Being in Germany every year gives me a deeper understanding of one of Germany’s beloved authors, Goethe. I wrote about him in 2014 during our trip to Weimar, where Goethe and Schiller both lived. This exhibition in Munich gave me another opportunity to explore the work of this Romantic writer, biologist, philosopher and philanthropist.

“Du Bist Faust”, or “You are Faust” is a multi-media collection of paintings, artifacts and operatic stage sets at the Kunsthalle. An excellent guided tour inspired most of us to explore, learn and read and more about Goethe.

Goethe introduced Mephistopheles (Mephisto) as a devil who cuts a deal with Faust. The first volume attempted to define pure love and beauty. Faust was set to die when he found the perfection of love. Other artists portrayed the idealized woman drawn from the Goethe’s story. In the painting of the couple below, they are determining that awkward moment in life with the daisy and “…he loves me…he loves me not…”

The next area in the exhibition dealt with the “Fallen Maiden” or the realization that love is flawed and broken. The heroine gets pregnant out of wedlock, her mother dies from the potion she was given during her daughter’s fling, and the baby dies. Tragedies strike from all sides. The male who drank the Viagra-induced love potion and messed up in the first place now has to pay for everything big-time with his guilt.

The second volume of Faust was alot more philosophical and difficult for the average, non-German reader. The exhibition chose to focus instead on the operatic versions of Faust. I was delighted to see a section of the New York Metopera stage set for the opera with music by Gounod. A cool hologram of one of the actresses who performed Faust stood at our side and gave us a quick introduction to her role. Goethe’s dramatic ability was yet another dimension of his many-faceted career.

The point of the exhibition was to challenge you to the moral dilemmas that Goethe tried to address. If you could make a deal with the devil, what would you do?!?

If you want to read my previous post about Goethe, you can read it here:

https://travelswithmyselfandothers.com/2014/08/12/day-22-goetting-goethe/

Now that the World Cup fever has ended, I chose to reorganize my life and capture a few quiet moments in nearby Rosenheimer Platz.