Gretchen (Gabriel von Max)

Overview

A painting of Gretchen (Margarete), the heroine of Goethe's Faust, which Marie saw in September 1877 and which haunted her for days. She names the painter «Marx» in 074.0370 and «Max» in 075.0305. The identification with Gabriel von Max (1840-1915), the Prague-born Munich painter of dreamy, melancholy and often mystical female figures who also illustrated Goethe's Faust (a set of Faust I illustrations including «Gretchen im Kerker» is in the Frankfurt Goethe-Museum, per a web search summary), is supported by the Mon Journal t.11 index, which files 075.0305 as «Max (Michael), peintre allemand : 27» (Tome11.pdf p.28 = printed p.27): the editor too read «a German painter Max»; the forename Michael is not that of any known painter of the subject and looks like an index slip (the t.10 index files «Marx» of 074.0370 under an American «Marx (M.)», another slip). Settled for the painter (about 0.8). Which Gretchen picture she saw, and where, is not established (the paragraph follows her stop at Cologne on 17 September 1877).

Relevance to Marie

It is her touchstone for a work that tells the whole story through expression: «ce tableau qui paraît étrange au premier abord, m'a fait rêver pendant trois jours sans cesse. Il est tellement la personnification du poème de Goethe que l'on ne peut l'admirer que si l'on a compris le poème» (074.0370, 17 September 1877). A month later she compares Verdi's music: «La musique d'Aïda est comme la Gretchen de Max. Cela parle, cela vous raconte toute l'histoire, jusqu'aux moindres nuances» (075.0305).

References in Diary