Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ∆ (1982)

Andy Warhol

Silkscreen and acrylic on canvas

200 x 210 cm

 

Collection of the Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main

 

“The Holy Longing 

 

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,

because the mass man will mock it right away.

I praise what is truly alive, 

what longs to be burned to death. 

In the calm water of the love-nights, 

where you were begotten, where you have begotten, 

a strange feeling comes over you, 

as you watch the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness,

and a desire for higher love-making sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter.

Now, arriving in magic, flying,

and finally, insane for the light,

you are the butterfly and you are gone.

And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow,

you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe¶

 

 

 

 

 

 

∆  In 1962, the American pop artist Andy Warhol began reproducing press photos of celebrities with the silkscreen technique. By translating images of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and others into garish colours and bold two-dimensionality, he ‘defamiliarised’ images known all over the world thanks to their propagation by the media. By staging Goethe as the superstar of German Classicism, Warhol was reflecting on how the mass media have changed our perception of reality.