woodcuts on Japanese paper , signed by Ernst Barlach himself, was included with the special edition . It was printed on handmade paper from the Zanders paper factory . Barlach's enclosed woodcuts were printed by Cassirer's Berliner Pan-Presse . The typesetting is a Gothic Fraktur . The book has 50 pages with thread binding and a gray cardboard cover.

Barlachs woodblock prints

Lilith with a boar at the Witch Ball on Walpurgis Night (woodcut by Ernst Barlach, 1923)

The woodcuts made by Ernst Barlach portray various figures of the witch's dance individually and in groups. He began with the charcoal drawings as preliminary studies for the woodcuts in 1919; however, there were many more than were later included in the book. What is important about the woodcut is the light-dark distribution, which gives the witch's dance the necessary contrasts between light and shadow. Barlach used the technique of woodcut, in which the motifs are cut out of the black base and allow a white drawing, in contrast to the traditional woodcut, in which the motif appears in front of a white base with black drawing. Through Barlach's style of cutting, the works come very close to the nocturnal character of the witch's sabbath. Barlach places more value on the detailed, individual depiction of the witches than on the actual protagonists Faust and Mephisto, who tend to take a back seat in the woodcuts.

According to Hans Maria Wingler , text quotations from Faust cannot be assigned to all woodcuts. Because it is not an illustration of Goethe's text, but a visual translation . Barlach sometimes goes beyond the Goethe text and invents freely.

Descriptions partly based on Susanne Augat: The corresponding verses refer to the edition by JG Cotta , Tübingen 1808.

  • Title page with the depiction of a dancing or descending witch with a waxing moon quarter
  • The harper could be an allusion to the character of the same name from Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship . As an instrument, he uses a spine with ribs, which he strikes and sings. Three people, a beautiful woman, maybe Mignon , and an old pair of witches holding hands, listen to the harper's singing.
  • Blocksberggelichter , an allusion to the Wild Man is likely here. In Goethe's Faust II , wild men appear as giants in the Harz Mountains ( verse 5864 ff. ). In the woodcut, a wild man has snatched a young witch and wants to disappear with her, but a pointed-nosed creature tries to dispute his prey.
  • The will-o'-the-wisp ( verse 3855 ), the ascent to the Brocken from the area around Schierke and misery and the encounter with a will- o'-the-wisp is shown. A mountain backdrop rises behind Faust and Mephistopheles, the small figure of the will-o'-the-wisp with flaming hair shows humility before Mephisto.
  • Faust and Mephistopheles II ( verse 3912 ) Faust and Mephisto stand with their legs apart in a storm (in Goethe a “ bride of the wind ”) on a rock plateau, Faust grasps the tip of Mephisto's robe.
  • Witches journey , two flying witches with blowing hair and robes, the smaller one at the bottom left is sitting in a laundry basket
  • The Owl's Nest ( verse 3969 ), in this picture Barlach refers to a depiction of a witch by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen and shows a witch flying over the Ilsestein on a kind of table or bench. Barlach depicts this witch in a humorous, anxious and expectant manner with big eyes. She and the witch Baubo are among the humorous and cheerful beings of this witch's sabbath.
  • The witch Baubo ( verse 3962 ), she rides in the lady's seat on a mother pig , which Barlach depicts as a boar. It has a bulbous nose and represents serenity.
  • The bishop , two human figures flying through the air from left to right, one of which, the bishop, wears a miter and a small bell around his neck instead of a pectoral . His bat-like cape serves as a wing for gliding
  • Riding Urian , Urian, means the devil , rides a ram and is surrounded by monstrous animals, including a lobster
  • Witches ride ( verse 3906 ), a witch riding with legs apart on the broom flies from top left to bottom right through the picture. Your skirt is blown by the airstream, your upper body is free. Another witch crouching in a washtub has clawed her hair. More witches riding a billy goat and a broom. A large, diabolical face can be seen on the right in the coniferous forest, Faust and Mephisto crouch on the ground.
  • The minstrels ( verse 4050 ) blow and play their music on a cat, a snake and probably an animal skull, in the background a fire around which witches camp and sing
  • The snail witch ( verse 4065 ), also a cheerful figure, makes a dance step in a great pose
  • The junk witch ( verse 4096 ), this witch portrays Barlach as malicious, as a representative of “inhumanity and corruption”. Their goods consist of writing utensils, a skull, a poison cup, a snake, a strange doll and a scroll in which the number "14" ( verse 2626 ) can be read. These objects point to the Gretchen tragedy. The "14" is an allusion to January 14, 1772, on this day Susanna Margaretha Brandt , the model for Goethe's Gretchen, was beheaded as a child murderer.
  • Lilith , Adam's first wife ( verse 4119 ), she is represented as a measured, striding figure in a long skirt, bare upper body, the long hair hiding her breasts, she is accompanied by a boar that strokes her legs, on the right edge of the picture Faust and Mephisto stand staring at them
  • Mephistopheles, dancing lively with the old woman
  • Faust, dancing with the boy
  • The proctophantasmist ( verse 4144 ), this portrayal refers humorously to the writer Friedrich Nicolai , who suffered from hallucinations and wanted to cure them with leeches attached to his buttocks ; In Barlach's woodcut, a prickly creature sits on his butt
  • Gretchen ( verse 4183 ), Gretchen appears as a dead woman, in an upright posture, her hands chaste in front of her body, her head turned to the left and with deep set eyes. The narrow cord, the sign of her execution, can be seen on her neck. Barlach's woodcut shows the appearance of Gretchen floating in bright light, behind her the witches dance in a circle, in the far background Faust and Mephisto in the dark top left corner, on the right at the edge of the picture a waning moon quarter with dark clouds
  • Reverence in love , probably Mephistopheles, who cuddles with the fat old witch, his dance partner

