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April 13th, 2008 admin Leave a comment Go to comments

Watercolor Russian

Caspar David Friedrich - The Essence of German Romanticism

Friedrich was born in Griefswald, a town on the Baltic Sea in Pomerania, northern Germany, an area which at the time was part of Sweden. He was the sixth of ten children and was brought up a strict Lutheran by his father, who had a successful candle making business. Tragedy repeatedly struck the Friedrich family while Caspar David was still very young and these events are thought to have formed the painter’s artistic vision. His mother died when he was seven years old, and when he was thirteen, one of his brothers drowned when he fell through ice on a frozen lake. He also lost two sisters: one sister died when he was 32 years old and a second died of typhus when he was 48.

Little is known about Friedrich’s early desire to study painting or what drove him to take up art lessons at the age of 16, but in 1790 Friedrich studied art at the University of Griefswald as part of a course of studies that included literature and aesthetics. His professor, who was influenced by contemporary British thought at a time when European society was turning towards spiritualism, taught him about the “inner eye”, considered to be the eye of the soul, and the “physical eye”, which sees the world in its physical, as opposed to its spiritual form. In 1794 he entered the prestigious Copenhagen Academy where he studied art until 1798.

In 1798 Caspar David Friedrich went to live in Dresden where he quickly joined a circle of writers and painters who were leading proponents of the Romantic ideal. He produced lovely sepia drawings and watercolors of the barren Baltic landscapes, rocky beaches and massive mountain ranges. In fact, Friedrich produced only drawings until he was 34 years old when he produced his first major Oil Painting, The Cross in the Mountains. It was produced as an altarpiece and, although considered controversial, it gained much approval. The painting, which depicts Christ on the cross, shows the crucified Saviour at the top of a mountain, alone in a vast landscape, the elongated cross reaching for the sky. This was the first time in Christian Art that a pure landscape had been produced as an altarpiece. The painting sparked much heated public discussion, with the artist’s friends coming to his defense and Friedrich producing, in 1809, a written commentary on the work that explained his personal interpretation.

It is no coincidence that one of Caspar David Friedrich’s closest friends was the poet and writer Goethe; Friedrich captured Goethe’s Gothic vision in his paintings, which often feature stormy skies, forests, misty mornings and ruined cathedrals. The cold colors, use of sharp light and contours increase the sense of isolation and powerlessness of the human condition. When people do appear in his paintings, they seem to be engaged in a timeless contemplation of the mystery of life, much like the artist himself.

Friedrich did obtain recognition during his lifetime. In 1810, following the purchase of two of his works by the Crown Prince of Prussia, the artist was elected to the Berlin Academy and in 1816 he joined the Dresden Academy. His work also found favor with the Russian aristocracy and among his Russian patrons were a Grand Duke and Vasily Zhukovsky, tutor to the young Czarevitch, Alexander II.

Tragedy struck once again in 1835: Caspar David Friedrich suffered a debilitating stroke that affected his ability to paint. Symbols of death, such as oversized owls, graves and the Full Moon, started to appear in his work. By 1838 his situation had deteriorated to the point where he was almost incapable of producing any work and, as a result, was thrown into poverty, depending on the charity of his friends. Additionally, Germany was entering the industrial age and Friedrich’s mystical paintings were now viewed as remnants of a pre-industrialized past.

Caspar David Friedrich died in 1840. After his death his work fell into oblivion until it was rediscovered early in the 20th century and subsequently influenced some of the major movements of 20th Century art.

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About the Author

Mark Feldman is President of
SegTech, a company devoted to a wonderful Image Segmentation technology called Segmation.

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