Caspar David Friedrich
1774–1840 · Romanticism & Landscape
Biography
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) was the leading German Romantic painter. His contemplative landscapes, often with solitary figures seen from behind, express the spiritual longing of the Romantic era.
From the artist’s life
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), a German painter based in Dresden, is the great master of Romantic landscape. His figures seen from behind, ruins and skies express a spiritual meditation on nature.
From the page of The Abbey in the Oakwood
Friedrich was a complex personality whose wonderful visions of the world were overshadowed by dark clouds, especially in his later years. His father was a candle-maker and soap-boiler. Friedrich’s childhood was marked by a series of tragedies: first his mother and two sisters died of illness, then, causing even greater trauma, the ice of a lake broke beneath his younger brother before his very eyes, and the boy drowned. He received a religious upbringing, and most of his works seek to present the spiritual side of nature. In later life he often suffered from depression and was overcome by a fear of death. Symbols of death — solitary oak trees, tree stumps — increasingly found a place in his pictures, but symbols of redemption and hope also appeared: the cross, brightening skies, anchors on the shore. His paintings bear personal features, which he regarded as the essence of art. He once wrote: “The artist should paint not only what he sees before him, but also what he sees within himself.”
From the page of Wanderer above the Sea of Fog
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) was the leading German Romantic painter. His landscapes, often with solitary figures seen from behind, express spiritual longing and the sublime power of nature.
From the page of Chalk Cliffs on Rügen
