Carl Gustav Carus - Goethe-Denkmal - 1832

 

Goethe's death on March 22, 1832 inspired Carus, an admirer and long-time correspondent of the poet, to create his symbolically charged memorial painting. Like his Dresden painter friend Caspar David Friedrich in some of his major works, Carus placed the place of devotion and cult in the open nature. He depicts an ancient sarcophagus in the midst of a moonlit mountain landscape. On the front side, the name Goethe is inscribed between Gothic tracery. Two kneeling angels in an adoring posture recall both the Ark of the Covenant adorned with two cherubim from the Second Book of Moses and medieval reliquaries. They guard the mortal remains of the poet, who is here emblematically present only in the harp as a 'hidden god' (Werner Hofmann). This is not only an attribute of the Old Testament King David but also the Aeolian harp, which has been considered a magical instrument since antiquity, enabling communication between the living and the dead through music. 

Source: Hamburger Kunsthalle