"Visual Art in Goethe’s Faust" Held on Sunday, April 18

3/26/2010

Professor Johannes Anderegg, a leading expert on Goethe and current resident member at CTI, delivered a brilliant lecture at the Center entitled "Visual Art in the Final Scenes of Goethe’s Faust" on Sunday, April 18. The lecture demonstrated the technique of intermediality, the role of visual art by which Goethe’s play is linked to biblical texts and religious traditions. Anderegg writes, “Goethe’s Faust can be regarded as one of the most important documents of the 18th and 19th century debate on Christian belief, religious traditions and theology. Goethe’s knowledge of the Bible, of religious thought in general and of religious art greatly influenced his work. The tragedy opens with a palimpsest of the prologue in the Book of Job, it ends with what has been called Faust’s ascension or redemption, and the most important figure of the play is not Faust but Mephisto, who does not only mirror the devil of the New Testament but seems to be kind of an allegory of the powers that dominate the modern world.” To read more about Professor Anderegg, click here.