Stunning panoramic vistas and deep-seated national predilections: Caspar David Friedrich at Old National Gallery
Caspar David Friedrich, a German Romantic painter, is being honoured with an exhibition at Berlin's Alte Nationalgalerie. The upcoming event, titled "Caspar David Friedrich: Infinite Landscapes", starts on April 19.
Friedrich's paintings, created between 1808 and 1810, are known for their sublime and heroic exaltation, yet they convey a sense of fragility. This duality is particularly evident in works such as 'The Monk by the Sea' and 'The Abbey in the Oakwood'.
One of Friedrich's most renowned paintings, 'Wanderer above the Sea of Fog' (1818), features a black-dressed figure towering above a majestic vista. The figure's back is turned to the viewer, gazing at the swirling abyss before them. This motif is common in Friedrich's works, serving as a visceral reminder of human insignificance and our momentary place on earth.
The painting "The Monk by the Sea" emphasises this insignificance, with the human figure dwarfed by a vast, featureless landscape. In another work, the oaks' leafless branches are depicted as malevolent tendrils.
The exhibition, which took place from May 2021 to November 2021, was organised by Sabine Rewald and other curators. It was a symbolic commentary on Germany's scarred history, created after the destruction of the Thirty Years' War.
Germany did not have an easy relationship with Caspar David Friedrich after his death in 1840. He was mostly forgotten until the Nazis rediscovered him, fabricating a link between his desolate landscapes and their racist 'Blut und Boden' ("blood and soil") ideology. Hitler, who was known for his poor taste, called Friedrich his favourite painter, which negatively impacted the painter's reputation for a generation.
However, in the 1970s, Germany once again turned to Friedrich, finding in his dark Gothic aesthetic a way to bypass the country's hideous modern history. His damaged grandeur in his canvases was seen as a chance to return to an older, truer version of Germany before totalitarian ideology tore it apart.
The upcoming exhibition will focus on Friedrich's technique of pairing paintings together to express the ceaselessness of passing time. This is a fitting tribute to an artist whose work continues to resonate with audiences today, 250 years after his birth. The exhibition is a must-visit for anyone interested in the history of art and the human condition.
