Goethe on Art

I didn't specifically group these; in the portion I happened to be reading tonight, it was just a coincidence that everything I happened to mark was about art. Maybe tonight's reading was heavier in the topic of art?

"What one needs to do is to look at [paintings] and then immediately look at Nature to learn what they saw in her and in one way or another imitated; then the mind is cleared of misconceptions, and in the end one arrives at a true vision of the relation between Nature and Art. I shall never rest until I know that all my ideas are derived, not from hearsay or tradition, but from my real living contact with the things themselves."

"I would say something about [a Medusa] if everything one could say about such a work were not a waste of breath. Works of art exist to be seen, not talked about, except perhaps in their presence. I am thoroughly ashamed of all the babbling about art in which I used to join."

"...I took a walk with a fellow countryman and we argued about the rival merits of Michelangelo and Raphael. I took the former's side, he the latter's, and we ended up in joint praise of Leonardo da Vinci."

About a bust of Goethe commissioned by the Prince of Waldeck and sculpted by Alexander Trippel:

"My bust has turned out exceedingly well and everybody is satisfied with it. It is executed in a noble style, and I shall have no objection if posterity imagines I looked like that."


And here is that bust: