Caspar Friedrich: Expressing Intense Emotions through Art | Perspective

foreign in the early 19th century the spirit of Romanticism was expressed in visual art all over Europe in France it influenced the dramatic paintings of Jericho and dulaqua Spain Goya created some of the finest of all romantic paintings as did constable and Turner in England Germany also made a huge contribution to the art of the age in the city of Dresden lived a man whom many believe was the greatest romantic painter in the art of landscape kaspar David friedreich this was an artist who sought to capture the sublime aspects of nature from the beginning of his career friedricht's paintings were full of symbolism and hidden meaning and his art reflects his deep religious faith [Music] typically for a romantic he pursued his own artistic destiny his Works were often dark and mysterious reflecting his own troubled life sufferings included bereavement sickness poverty and obscurity he was once turned down for an important job because his artistic Vision was said to be too personal but it is this Vision that is now recognized as being one of the greatest achievements of the Romantic age I think his unique contribution was to saturate landscape painting with significance in the sense that he was at the same time able to imbue it with the qualities of minute observation but at the same time of spiritual power of emotional depth and despite his kind of rather limited generic and geographical range his Landscapes have a kind of a power which is appealing across a broad range and very powerful the most important contribution Friedrich made was to make visible for the first time what you might call the inner eye in other words that he made us aware that what we see is has as much to do with what his insiders is what is Outsiders and it's interesting that he should do this with landscape painting we think of landscape as being something that is definitely Outsiders it is the world it is nature Beyond us and yet of course the way we respond to landscape is absolutely connected with our own feelings and thoughts things that are inside us his ability to paint his personal responses to certain events enables him to respond directly to political goings-on at the time and to give us as the view a very personal account its translation of that kind of Despair and misery and instability after the French Revolution and with the French invasion in Germany that he seems to translate into this Melancholy kaspa David Friedrich was born on September the 5th 1774. at the coastal town of greifswald in the German region of Pomerania at the time this was an area ruled by Sweden but the Friedrich were a German family headed by Adolf Gottlieb a prosperous soap and Candle Maker kaspar was the sixth of ten children brought up in a family home blighted by tragedy when the future artist was just seven years old his mother zofi died and two of his sisters also perished in childhood a few years later when he was 13 he was involved in a terrible accident while skating with his brother On a Winter's afternoon Casper got into serious difficulties on the ice his brother tried to help but he ended up drowning while kaspa somehow survived it was a tragedy that would haunt him for the rest of his life [Music] much of friedrich's adult work was concerned with death and this can be traced back to the tragedies of his childhood other useful influences stayed with him his family were strict Protestants who lived an austere lifestyle in later years Friedrich was well known for the Spartan nature of his Studio environment another important childhood influence was the German Theologian godhard Ludwig Koza Garden had a strong religious faith he was also fascinated by the power of nature because the garden was a theologian but he was also somebody who was very much influenced by the nature poetry of his time and he saw the world as being evidence of the Divine he used to call nature Christ's Bible and probably the most important thing that he influenced Friedrich on was the idea of looking as nature as a sign of the religious of the sign of religious creation Koza Garden Was a Very isolated figure living in nature he very much saw himself as the spiritual person removed from the material world and that kind of image of the Theologian or the Artist as the spiritual removed person also impressed Friedrich greatly kozergarten believed that one could see in natural forms the revelation of Christianity in some ways Nature's Cycles Nature's features reflected man's moral progress and his his his journey towards God and this kind of pantheism this ability to see God in in creation was a profound influence not only over Friedrich but over a generation of landscape painters Koza Garden also believed that it was those rugged bare Landscapes of the north which were most drenched in spiritual significance he was you know fond of believing in turugan as a space filled with kind of mythological figures of great heroes epic figures of the past and of course that intensity of interest in Hogan was something that he shared with friedlish by 1790 the 16 year old Friedrich had decided that his Destiny was to become an artist that year he began to study under Johann kvsdorp a friend of Koza Garden four years later he secured a place at the Academy of Copenhagen in the Danish Capital he attended classes given by a landscape artists such as yens Yul surviving sketchbooks revealed that this was the artistic genre that most inspired the young Friedrich shortly after finishing his studies Friedrich moved to the German city of Dresden and remained there for the