Caspar David Friedrich
Symbolic landscapes evoke metaphysical contemplation
Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic or megalithic ruins. His primary interest as an artist was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic and anti-classical work seeks to convey a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich's paintings characteristically set a human presence in diminished perspective amid expansive landscapes, reducing the figures to a scale that, according to the art historian Christopher John Murray, directs "the viewer's gaze towards their metaphysical dimension".
Relationship Network
Master student
- Albert Emil Kirchner Student
- August Heinrich Student
- Carl Gustav Carus Student
- Carl Wilhelm Götzloff Student
- Georg Heinrich Crola Student
- Philipp Veit Student
Fellow student
Artworks by this artist (48 total)
- Cross in the Mountains circa 1805-1807
- The Abbey in the Oakwood between 1809 and 1810
- The Cross in the Mountains circa 1812
- Meeresstrand mit Fischer 1807
- After the Storm 1816 - 1817
- Highlands circa 1828
- Self-portrait 1800
- Blick aus dem Atelier des Künstlers in Dresden auf die Elbe (linkes Fenster) 1805-1806
- Woman at a Window 1822
- Kirchhofpforte 1822
- Village Landscape in Morning Light (The Lone Tree) 1822
- The Monk by the Sea between 1808 and 1810
- Autumn – Evening – Maturity (from the seasons, times of day, and ages of man cycle of 1803) circa 1803
- A Walk at Dusk 1830-1835
- Blick aus dem Atelier des Künstlers (rechtes Fenster) 1805-1806
- Inside the forest in the moonlight circa 1823
- The Cemetery Gate (The Churchyard) between 1825 and 1830
- Moonrise over the Sea 1822
- Statue of the Madonna in the Mountains 1804
- Northern Landscape,Spring c. 1825