Some Naked Witches For Dr. Faustus
So I stumbled on this image (click it for a very large version) and liked it on sight:
Let’s zoom in on some details, shall we?
Next I learned that the painting is called The Vision of Faust, by artist Luis Falero. This made me think at once of my co-blogger Dr. Faustus and his own febrile visions; so you can imagine my delight, upon reading the fine print, at learning that the painting once hung in the same hotel bar as the Nymphs And Satyr painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau that has played such an important part of the ErosBlog iconography over the years:
Some years ago the management of a large and popular hotel in this city, having added an elaborate public room to the house, hit upon the idea of attracting attention to it by filling it up with pictures and objects of art. Among the former the most prominent was a world-famous, large canvas by Bouguereau, the “Nymphs Teasing a Satyr,” as the artist christened it, or “Nymphs and Satyr” as it is most generally known, and the painting by which Luis Falero effectively established his reputation, “The Vision of Faust.”
These pictures alone, and they were but part of a number more, cost many thousands of dollars. It has been estimated, by one of the heads of the house, that they alone have paid some ten times their cost in the amount of custom they have attracted, and relatively to the advance in market value of modern paintings of the first class, they could now be sold for double what was paid for them.
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A tiny bit reminiscent of the art of Norman Lindsay. He was big, nay huge, on nudes!
Awe inspiring! I might have guessed that the poem was inspired by the Walpurgisnacht sequence (lines 3835 – 4395) in Goehte’s _Faust_ Part I. The sleeper and the naked women alone wouldn’t quite have done it (that could be any given night chez any straight guy, right?), but note that Mephistopheles (complete with horns) appears to be presiding.
A favorite excerpt gives something of the flavor of the work:
FAUST:
Daß ich mich nur nicht selbst vergesse!
Heiß ich mir das doch eine Messe!
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Der ganze Strudel strebt nach oben;
Du glaubst zu schieben, und du wirst geschoben.
FAUST:
Wer ist denn das?
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Betrachte sie genau! Lilith ist das.
FAUST:
Wer?
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Adams erste Frau. Nimm dich in acht vor ihren schönen Haaren,
Vor diesem Schmuck, mit dem sie einzig prangt.
Wenn sie damit den jungen Mann erlangt,
So läßt sie ihn so bald nicht wieder fahren.
FAUST:
Da sitzen zwei, die Alte mit der Jungen;
Die haben schon was Rechts gesprungen!
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Das hat nun heute keine Ruh.
Es geht zum neuen Tanz, nun komm! wir greifen zu.
FAUST (mit der Jungen tanzend):
Einst hatt ich einen schönen Traum
Da sah ich einen Apfelbaum,
Zwei schöne Äpfel glänzten dran,
Sie reizten mich, ich stieg hinan.
DIE SCHÖNE:
Der Äpfelchen begehrt ihr sehr,
Und schon vom Paradiese her.
Von Freuden fühl ich mich bewegt,
Daß auch mein Garten solche trägt.
MEPHISTOPHELES (mit der Alten):
Einst hatt ich einen wüsten Traum
Da sah ich einen gespaltnen Baum,
Der hatt ein ungeheures Loch;
So groß es war, gefiel mir’s doch.
DIE ALTE:
Ich biete meinen besten Gruß
Dem Ritter mit dem Pferdefuß!
Halt Er einen rechten Pfropf bereit,
Wenn Er das große Loch nicht scheut.
In a 1912 translation by Bayard Taylor this is rendered:
FAUST:
May this wild scene my senses spare!
This, may in truth be called a fair!
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Upward the eddying concourse throng;
Thinking to push, thyself art push’d along.
FAUST:
Who’s that, pray?
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Mark her well! That’s Lilith.
FAUST:
Who?
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Adam’s first wife. Of her rich locks beware!
That charm in which she’s parallel’d by few;
When in its toils a youth she doth ensnare,
He will not soon escape, I promise you.
FAUST:
There sit a pair, the old one with the young;
Already they have bravely danced and sprung!
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Here there is no repose to-day.
Another dance begins; we’ll join it, come away!
FAUST:
(dancing with the young one)
Once a fair vision came to me;
Therein I saw an apple-tree,
Two beauteous apples charmed mine eyes;
I climb’d forthwith to reach the prize.
THE FAIR ONE:
Apples still fondly ye desire,
From paradise it bath been so.
Feelings of joy my breast inspire
That such too in my garden grow.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
(with the old one)
Once a weird vision came to me;
Therein I saw a rifted tree.
I had a . . . . .have ready here,
But as it was it pleased me too.
THE OLD ONE:
I beg most humbly to salute
The gallant with the cloven foot!
Let him a . . . have ready here,
If he a . . . does not fear.
Gentle German-literate readers, did you perhaps notice that our scholarly, Edwardian era (1912, close enough) translator left something out of Mephistopheles’s exchange with the witch? Hmm…now what do you think that might be? (Bet you can guess, even if you don’t know any German.)
Do you have any idea where to find (or whether it’s possible to find) a print of this painting? I haven’t had any luck, especially since there appear to be two paintings that both go by the name “Faust’s Vision.”
Sort of reminds me of that Australian classic Chloe.