Faust (paintings)

Faust is a series of approximately 100 paintings created between 1976 and 1979 by Nabil Kanso. The paintings depict figural compositions in a sequence of scenes whose subjects are loosely based on Goethe’s 1808 play Faust Part One and Part Two.
In dealing with the human drama, the paintings in the series embody imagery reflecting various aspects of the entanglement of the relationship between three primary figures that may visually represent Faust, the old scholar who pledges his soul to the devil in exchange for youth and love, Mephistopheles, the Devil’s representative who provides Faust with his needs, and Margaret (Gretchen), the young woman who is "seduced and made unhappy by the evildoer."
Style.
The Faust paintings are characterized by intense imagery rendered with a combination of dripping paint, aggressive brushstrokes, and applying several layers of black, orange, red, and yellow colors forming agitated areas around the figures. Light seems to emerge through broken and impenetrable bars that traverse from one image to another appear to intensify the space occupied by the figures and the areas of light and dark.
The relationship between the figures reveals images of tensions, pathos, and sexuality. In dealing with Faust as a subject for painting, the works "make no attempt to narrate the tales that inspired them, but dive into an exploration of the emotions of the characters."
Paintings.
The series comprises about 70 oils on canvas ranging in size from and to , and 30 mixed mediums on paperboard measuring executed in three phases during a three-year period of the late 1970s. The paintings are sequentially grouped under 22 headings forming 12 sections: