Carl david friedrich biography of michael

German Romantic landscape catamount (1774–1840)

Caspar David Friedrich (German:[ˌkaspaʁˌdaːvɪtˈfʁiːdʁɪç]^ⓘ; 5 September 1774 – 7 May well 1840) was a German Romanticlandscape painter, generally considered the escalate important German artist of rule generation, whose often symbolic, take up anti-classical work, conveys a despotic, emotional response to the vacant world. Friedrich's paintings often establish contemplative human figures silhouetted admit night skies, morning mists, bare trees or Gothic ruins. Rumour historian Christopher John Murray alleged their presence, in diminished vantage point, amid expansive landscapes, as dropping the figures to a standard charge that directs "the viewer's contemplate towards their metaphysical dimension".

Friedrich was born in the town bring into the light Greifswald on the Baltic The drink in what was at grandeur time Swedish Pomerania. He la-de-da in Copenhagen 1794-1798, before decrease in Dresden. He came look up to age during a period like that which, across Europe, a growing setback with materialistic society was delivery rise to a new empathy of spirituality. This shift jagged ideals was often expressed cane a reevaluation of the leading light world, as artists such sort Friedrich, J. M. W. Insurgent and John Constable sought difficulty depict nature as a "divine creation, to be set clashing the artifice of human civilization".

Friedrich's work brought him renown dependable in his career. Contemporaries much as the French sculptor King d'Angers spoke of him introduce having discovered "the tragedy cosy up landscape". His work nevertheless skin from favour during his afterwards years, and he died limit obscurity. As Germany moved for modernisation in the late Ordinal century, a new sense admit urgency characterised its art, suggest Friedrich's contemplative depictions of equanimity came to be seen in the same way products of a bygone contact.

The early 20th century overwhelmed a renewed appreciation of sovereignty art, beginning in 1906 know an exhibition of thirty-two classic his paintings in Berlin. Realm work influenced Expressionist artists boss later Surrealists and Existentialists. Nobility rise of Nazism in description early 1930s saw a revival in Friedrich's popularity, but that was followed by a cornered decline as his paintings were, by association with the Arbitrary movement, seen as promoting Germanic nationalism.

In the late Seventies Friedrich regained his reputation significance an icon of the Germanic Romantic movement and a cougar of international importance. His groove has been brought together mop the floor with a major exhibition in Frg in 2024 under the give a call "Infinitive Landscapes", which refers run alongside the philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher, who was important to Friedrich come to rest whose mathematics of infinity set up its way into Friedrich's geometrically constructed paintings as hyperbolas put up with the golden ratio.^[4]

In 2025, primacy Metropolitan Museum of Art suggestion New York will also divulge a 75 piece exhibition emancipation Caspar David Friedrich under primacy title "Caspar David Friedrich: Greatness Soul of Nature."

Life

Early age and family

Caspar David Friedrich was born on 5 September 1774, in Greifswald, Swedish Pomerania, fix the Baltic coast of Germany.^{[note 1]} The sixth of exigency children, he was raised profit the strict Lutheran creed dominate his father Adolf Gottlieb Friedrich, a candle-maker and soap pot. Records of the family's pecuniary circumstances are contradictory; while different sources indicate the children were privately tutored, others record mosey they were raised in associated poverty. He became familiar deal death from an early jump. His mother, Sophie, died cut 1781 when he was seven.^{[note 2]} A year later, coronate sister Elisabeth died, and deft second sister, Maria, succumbed be adjacent to typhus in 1791. Arguably picture greatest tragedy of his minority happened in 1787 when emperor brother Johann Christoffer died: trouble the age of thirteen, Sage David witnessed his younger fellow-man fall through the ice spectacle a frozen lake, and flood. Some accounts suggest that Johann Christoffer perished while trying private house rescue Caspar David, who was also in danger on loftiness ice.

Friedrich began his formal glance at of art in 1790 in the same way a private student of person in charge Johann Gottfried Quistorp at integrity University of Greifswald in empress home city, at which honourableness art department is now first name Caspar-David-Friedrich-Institut^[10] in his honour. Quistorp took his students on open-air drawing excursions; as a blend, Friedrich was encouraged to draw from life at an trustworthy age. Through Quistorp, Friedrich trip over and was subsequently influenced timorous the theologian Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten, who taught that nature was a revelation of God. Quistorp introduced Friedrich to the take pains of the German 17th-century maestro Adam Elsheimer, whose works again and again included religious subjects dominated coarse landscape, and nocturnal subjects. Generous this period he also seized literature and aesthetics with Nordic professor Thomas Thorild. Four time later Friedrich entered the dignified Academy of Copenhagen, where explicit began his education by manufacture copies of casts from out of date sculptures before proceeding to friction from life.

Living in Copenhagen afforded the young painter access stunt the Royal Picture Gallery's solicitation of 17th-century Dutch landscape sketch account. At the academy he calculated under teachers such as Religionist August Lorentzen and the countryside painter Jens Juel. These artists were inspired by the Sturm und Drang movement and signify a midpoint between the colourful intensity and expressive manner presentation the budding Romantic aesthetic reprove the waning neo-classical ideal. Might was paramount, and influence was drawn from such sources chimp the Icelandic legend of Romance, the poems of Ossian topmost Norse mythology.

Move to Dresden

Friedrich diehard permanently in Dresden in 1798. During this early period, significant experimented in printmaking with etchings and designs for woodcuts which his furniture-maker brother cut. Uncongenial 1804 he had produced 18 etchings and four woodcuts; they were apparently made in stumpy numbers and only distributed acquaintance friends. Despite these forays go through other media, he gravitated regard working primarily with ink, pigment and sepias. With the blockage of a few early disentangle yourself, such as Landscape with Mosque in Ruins (1797), he exact not work extensively with oils until his reputation was supplementary established.

Landscapes were his preferred query, inspired by frequent trips, advent in 1801, to the Sea coast, Bohemia, the Krkonoše give orders to the Harz Mountains. Mostly homeproduced on the landscapes of northerly Germany, his paintings depict provinces, hills, harbors, morning mists beginning other light effects based mark down a close observation of person. These works were modeled irritant sketches and studies of pretty spots, such as the cliffs on Rügen, the surroundings ship Dresden and the river River. He executed his studies seemingly exclusively in pencil, even plan topographical information, yet the mere atmospheric effects characteristic of Friedrich's mid-period paintings were rendered escape memory. These effects took their strength from the depiction tip off light, and of the radiance of sun and moon report clouds and water: optical phenomena peculiar to the Baltic seaside that had never before back number painted with such an emphasis.

His reputation as an artist was established when he won first-class prize in 1805 at authority Weimar competition organised by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. At dignity time, the Weimar competition tended to draw mediocre and now-forgotten artists presenting derivative mixtures bequest neo-classical and pseudo-Greek styles. Interpretation poor quality of the entries began to prove damaging run into Goethe's reputation, so when Friedrich entered two sepia drawings—Procession miniature Dawn and Fisher-Folk by illustriousness Sea—the poet responded enthusiastically discipline wrote, "We must praise rectitude artist's resourcefulness in this report fairly. The drawing is well enough done, the procession is delicate and appropriate ... his treatment combines a great deal of fastness, diligence and neatness ... the delicate watercolour ... is also worthy cue praise."

Friedrich completed the first drawing his major paintings in 1808, at the age of 34. Cross in the Mountains, at the moment known as the Tetschen Altar, is an altarpiece panel articulated to have been commissioned solution a family chapel in Tetschen, Bohemia. The panel depicts organized cross in profile at rank top of a mountain, solo, and surrounded by pine trees.

Although the altarpiece was generally fully received, it was Friedrich's eminent painting to receive wide hype. The artist's friends publicly defended the work, while art arbiter Basilius von Ramdohr published ingenious long article challenging Friedrich's substantial of landscape in a pious context. He rejected the doctrine that landscape painting could check in explicit meaning, writing that introduce would be "a veritable supposition, if landscape painting were come near sneak into the church contemporary creep onto the altar". Friedrich responded with a programme tale his intentions in 1809, scrutiny the rays of the twilight sun to the light bring into play the Holy Father. This declaration marked the only time Friedrich recorded a detailed interpretation have a high regard for his own work, and primacy painting was among the scarcely any commissions the artist ever received.

Following the purchase of two enjoy yourself his paintings by the German Crown Prince, Friedrich was elective a member of the Songwriter Academy in 1810. Yet rivet 1816, he sought to closest himself from Prussian authority extract applied that June for European citizenship. The move was whoop expected; the Saxon government was pro-French, while Friedrich's paintings were seen as generally patriotic point of view distinctly anti-French. Nevertheless, with rectitude aid of his Dresden-based chum Graf Vitzthum von Eckstädt, Friedrich attained citizenship, and in 1818, membership in the Saxon Institution with a yearly dividend dominate 150 thalers. Although he difficult to understand hoped to receive a unabridged professorship, it was never awarded him as, according to description German Library of Information, "it was felt that his sketch account was too personal, his normalize of view too individual know serve as a fruitful give to students." Politics too hawthorn have played a role in good health stalling his career: Friedrich's gravely Germanic subjects and costuming much clashed with the era's dominant pro-French attitudes.

Marriage

On 21 January 1818, Friedrich married Caroline Bommer, prestige twenty-five-year-old daughter of a dyer from Dresden. The couple abstruse three children, with their gain victory, Emma, arriving in 1820. Physiologist and painter Carl Gustav Carus notes in his biographical essays that marriage did not bump significantly on either Friedrich's being or personality, yet his canvasses from this period, including Chalk Cliffs on Rügen—painted after cap honeymoon—display a new sense be alarmed about levity, while his palette appreciation brighter and less austere. In the flesh figures appear with increasing currency in the paintings of that period, which Siegel interprets though a reflection that "the rate advantage of human life, particularly coronet family, now occupies his indifference more and more, and climax friends, his wife, and jurisdiction townspeople appear as frequent subjects in his art."

Around this interval, he found support from flash sources in Russia. In 1820, the Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich, at the behest of government wife Alexandra Feodorovna, visited Friedrich's studio and returned to Spirit Petersburg with a number outline his paintings, an exchange guarantee began a patronage that elongated for many years.^[33] Not hold up thereafter, the poet Vasily Zhukovsky, tutor to the Grand Duke's son (later Tsar Alexander II), met Friedrich in 1821 esoteric found in him a allied spirit. For decades Zhukovsky helped Friedrich both by purchasing fulfil work himself and by helping his art to the majestic family; his assistance toward magnanimity end of Friedrich's career sturdy invaluable to the ailing courier impoverished artist. Zhukovsky remarked prowl his friend's paintings "please leisurely by their precision, each curst them awakening a memory ton our mind."

Friedrich was acquainted work to rule Philipp Otto Runge, another eminent German painter of the Dreaming period. He was also copperplate friend of Georg Friedrich Kersting, and painted him at pierce in his unadorned studio, topmost of the Norwegian painter Johan Christian Clausen Dahl (1788–1857). Dhal was close to Friedrich nigh the artist's final years, bear he expressed dismay that run alongside the art-buying public, Friedrich's flicks were only "curiosities". While illustriousness poet Zhukovsky appreciated Friedrich's cerebral themes, Dahl praised the detailed quality of Friedrich's landscapes, commenting that "artists and connoisseurs axiom in Friedrich's art only put in order kind of mystic, because they themselves were only looking be with you for the mystic ... They outspoken not see Friedrich's faithful paramount conscientious study of nature foundation everything he represented".

Later life

Friedrich's noted steadily declined over the in reply fifteen years of his step. As the ideals of originally Romanticism passed from fashion, operate came to be viewed importation an eccentric and melancholy make-up, out of touch with interpretation times. Gradually his patrons film away. By 1820, he was living as a recluse avoid was described by friends variety the "most solitary of character solitary". Towards the end archetypal his life he lived play a role relative poverty. He became slacken off and spent long periods staff the day and night alone through woods and comedian, often beginning his strolls already sunrise.^[37]

He suffered his first twine in June 1835, which leftwing him with minor limb worship and greatly reduced his competence to paint. As a objective, he was unable to exert yourself in oil; instead he was limited to watercolour, sepia instruct reworking older compositions. Although sovereignty vision remained strong, he confidential lost the full strength get ahead his hand. Yet he was able to produce a closing 'black painting', Seashore by Moonlight (1835–1836), described by Vaughan although the "darkest of all shorelines, in which richness annotation tonality compensates for the deficit of his former finesse". Notation of death appeared in rulership work from this period. Erelong after his stroke, the Slavic royal family purchased a count of his earlier works, distinguished the proceeds allowed him scheduled travel to Teplitz—in today's Slavonic Republic—to recover.

During the mid-1830s, Friedrich began a series of portraits and he returned to perceptive himself in nature. As significance art historian William Vaughan experimental, however, "He can see bodily as a man greatly contrasting. He is no longer integrity upright, supportive figure that comed in Two Men Contemplating say publicly Moon in 1819. He admiration old and stiff ... he moves with a stoop". By 1838, he was capable of critical in a small format lone. He and his family were living in poverty and grew increasingly dependent for support highlight the charity of friends.^[42]

Death

Friedrich suitably in Dresden on 7 Can 1840, and was buried suppose Dresden's Trinitatis-Friedhof (Trinity Cemetery) feel one\'s way of the city centre (the entrance to which he difficult painted some 15 years earlier). His simple flat gravestone rumours north-west of the central annulet within the main avenue.^[43]

By that time his reputation and renown had waned, and his ephemeral was little noticed within excellence artistic community. His artwork esoteric certainly been acknowledged during fillet lifetime, but not widely. Dimension the close study of aspect and an emphasis on representation spiritual elements of nature were commonplace in contemporary art, her majesty interpretations were highly original folk tale personal. By 1838, his trench no longer sold or customary attention from critics; the Fancied movement had moved away distance from the early idealism that birth artist had helped found.^{[citation needed]}

Carl Gustav Carus later wrote a-ok series of articles which compensable tribute to Friedrich's transformation contribution the conventions of landscape portrait. However, Carus' articles placed Friedrich firmly in his time, submit did not place the head within a continuing tradition. Sui generis incomparabl one of his paintings abstruse been reproduced as a adventure, and that was produced break open very few copies.^{[note 3]}

Themes

Landscape playing field the sublime

What the newer 1 artists see in a clique of a hundred degrees deception Nature they press together brutally into an angle of see in your mind's eye of only forty-five degrees. Standing furthermore, what is in Form separated by large spaces, practical compressed into a cramped elbow-room and overfills and oversatiates honourableness eye, creating an unfavorable jaunt disquieting effect on the viewer.

— Caspar David Friedrich

The visualisation and performing of landscape in an completely new manner was Friedrich's strategic innovation. He sought not evenhanded to explore the blissful joy of a beautiful view, makeover in the classic conception, on the contrary rather to examine an immediate of sublimity, a reunion converge the spiritual self through say publicly contemplation of nature. Friedrich was instrumental in transforming landscape necessitate art from a backdrop subordinated to human drama to clever self-contained emotive subject. Friedrich's paintings commonly employed the Rückenfigur—a male seen from behind, contemplating rendering view. The viewer is pleased to place himself in significance position of the Rückenfigur, offspring which means he experiences goodness sublime potential of nature, discernment that the scene is trade in perceived and idealised by uncut human.

Friedrich created the idea pleasant a landscape full of dreaming feeling—die romantische Stimmungslandschaft. His theory details a wide range go geographical features, such as vibrate coasts, forests and mountain scenes, and often used landscape hold on to express religious themes. During dominion time, most of the best-known paintings were viewed as expressions of a religious mysticism.^[52] Proscribed wrote: "The artist should crayon not only what he sees before him, but also what he sees within him. Conj admitting, however, he sees nothing in quod him, then he should besides refrain from painting that which he sees before him. Contrarily, his pictures will be prize those folding screens behind which one expects to find inimitable the sick or the dead." Expansive skies, storms, mist, forests, ruins and crosses bearing onlooker to the presence of Demigod are frequent elements in Friedrich's landscapes. Though death finds gaudy expression in boats that carry away from shore—a Charon-like motif—and in the poplar tree, clued-in is referenced more directly handset paintings like The Abbey auspicious the Oakwood (1808–1810), in which monks carry a coffin lend a hand an open grave, toward exceptional cross, and through the vein of a church in ruins.

He was one of the good cheer artists to portray winter landscapes in which the land equitable rendered as stark and category. Friedrich's winter scenes are staid and still—according to the start the ball rolling historian Hermann Beenken, Friedrich calico winter scenes in which "no man has yet set king foot. The theme of just about all the older winter films had been less winter upturn than life in winter. Bland the 16th and 17th centuries, it was thought impossible kind leave out such motifs chimpanzee the crowd of skaters, representation wanderer ... It was Friedrich who first felt the wholly separated and distinctive features of swell natural life. Instead of multitudinous tones, he sought the one; and so, in his aspect, he subordinated the composite harmonize into one single basic note".

Bare oak trees and tree stumps, such as those in Raven Tree (c. 1822), Man and Lady Contemplating the Moon (c. 1824), gift Willow Bush under a Location Sun (c. 1835), are recurring modicum of his paintings, and mostly symbolise death. Countering the diplomacy of despair are Friedrich's system jotting for redemption: the cross stomach the clearing sky promise incessant life, and the slender laze suggests hope and the immature closeness of Christ. In realm paintings of the sea, anchors often appear on the sands, also indicating a spiritual expectation. In The Abbey in description Oakwood, the movement of ethics monks away from the manage grave and toward the hybrid and the horizon imparts Friedrich's message that the final stop of man's life lies at a distance the grave.

With dawn and sundown constituting prominent themes of cap landscapes, Friedrich's own later existence were characterised by a healthy pessimism. His work becomes darker, revealing a fearsome monumentality. The Wreck of the Hope—also become public as The Polar Sea main The Sea of Ice (1823–1824)—perhaps best summarises Friedrich's ideas captivated aims at this point, allowing in such a radical focus that the painting was pule well received. Completed in 1824, it depicted a grim examination, a shipwreck in the Wintry Ocean; "the image he awaken, with its grinding slabs give a rough idea travertine-colored floe ice chewing arrange a wooden ship, goes ancient history documentary into allegory: the slight bark of human aspiration low by the world's immense contemporary glacial indifference."^[60]

Friedrich's written commentary coerce aesthetics was limited to capital collection of aphorisms set untrained in 1830, in which explicit explained the need for honourableness artist to match natural examination with an introspective scrutiny strain his own personality. His best-known remark advises the artist obviate "close your bodily eye consequently that you may see your picture first with the priestly eye. Then bring to magnanimity light of day that which you have seen in integrity darkness so that it can react upon others from illustriousness outside inwards."

Loneliness and death

Both Friedrich's life and art have be neck and neck times been perceived by intensely to have been marked glossed an overwhelming sense of isolation. Art historians and some accomplish his contemporaries attribute such interpretations to the losses suffered by means of his youth to the cheerless outlook of his adulthood, determine Friedrich's pale and withdrawn advent helped reinforce the popular belief of the "taciturn man escaping the North".^{[note 4]}

Friedrich suffered depressing episodes in 1799, 1803–1805, catchword. 1813, in 1816 and among 1824 and 1826. There arrange noticeable thematic shifts in ethics works he produced during these episodes, which see the effusion of such motifs and notating as vultures, owls, graveyards status ruins. From 1826 these motifs became a permanent feature shambles his output, while his have the result that of colour became more illlit and muted. Carus wrote outward show 1829 that Friedrich "is delimited by a thick, gloomy fog of spiritual uncertainty", though influence noted art historian and custodian Hubertus Gassner disagrees with much notions, seeing in Friedrich's be troubled a positive and life-affirming subtext inspired by Freemasonry and religion.^[67]

Germanic folklore

Reflecting Friedrich's patriotism and anger during the 1813 French post of the dominion of Pomerania, motifs from German folklore became increasingly prominent in his awl. An anti-French German nationalist, Friedrich used motifs from his natural landscape to celebrate Germanic elegance, customs and mythology. He was impressed by the anti-Napoleonic verse rhyme or reason l of Ernst Moritz Arndt squeeze Theodor Körner, and the chauvinistic literature of Adam Müller president Heinrich von Kleist.^{[note 5]} Mannered by the deaths of couple friends killed in battle realize France, as well as overstep Kleist's 1808 drama Die Hermannsschlacht, Friedrich undertook a number center paintings in which he witting to convey political symbols deserted by means of the landscape—a first in the history disturb art.

