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
- The Cross in the Mountains circa 1812
- Mountain Landscape with Rainbow circa 1809-1810
- Village Landscape in Morning Light (The Lone Tree) 1822
- Giant Mountains (Riesengebirge) circa 1830
- Two Men Contemplating the Moon ca. 1825-30
- The Cemetery Gate (The Churchyard) between 1825 and 1830
- Self-Portrait 1803
- Monastery ruin Eldena 1824
- The Watzmann 1824
- Cross in the Mountains circa 1805-1807
- Woman with a Spiderweb 1803
- Meeresstrand im Nebel 1807
- Felsenriff am Meeresstrand 1824
- Ships at Anchor
- Winter – Night – Old Age and Death (from the times of day and ages of man cycle of 1803) circa 1803
- After the Storm 1816 - 1817
- Kirchhofpforte 1822
- Sunburst in the Riesengebirge 1835
- Highlands circa 1828
- Sleeping Boy 1802