Enfilade

From the ArtHist.net:

Practices of Drawing in Goethe / Praktiken des Zeichnens bei Goethe

Goethe-Nationalmuseum, Weimar, 10–12 March 2027

Organized by Christoph Orth and Mira Claire Zadrozny

Proposals due by 23 August 2026

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) bequeathed not only a remarkable literary and scientific oeuvre, but also a comprehensive collection of his own drawings. He drew throughout his entire life—during his upbringing in Frankfurt am Main, his studies in Leipzig, and later in Weimar. Likewise, Goethe was well known to sketch while travelling, whether in the Thuringian Forest or during his Italian journey. More than 2,500 of Goethe’s drawings have been preserved, most of them held in the collections of the museums of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar. Their sheer number alone suggests that drawing was by no means a subsidiary matter for Goethe but rather integral to his intellectual pursuits and conduct.

The practice of drawing permeates his work and interweaves with his other areas of interest. For him, it seems, the act of drawing was a way of comprehending the world. A re-evaluation of Goethe’s graphic oeuvre therefore promises to be highly productive, particularly if, instead of focusing primarily on aesthetic and biographical questions, attention is directed towards the recurring practices associated with the act of drawing. The conference hence proposes a praxeological approach as it has recently been derived from the social sciences to be successfully applied to art history and visual studies. The potential of a practice-oriented approach is particularly evident in conjunction with the aesthetics of production and reception as well as questions of materiality and mediality.

For Goethe’s drawings, three aspects seem particularly relevant. First, the epistemic practice of drawing, which becomes especially apparent when viewed in relation to Goethe’s scientific work in the fields of botany, geology and optics. Secondly, the social practice of drawing, which is not only reflected in sketches found in the margins of letters, but also provided an inherently different way of communication, evident in e.g. the artistic practices of teaching and collaborating that Goethe shared with contemporaries such as Christoph Heinrich Kniep, Carl Wilhelm Lieber or Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein. And thirdly, the notion of Goethe, the literatus, as a graphic artist who combines writing and visual art, thus developing complex entanglements of image and text.

The conference Practices of Drawing in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe invites participants to explore these key questions in 15– to 20-minute paper presentations that situate an object-oriented approach within the proposed theoretical framework. Speakers are welcome to address the following or other topics:
• Drawing as an epistemological practice of perception and comprehension
• Social interactions in the medium of drawing (letters, portraits, presents)
• Drawing instruction and art theory
• Practices of image production and questions of materiality
• Socio-critical perspectives and drawing as an elitist practice
• The reception of Goethe’s drawings and its constitution through curatorial practices
• Formation and reproduction of an art-historical canon

In addition to the paper presentation, a significant part of the conference will be dedicated to the in-person study of the drawings, providing an opportunity to go beyond questions of form and motif, to observe the drawings’ material conditions, their methods of production, and traces of handling. The conference will be held in German and English. Applications from early-career scholars and curators are especially welcome. Travel and accommodation costs will be covered. A subsequent publication of the conference findings is intended. To apply, please send an abstract (c. 300 words) together with a short biography to graphische.sammlungen@klassik-stiftung.de by 23 August 2026.

The conference is being organised as part of the research project Corpus of Goethe’s Drawings, carried out by the Direktion Museen of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar and funded by the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung and the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung.