Fantasy on Faust

Fantasy on Faust is an oil painting by Mariano Fortuny, dated 1866, that celebrates music and the virtuoso performer. It grew out of an evening in the Madrid studio of the painter Francisco Sans y Cabot, where the pianist Juan Bautista Pujol played a fantasy based on Charles Gounod's opera Faust. An inscription in the lower left corner recalls that performance, which left a strong impression on Fortuny and on the friends shown in the scene. The composition is built around a sharp diagonal that splits the picture into a quiet real world, peopled by figures in dark clothing, and an imaginary one full of motion and colour, where Faust, Margaret and Mephistopheles appear. The handling is loose and quick, conceived as an improvisation: the brushwork catches the sheen of wood, the flutter of fabric and the scattered sheet music that mirrors the rapture of the music. The pale owl flying low adds an uneasy note, and the links with Goya's prints, which Fortuny studied closely, deepen that tension between reality and fantasy.

Painter

Mariano Fortuny Marsal

Date

1866

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

40 × 69 cm

Museum

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Depicts

table, seat, painting, mirror, piano, sculpture

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