Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Images from "Wilhelm Meister" novels

Wilhelm still held that lovely hand
A reader of this blog has written to ask about images of the Wilhelm Meister novels. There are tons of images of Mignon, but very few of Wilhelm. For this blog I am always on the lookout for interesting illustrations, and if there were any of Wilhelm I would have turned them up. Perhaps it is Wilhelm's colorless personality that has left artists without inspiration? I did find a few interesting images relating to the novels today, however, that I am posting. (Click to enlarge.) The one above is clearly from the "Travels," from a 19th-century English edition of Goethe's works, but I would not in a million years have imagined Wilhelm looking so courtly.

Conosci la terra dove fioriscono i limoni?
The second image here, one I like very much, is a modern version of Mignon by the illustrator and cartoon artist Manuele Fior. It appears on his blog and includes a translation of "Kennst du das Land" in Italian.

The final image is from the cover of a 2014 Italian translation of La vocazione teatrale di Wilhelm Meister. Wilhelm looks much more interesting in this incarnation.


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