Image

Ernst Barlach

Woodcuts for Goëthe’s Walpurgisnacht, 1923

Description

Maker

Title

Woodcuts for Goëthe’s Walpurgisnacht

Year

1923

Medium

Woodcuts

Materials/Techniques

Materials

Type

Credit

Museum Works of Art Fund

Object Number

52.027

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

A Process of Protest

July 28 - November 26, 2006

The book consists of one scene from Johann Wolfgang von Goëthe’s drama Faust. The scene, entitled Walpurgisnacht (Walpurgis Night), is named after a night in May when witches were thought to meet with the devil. In the drama, Mephistopheles tempts Faust to assume a young and sexual body and throws him into the arms of a naked young witch. Barlach’s reductive, expressive cutting and broad areas of black were the inspiration for Kollwitz’s venture into the woodcut technique.

Use

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