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Early Success
Friedrich achieved his first public success
as a painter by winning a prize in the 1805 Weimar competition organised
by the writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. After this came controversy
when one of his first landscapes in the medium of oil
painting - The Cross in the Mountains (1808, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen,
Dresden) or The Tetschen Altar - was painted as an altarpiece.
The work, depicting a distant view of the crucified Christ at the top
of a mountain, alone and surrounded by nature, was commissioned by the
Countess of Thun for a family chapel in Bohemia, and Friedrich's decision
to offer a landscape as a devotional painting was considered scandalous.
However, it clearly signalled Friedrich's main preoccupation as an artist,
which was to present the divine quality of nature.
In 1810, Friedrich was elected a member
of the Berlin Academy of Art, and in 1818, a member of the Saxon Academy.
In the same year, at the age of 44 he married the 25 year old Caroline
Bommer: a marriage which reportedly brought him much happiness and comfort.
In this, one should note that Friedrich suffered continually from bouts
of depression, notably in 1799, 1813, 1816 and between 1803 and 1805,
and 1824-1826. These mental disturbances had a visible impact on his painting,
and from 1826 his use of colour
in his paintings became darker and more muted.
Meantime, despite occasional controversies,
Friedrich's fame was beginning to spread. In 1820, the Russian Grand Duke
Nikolai Pavlovich paid a personal visit to Friedrich's studio and purchased
a number of paintings - patronage which was to continue for many years.
The following year, Vasily Zhukovsky, tutor to Czar Alexander II, met
Friedrich and was so impressed that he began recommending his art at the
Russian royal court. These Russian patrons would later provide much needed
assistance when Friedrich fell into poverty.
Unfortunately, as the attraction of Romanticism
faded, to be replaced by more realist interpretations of both nature and
life in general, in line with modernist trends across society, Friedrich's
art began to lose its appeal, and during the final 15 years of his life
he came to be regarded as somewhat eccentric and old-fashioned. As his
patrons deserted him, his fortunes declined and be became increasingly
dependent on the charity of friends.
In the summer of 1835 he suffered partial paralysis due to a stroke, which
greatly impeded his ability to paint. Additional strokes further aggravated
his condition and he died in relative poverty at the age of 65.
Friedrich the Artist
Exceptionally gifted as an observer and
interpreter of nature, Friedrich used painting as a means of expressing
his highly personal and emotional response to the natural world - a world
he saw as reflecting a divine presence. For him, sunlight was no less
than the light of God. His individualistic lifestyle - he spent long periods
of time walking alone through forests and fields, often starting before
sunrise - coupled with his keen observation, melancholic outlook and painterly
skill in both composition and the precise use of colour, allowed him to
create uniquely evocative landscapes. One of his greatest achievements
as an artist was his ability to create emotionally-charged views which
help to connect the viewer with the spirituality of nature. His depiction
of various light forms, notably sunrise and moonlight was remarkable,
as was his ability to convey the absolute stillness and solitude of the
forest. The art historian Hermann Beenken once said that Friedrich painted
winter scenes in which "no man has yet set his foot."
Though based on studies of nature, most
of his paintings were composed in his studio, where he relied on deep
contemplation to conjure up images for his canvases. To dramatise his
view-paintings, such as his series of figures contemplating the moon,
he made frequent use of the Ruckenfigur- a person seen from behind,
who is contemplating the view. Nearly all his pictures contained motifs
and symbols, typically concerning life, death and the impermanence of
man.
His major contribution to the history
of art was the portrayal of landscape not simply as an object of beauty
but as a romantic (romantische Stimmungslandschaft) and spiritual,
if not mystical, experience. In so doing, he - along with JMW
Turner - re-positioned landscape painting as a major independent genre
within Western art.
Legacy
Friedrich's symbolic and anti-classical
work influenced numerous contemporaries, notably Johann Christian Dahl
(1788–1857), as well as later artists such as Arnold Böcklin
(1827–1901), the Russian painters Arkhip Kuindzhi (1842–1910)
and Ivan Shishkin (1832–98). Friedrich's mystical approach was a
precursor to several American art groups, like Thomas
Cole and the Hudson River School, and the Luminists of New England.
His painting has also inspired a number of 20th century painters and writers,
such as Surrealists like Max Ernst (1891–1976), and the American
Abstract Expressionist Mark Rothko (1903–70).
And the Nobel Laureate Samuel Beckett (1906–89) confessed that Friedrich's
work Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon was the source of his
dramatic masterpiece Waiting for Godot.
Revered by art historians and collectors
throughout the West, Friedrich is now seen as one of the greatest and
most original view painters of the early 19th century and a major influence
on the development of Western landscape art.
Famous Works
Paintings by Caspar David Friedrich hang
in many of the world's best art museums,
as can be seen from the following list.
- The Cross in the Mountains (1807) Gemaldegalerie,
Dresden.
- The Abbey in the Oakwood (1808–10) Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin.
- Winter Landscape (1811) National Gallery, London
- Old Heroes' Graves (1812) Kunsthalle, Hamburg.
- The Cross Beside The Baltic (1815) Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin.
- Chalk Cliffs on Rügen, (1818) Museum Oskar Reinhart, Switzerland.
- Moonrise Over the Sea (1822) Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin.
- The Sea of Ice (1823–24) Kunsthalle Hamburg.
- Graveyard under Snow (1826) Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig.
- The Oak Tree in the Snow (1829) Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin.
- Landscape at Riesengebirge (1830), Pushkin Museum, Moscow.
- Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon (1835) Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin.
- The Giant Mountains (1830–35) Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin.
- The Stages of Life (1835) Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig.
- Seashore by Moonlight (1835–36) Kunsthalle, Hamburg.
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