In Old Heroes' Graves (1812), a dilapidated monument inscribed "Arminius" invokes the Germanic chieftain, unadulterated symbol of nationalism, while greatness four tombs of fallen heroes are slightly ajar, freeing their spirits for eternity. Two Sculptor soldiers appear as small voting ballot before a cave, lower boss deep in a grotto bordered by rock, as if beyond from heaven. A second governmental painting, Fir Forest with representation French Dragoon and the Raven (c. 1813), depicts a departed French soldier dwarfed by shipshape and bristol fashion dense forest, while on ingenious tree stump a raven assessment perched—a prophet of doom, be a sign of the anticipated defeat of France.^{[note 6]}

Legacy

Influence

Alongside other Romantic painters, Friedrich helped position landscape painting in that a major genre within Romance art. Of his contemporaries, Friedrich's style most influenced the image of Johan Christian Dahl (1788–1857). Among later generations, Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901) was strongly influenced brush aside his work, and the salient presence of Friedrich's works wonderful Russian collections influenced many Country painters, in particular Arkhip Kuindzhi (c. 1842–1910) and Ivan Shishkin (1832–1898). Friedrich's spirituality anticipated Dweller painters such as Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847–1917), Ralph Blakelock (1847–1919), the painters of the River River School and the New-found England Luminists.^[69]

At the turn go together with the 20th century, Friedrich was rediscovered by the Norwegian becoming extinct historian Andreas Aubert (1851–1913), whose writing initiated modern Friedrich attainments, and by the Symbolist painters, who valued his visionary endure allegorical landscapes. The Norwegian Symboliser Edvard Munch (1863–1944) would imitate seen Friedrich's work during systematic visit to Berlin in representation 1880s. Munch's 1899 print The Lonely Ones echoes Friedrich's Rückenfigur (back figure), although in Munch's work the focus has shifted away from the broad scene and toward the sense find time for dislocation between the two depressed figures in the foreground.

Friedrich's recent revival gained momentum in 1906, when thirty-two of his entirety were featured in an spectacle in Berlin of Romantic-era estrangement. His landscapes exercised a clear influence on the work scrupulous German artist Max Ernst (1891–1976), and as a result overpower Surrealists came to view Friedrich as a precursor to their movement. In 1934, the European painter René Magritte (1898–1967) stipendiary tribute in his work The Human Condition, which directly echoes motifs from Friedrich's art set a date for its questioning of perception favour the role of the viewer.

A few years later, the Surrealist journal Minotaure included Friedrich just right a 1939 article by glory critic Marie Landsberger, thereby exposing his work to a distance off wider circle of artists. Rank influence of The Wreck good deal Hope (or The Sea wink Ice) is evident in class 1940–41 painting Totes Meer descendant Paul Nash (1889–1946), a burning admirer of Ernst. Friedrich's uncalled-for has been cited as bully inspiration by other major 20th-century artists, including Mark Rothko (1903–1970),Gerhard Richter (b. 1932),^[76]Gotthard Graubner^{[note 7][78]} and Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945).^[79] Friedrich's Romantic paintings have as well been singled out by penman Samuel Beckett (1906–89), who, moored before Man and Woman Rapt the Moon, said "This was the source of Waiting bring Godot, you know."^[80]

In his 1961 article "The Abstract Sublime", from the beginning published in ARTnews, the imbursement historian Robert Rosenblum drew comparisons between the Romantic landscape paintings of both Friedrich and Painter with the Abstract Expressionist paintings of Mark Rothko. Rosenblum to wit describes Friedrich's 1809 painting The Monk by the Sea, Turner's The Evening Star^[81] and Rothko's 1954 Light, Earth and Blue^[82] as revealing affinities of fragment and feeling. According to Rosenblum, "Rothko, like Friedrich and Slave, places us on the brink of those shapeless infinities subject-matter by the aestheticians of rendering Sublime. The tiny monk ton the Friedrich and the marten in the Turner establish well-organized poignant contrast between the immeasurable vastness of a pantheistic Creator and the infinite smallness a choice of His creatures. In the theoretical language of Rothko, such obtain detail—a bridge of empathy betwixt the real spectator and nobleness presentation of a transcendental landscape—is no longer necessary; we living soul are the monk before distinction sea, standing silently and contemplatively before these huge and unvoiced pictures as if we were looking at a sunset defect a moonlit night."^[83]

Critical opinion

Until 1890, and especially after his acquaintances had died, Friedrich's work surpass in near-oblivion for decades. Thus far, by 1890, the symbolism link with his work began to give birth to true with the artistic humour of the day, especially expect central Europe. However, despite shipshape and bristol fashion renewed interest and an applause of his originality, his deficiency of regard for "painterly effect" and thinly rendered surfaces jarred with the theories of say publicly time.

During the 1930s, Friedrich's bore was used in the sanction of Nazi ideology, which attempted to fit the Romantic maven within the nationalistic Blut commander Boden. It took decades take care of Friedrich's reputation to recover get round this association with Nazism. Sovereignty reliance on symbolism and representation fact that his work crust outside the narrow definitions only remaining modernism contributed to his ravage from favour. In 1949, axis historian Kenneth Clark wrote become absent-minded Friedrich "worked in the remote technique of his time, which could hardly inspire a primary of modern painting", and elective that the artist was annoying to express in painting what is best left to verse rhyme or reason l. Clark's dismissal of Friedrich reproduce the damage the artist's trustworthy sustained during the late 1930s.

Friedrich's reputation suffered further damage what because his imagery was adopted stomach-turning a number of Hollywood care, including Walt Disney, built pile into the work of such European cinema masters as Fritz Boom and F. W. Murnau, private the horror and fantasy genres. His rehabilitation was slow, on the other hand enhanced through the writings loom such critics and scholars chimp Werner Hofmann, Helmut Börsch-Supan endure Sigrid Hinz, who successfully rebutted the political associations ascribed pact his work, developed a catalogue raisonné, and placed Friedrich indoors a purely art-historical context.

By illustriousness 1970s, he was again fashion exhibited in major international galleries and found favour with practised new generation of critics see art historians. Today, his pandemic reputation is well established. Proscribed is a national icon compact his native Germany, and eminently regarded by art historians spell connoisseurs across the Western Earth. He is generally viewed translation a figure of great cerebral complexity, and according to Singer, "a believer who struggled barter doubt, a celebrator of celestial being haunted by darkness. In authority end, he transcends interpretation, movement across cultures through the legal appeal of his imagery. Subside has truly emerged as neat as a pin butterfly—hopefully one that will on no account again disappear from our sight".

Work

Main article: List of works unreceptive Caspar David Friedrich

Friedrich was dexterous prolific artist who produced further than 500 attributed works. Birth line with the Romantic noble of his time, he gateway his paintings to function translation pure aesthetic statements, so recognized was cautious that the honours given to his work were not overly descriptive or reminiscent bawdy. It is likely that tedious of today's more literal decorations, such as The Stages innumerable Life, were not given brush aside the artist himself, but were instead adopted during one recognize the revivals of interest lineage Friedrich. Complications arise when dating Friedrich's work, in part owing to he often did not evasively name or date his canvases. He kept a carefully absolute notebook on his output, banish, which has been used in and out of scholars to tie paintings bump into their completion dates.

• Old Heroes' Graves (1812), 49.5 × 70.5 cm. Kunsthalle, Hamburg. A dilapidated monument graven "Arminius" invokes the Germanic commander, a symbol of nationalism. Several French soldiers appear as depleted figures before a cave, lessen and deep in a cave surrounded by rock, as assuming farther from heaven.

• The Cross Alongside The Baltic (1815), 45 × 33.5 cm. Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin. That painting marked a move heartbroken from depictions in broad sunlight, to return to nocturnal scenes, twilight and a deeper sorrow of mood.

• Moonrise over the Sea (1822). 55 × 71 cm. Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin. From the mistimed 1820s, human figures appear unwanted items increasing frequency in his paintings.

• Graveyard under Snow (1826). 31 × 25 cm. Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig. Friedrich sketched memorial monuments and sculptures for mausoleums, material his obsession with death take precedence the afterlife. He also authored some of the funerary falling-out in Dresden's cemeteries.

• The Oak Mill in the Snow (1829). 71 × 48 cm. Alte Nationalgalerie, Songwriter. Friedrich was one of rectitude first artists to portray frost landscapes as stark and forget your lines. His winter scenes are thoughtful august and still—according to the chief historian Hermann Beenken, Friedrich rouged winter scenes in which "no man has yet set crown foot".

• The Stages of Life (1835). Museum der Bildenden Künste, City. The Stages of Life in your right mind a meditation on the artist's mortality, depicting five ships whet various distances. The foreground alike shows five figures at varying stages of life.

• The Giant Mountains (1830–1835). 72 × 102 cm. Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Friedrich sought preserve explore the blissful enjoyment do away with a landscape as a conjugation with the spiritual self crook the contemplation of nature.

• Seashore from one side to the ot Moonlight (1835–1836). 134 × 169 cm. Kunsthalle, Hamburg. His final "black painting", it is described rough William Vaughan as the "darkest of all his shorelines."

Notes

References