Autobiography: Truth and Fiction Relating to My Life

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

And, when I pressed him, he replied in his intelligent, cheerful manner, "If you will allow me, while commenting on and completing your friend's observations, to go on after his fashion, I think he meant to say, that experience is nothing else than that one experiences what one does not wish to experience; which is what it amounts to for the most part, at least in this world."

EIGHTH BOOK.

Another man, although infinitely different from Behrisch in every respect, might yet be compared with him in a certain sense: I mean Oeser, who was also one of those men who dream away their lives in a comfortable state of being busy. His friends themselves secretly acknowledged, that, with very fine natural powers, he had not spent his younger years in sufficient activity; for which reason he never went so far as to practise his art with perfect technicality. Yet a certain diligence appeared to be reserved for his old age; and, during the many years which I knew him, he never lacked invention or laboriousness. From the very first moment he had attracted me very much: even his residence, strange and portentous, was highly charming to me. In the old castle Pleissenburg, at the right-hand corner, one ascended a repaired, cheerful, winding staircase. The saloons of the Academy of Design, of which he was director, were found to the left, and were light and roomy; but he himself could only be reached through a narrow, dark passage, at the end of which one first sought the entrance into his apartments, having just passed between the whole suite of them and an extensive granary. The first apartment was adorned with pictures from the later Italian school, by masters whose grace he used highly to commend. As I, with some noblemen, had taken private lessons of him, we were permitted to draw here; and we often penetrated into his adjoining private cabinet, which contained at the same time his few books, collections of art and natural curiosities, and whatever else might have most interested him. Every thing was arranged with taste, simply, and in such a manner that the little space held a great deal. The furniture, presses, and portfolios were elegant, without affection or superfluity. Thus also the first thing which he recommended to us, and to which he always recurred, was simplicity in every thing that art and manual labor united are called upon to produce. Being a sworn foe to the scroll-and- shell style, and of the whole taste for quaintness, he showed us in copper-plates and drawings old patterns of the sort contrasted with better decorations and simpler forms of furniture, as well as with other appurtenances of a room; and, because every thing about him corresponded with these maxims, his words and instructions made a good and lasting impression on us. Besides this, he had an opportunity to let us see his opinions in practice; since he stood in good consideration, both with private and with official persons, and was asked for advice when there were new buildings and alterations. He seemed in general to be more fond of preparing things on occasion, for a certain end and use, than of undertaking and completing such as exist for themselves and require a greater perfection; he was therefore always ready and at hand when the publishers needed larger and smaller copper-plates for any work: thus the vignettes to Winckelmann's first writings were etched by him. But he often made only very sketchy drawings, to which Geyser knew very well how to adapt himself. His figures had throughout something general, not to say ideal. His women were pleasing and agreeable, his children /naive/ enough; only he could not succeed with the men, who, in his spirited but always cloudy, and at the same time foreshortening, manner, had for the most part the look of Lazzaroni. Since he designed his composition less with regard to form than to light, shade, and masses, the general effect was good; as indeed all that he did and produced was attended by a peculiar grace. As he at the same time neither could nor would control a deep-rooted propensity to the significant and the allegorical—to that which excites a secondary thought, so his works always furnished something to reflect upon, and were complete through a conception, even where they could not be so from art and execution. This bias, which is always dangerous, frequently led him to the very bounds of good taste, if not beyond them. He often sought to attain his views by the oddest notions and by whimsical jests; nay, his best works always have a touch of humor. If the public were not always satisfied with such things, he revenged himself by a new and even stranger drollery. Thus he afterwards exhibited, in the ante-room of the great concert-hall, an ideal female figure, in his own style, who was raising a pair of snuffers to a taper; and he was extraordinarily delighted when he was able to cause a dispute on the question, whether this singular muse meant to snuff the light or to extinguish it? when he roguishly allowed all sorts of bantering by-thoughts to peep forth.

But the building of the new theatre, in my time, made the greatest noise; in which his curtain, when it was still quite new, had certainly an uncommonly charming effect. Oeser had taken the Muses out of the clouds, upon which they usually hover on such occasions, and set them upon the earth. The statues of Sophocles and Aristophanes, around whom all the modern dramatic writers were assembled, adorned a vestibule to the Temple of Fame. Here, too, the goddesses of the arts were likewise present; and all was dignified and beautiful. But now comes the oddity! Through the open centre was seen the portal of the distant temple: and a man in a light jerkin was passing between the two above-mentioned groups, and, without troubling himself about them, directly up to the temple; he was seen from behind, and was not particularly distinguished. Now, this man was to represent Shakespeare, who without predecessors or followers, without concerning himself about models, went to meet immortality in his own way. This work was executed on the great floor over the new theatre. "We often assembled round him there, and in that place I read aloud to him the proof-sheets of "Musarion." As to myself, I by no means advanced in the practice of the art. His instructions worked upon our mind and our taste; but his own drawing was too undefined to guide me, who had only glimmered along by the objects of art and of nature, to a severe and decided practice. Of the faces and bodies he gave us rather the aspect than the forms, rather the postures than the proportions. He gave us the conceptions of the figures, and desired that we should impress them vividly upon our minds. That might have been beautifully and properly done, if he had not had mere beginners before him. If, on this account, a pre-eminent talent for instruction may be well denied him, it must, on the other hand, be acknowledged that he was very discreet and politic, and that a happy adroitness of mind qualified him very peculiarly for a teacher in a higher sense. The deficiencies under which each one labored he clearly saw; but he disdained to reprove them directly, and rather hinted his praise and censure indirectly and very laconically. One was now compelled to think over the matter, and soon came to a far deeper insight. Tims, for instance, I had very carefully executed, after a pattern, a nosegay on blue paper, with white and black crayon, and partly with the stump, partly by hatching it up, had tried to give effect to the little picture. After I had been long laboring in this way, he once came behind me, and said, "More paper!" upon which he immediately withdrew. My neighbor and I puzzled our heads as to what this could mean; for my bouquet, on a large half-sheet, had plenty of space around it. After we had reflected a long while, we thought, at last, that we had hit his meaning, when we remarked, that, by working together the black and the white, I had quite covered up the blue ground, had destroyed the middle tint, and, in fact, with great industry, had produced a disagreeable drawing. As to the rest, he did not fail to instruct us in perspective, and in light and shade, sufficiently indeed, but always so that we had to exert and torment ourselves to find the application of the principles communicated. Probably his view with regard to us who did not intend to become artists, was only to form the judgment and taste, and to make us acquainted with the requisites of a work of art, without precisely requiring that we should produce one. Since, moreover, patient industry was not my talent, for nothing gave me pleasure except what came to me at once, so by degrees I became discouraged, if not lazy; and, as knowledge is more comfortable than doing, I was quite content to follow wherever he chose, after his own fashion, to lead us.

At this time the "Lives of the Painters," by D'Argenville, was translated into German: I obtained it quite fresh, and studied it assiduously enough. This seemed to please Oeser; and he procured us an opportunity of seeing many a portfolio out of the great Leipzig collections, and thus introduced us to the history of the art. But even these exercises produced in me an effect different from that which he probably had in mind. The manifold subjects which I saw treated by artists awakened the poetic talent in me: and, as one easily makes an engraving for a poem; so did I now make poems to the engravings and drawings, by contriving to present to myself the personages introduced in them, in their previous and subsequent condition, and sometimes to compose a little song which might have suited them; and thus accustomed myself to consider the arts in connection with each other. Even the mistakes which I made, so that my poems were often descriptive, were useful to me in the sequel, when I came to more reflection, by making me attentive to the differences between the arts. Of such little things many were in the collection which Behrisch had arranged, but there is nothing left of them now.

The atmosphere of art and taste in which Oeser lived, and into which one was drawn, provided one visited him frequently, was the more and more worthy and delightful, because he was fond of remembering departed or absent persons, with whom he had been, or still continued to be, on good terms; for, if he had once given any one his esteem, he remained unalterable in his conduct towards him, and always showed himself equally friendly.

After we had heard Caylus pre-eminently extolled among the French, he made us also acquainted with Germans of activity in this department. Thus we learned that Professor Christ, as an amateur, a collector, a connoisseur, a fellow-laborer, had done good service for art, and had applied his learning to its true improvement. Heinecken, on the contrary, could not be honorably mentioned, partly because he devoted himself too assiduously to the ever-childish beginnings of German art; which Oeser little valued, partly because he had once treated Winckelmann shabbily, which could never be forgiven him. Our attention, however, was strongly drawn to the labors of Lippert, since our instructor knew how to set forth his merits sufficiently. "For," he said, "although single statues and larger groups of sculpture remain the foundation and the summit of all knowledge of art, yet, either as originals or as casts, they are seldom to be seen; on the contrary, by Lippert, a little world of gems is made known, in which the more comprehensible merit of the ancients, their happy invention, judicious composition, tasteful treatment, are made more striking and intelligible, while, from the great number of them, comparison is much more possible." While now we were busying ourselves with these as much as was allowed, Winckelmann's lofty life of art in Italy was pointed out, and we took his first writings in hand with devotion; for Oeser had a passionate reverence for him, which he was able easily to instil into us. The problematical part of those little treatises, which are, besides, confused even from their irony, and from their referring to opinions and events altogether peculiar, we were, indeed, unable to decipher; but as Oeser had great influence over us, and incessantly gave them out to us as the gospel of the beautiful, and still more of the tasteful and the pleasing, we found out the general sense, and fancied, that, with such interpretations, we should go on the more securely, as we regarded it no small happiness to draw from the same fountain from which Winckelmann had allayed his earliest thirst.

No greater good fortune can befall a city, than when several educated men, like-minded in what is good and right, live together in it. Leipzig had this advantage, and enjoyed it the more peacefully, as so many differences of judgment had not yet manifested themselves. Huber, a print collector and well-experienced connoisseur, had furthermore the gratefully acknowledged merit of having determined to make the worth of German literature known to the French; Kreuchauf, an amateur with a practised eye, who, as the friend of the whole society of art, might regard all collections as his own; Winkler, who much loved to share with others the intelligent delight he cherished for his treasures; many more who were added to the list,—all lived and labored with one feeling; and, often as I was permitted to be present when they examined works of art, I do not remember that a dispute ever arose. The school from which the artist had proceeded, the time in which he lived, the peculiar talent which nature had bestowed on him, and the degree of excellence to which he had brought it in his performances, were always fairly considered. There was no predilection for spiritual or temporal subjects, for landscape or for city views, for animate or inanimate: the question was always about the accordance with art.

Now, although from their situation, mode of thought, abilities, and opportunities, these amateurs and collectors inclined more to the Dutch school, yet, while the eye was practised on the endless merits of the north-western artist, a look of reverential longing was always turned towards the south-east.

And so the university, where I neglected the ends of both my family and myself, was to ground me in that in which I afterwards found the greatest satisfaction of my life: the impression of those localities, too, in which I received such important incitements, has always remained to me most dear and precious. The old Pleissenburg; the rooms of the Academy; but, above all, the abode of Oeser; and no less the collections of Winkler and Richter,—I have always vividly present before me.