Exhibitions

expenditure

  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Walpurgis Night . With 20 woodcuts by Ernst Barlach. Paul Cassirer, Berlin 1993, DNB  36143331X ( haab-digital.klassik-stiftung.de - first edition: 1923, reprint: 120 numbered copies of this book were previously printed by Poeschel & Trepte in Leipzig on genuine pikeperch paper. Each book is by Ernst Barlach drawn by hand).
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Walpurgis Night . With 20 woodcuts by Ernst Barlach and an afterword by Hans-Maria Wingler (=  Buchheim books ). Buchheim, Feldafing, Obb 1955, DNB  451587391 .
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Walpurgis Night (=  master illustrated masterpieces ). Droste, Düsseldorf 1967, OCLC 976830515 (new edition).

literature

  • Friedrich Schult: Ernst Barlach: Catalog raisonné . tape 2 : The graphic work . Hauswedell, Hamburg 1958, ISBN 3-7762-0421-4 , p. 126 f .
  • Gottfried Sello: Ernst Barlach as an illustrator . In: Ernst L. Hauswedell (Ed.): Philobiblon . tape 4 , Issue 3, September 1960, OCLC 918081562 , pp. 215 ff .
  • Bruce Davis: 101 - Goethe Walpurgis Night . In: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Ed.): German expressionist prints and drawings (=  The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies . Volume 2 ). Prestel, Los Angeles / New York / Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7913-0975-7 , pp. 33–35 (English, archive.org - images of the prints).
  • Jürgen Doppelstein (ed.): Barlach and Goethe. On the occasion of the [...] exhibition "Barlach and Goethe - On the artistic Goethe reception with Ernst Barlach" . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1997, ISBN 3-363-00665-9 .
  • Rahel E. Feilchenfeldt, Markus Brandis: Bibliography of books and portfolios - 70 Johann Wolfgang Goethe - Ernst Barlach - Walpurgis Night . In: Paul Cassirer Verlag, Berlin 1898–1933: An annotated bibliography. Bruno and Paul Cassirer Verlag 1898–1901. Paul Cassirer Verlag 1908–1933 . Walter de Gruyter & Co KG, Berlin / Boston 2004, ISBN 3-11-094418-9 , p. 176-180 ( books.google.de ).

Web links

Commons : Ernst Barlach, Walpurgis Night  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Doppelstein (ed.): Barlach and Goethe. EA Seemann, Leipzig 1997, ISBN 3-363-00665-9 , pp. 7 and 18.
  2. ^ Doppelstein: Barlach and Goethe. 1997, p. 98.
  3. ↑ Susanne Augat: We walk to the Brocken on Walpurgis Night. The witches' festival near Barlach and Goethe. In: Barlach and Goethe. EA Seemann, Leipzig 1997, ISBN 3-363-00665-9 , p. 52 ff.
  4. ↑ Hans Maria Wingler: Walpurgis Night. Buchheim, Feldafing 1955, pp. 59-61.
  5. ↑ Susanne Augat: We walk to the Brocken on Walpurgis Night. The witches' festival near Barlach and Goethe. In: Barlach and Goethe. P. 54 ff.
  6. ↑ Complete text
  7. ↑ obsolete: someone who plays the harp