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)
- Village Landscape in Morning Light (The Lone Tree) 1822
- Monastery ruin Eldena 1824
- Felsenlandschaft im Elbsandsteingebirge 1822-1823
- Highlands circa 1828
- Mondaufgang über einsamem Ufer
- Mountains in the Rising Fog ca. 1835
- Cairn in Snow
- The Abbey in the Oakwood between 1809 and 1810
- The Cemetery
- Self-portrait 1800
- Statue of the Madonna in the Mountains 1804
- Northern Landscape,Spring c. 1825
- The Cross in the Mountains circa 1812
- Kirchhofpforte 1822
- Sunburst in the Riesengebirge 1835
- The Grosse Gehege near Dresden
- Blick aus dem Atelier des Künstlers in Dresden auf die Elbe (linkes Fenster) 1805-1806
- Meeresstrand mit Fischer 1807
- Blick aus dem Atelier des Künstlers (rechtes Fenster) 1805-1806
- Landschaft mit gebirgsee, morgen (landscape with mountain lake, morning)