DEMONS - FAUST - MEPHISTOPHELES Faust in his study, surrounded by alchemical apparatus and books: he is attempting to translate the first verses (presumably the first 14 verses) of the Gospel of St. John. The intruding monstrous poodle (see previously on the heath) is the appearance of Mephisopheles, making its way into the study. Faust's magic power is not sufficiently strong to banish the creature. Mephistophles emerges from the dog, in human form. Engraving No. 3 in Umrisse Goethe's Faust. Gezeichnet von Moritz Retsch, 1836. There were two distinct early editions of the Retsch series
DEMONS - FAUST - MEPHISTOPHELES Faust in his study, surrounded by alchemical apparatus and books: he is attempting to translate the first verses (presumably the first 14 verses) of the Gospel of St. John. The intruding monstrous poodle (see previously on the heath) is the appearance of Mephisopheles, making its way into the study. Faust's magic power is not sufficiently strong to banish the creature. Mephistophles emerges from the dog, in human form. Engraving No. 3 in Umrisse Goethe's Faust. Gezeichnet von Moritz Retsch, 1836. There were two distinct early editions of the Retsch series of drawings for Goethe's play, Faust. The finest was Umrisse Goethe's Faust. Gezeichnet von Moritz Retsch, 1836 edition, printed in both Stuttgart and Augsburg. There were 29 plates in this edition, for the first part of the play, and a further 11 for the second part. Another edition was that engraved by Henry Moses, in 1820: Retsch's Series of Twenty-Six Outlines, Illustrative of Goethe's Tragedy of Faust, which had fewer plates for the first part, and none at all for the second part. The differences between the plates are mainly iconographical - for example, the Moses print dispenses with the image of God in plate 1, leaving only a pregnant glowing space. Again, Moses is inclined to make the vision of the woman (his plate 6, but plate 8 of the 1836 edition) more sensual, leaving her naked to the waist, whilst the German version has her fully clothed. At best these are merely graphic edits of the original drawings, and both sets are of very high quality. I have selected the plate which seemed more likely to respond to modern reproduction techniques (in each of these editions, the finer lines of the engraving tends to be lost in the printing). I give the actual edition used as the first title, in the listing above.
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Photo credit: © Charles Walker Collection / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: -, alchemical, apparatus, archival, archive, art, artistic, artwork, attempting, books, demons, esoterica, faust, gospel, historic, historical, history, illustration, image, mephistopheles, mono, paranormal, st., study, surrounded, translate, verses