rest of his life Friedrich began a course of study at the sitters Academy but he was already pursuing his own agenda he also began to make a professional living from Works executed in sepia wash but it was only in 1801 at the age of 26 that friedrich's long period of learning began to bear fruit that year he traveled to the Baltic Sea Island of Ruden it was while sketching the scenery of this Northern Island that Friedrich began to create the art that would define his adult achievement there is an opportunity to actually invent Your Own Story to express your own emotions through that relationship with the landscape to listen to his own feelings to express his inner Visions he wasn't like other artists in Italy or in France surrounded by either the original works of Michelangelo or Raphael or classical architecture or sculpture or plaster cast even he had none of that at all as a boy and as a young man he was surrounded by Northern German landscape before the late 18th century landscape painting has been seen as very much inferior to figure painting the great Renaissance artists and the academics after them believed that the main subject of painting was man it was the history of Matt The Story of Man a landscape was her to speak the background The Supporting Cast as something that wasn't as important couldn't convey important ideas in the way that history painting could friedrich's generation was the generation that said landscape could be as important as figure painting it could be just as much about ideas emotions and experiences back in Dresden he began to secure regular commissions for his sepia works his work became increasingly well known throughout Germany and he became acquainted with the intellectual Circles of Dresden Society but the early years of the 19th century also brought problems [Music] in 1803 Friedrich began to suffer from depression the condition was so severe that he may have attempted suicide one report suggests that the artist cut his throat in a bid to end his life when the attempt failed his neck was left with a large scar [Music] according to this tradition that his wife Friedrich grew the huge sideburns that dominated his facial features in later life Friedrich went through a period of mental upset around 1803. it seems he attempted suicide around that time perhaps to some extent it may have been because of the period in his own career he was in his late 20s by then he hadn't had any major successes these were all to happen a couple of years time so he may have felt he was going nowhere he maybe he was feeling that the problems that he was discovering in landscape painting were ones which he couldn't find solutions for he probably felt very lonely too he'd been in Dresden for about four years didn't fit in with all the elegance and the sophistication of Dresden so he was probably a very isolated person too Friedrich survived his depressive episode but there is little doubt that the whole event only intensified and already Melancholy personality it was only in his early 30s that Friedrich turned seriously to painting with oils in 1808 aged 34. he finally unveiled his first oil masterpiece a work which introduces the viewer to many of the themes of friedrich's mature work this is the cross in the mountains an image which reveals at once the artist's love of detailed landscape and his profound religious faith friedrich's spiritual beliefs came to fruition side by side with his art inspired by the writings of course a garden he came to see nature as in some way encompassing the divine nature of God himself he believed the role of the work of art was to mediate between this divine nature and the viewer contemplating the work this image represents friedrich's first great attempt to convey his spiritual beliefs in paint this was a radical aesthetic philosophy full of the sublime spirit that characterized the Romantic age inevitably it was too radical for some the cross in the mountains was roundly condemned by many critics its composition lacked traditional perspective and the fact that it was an Altarpiece provoked outrage landscape had never been considered a suitable genre for overtly religious themes technically and thematically Friedrich was changing the rules those two criticized him and others were really Steeps in tradition which emphasized Clarity of narrative message and of course there was such a history of the representation of the crucifixion as human narrative with populated by human figures an Altarpiece should be moral it should be didactic an older piece was designed after all to to convey particular messages about the Christian gospels to its intended public in a church setting landscape sensory nations in the academic tradition had been considered a minor genre and in the hierarchy of genres it was of course history painting which included biblical subject matter which was thought of as the highest form of Art landscape was used as a backdrop in the Italian Renaissance to illustrate biblical scenery but to actually bring it up as the main subject for an older piece was quite subversive because whole aim in the canvas was to provoke thought and contemplation in those viewing it in the way that maybe an Altarpiece might traditionally but by different means by forcing one to confront nature in various guises and faces and some of the the strange perspectives and if you like the nebulosity of the mystical aspects of it are Casper for you saying well perhaps we can no longer contemplate in the way we used to the mysteries of the Divine through the simple recitation of of the story or the simple visual depiction of the story the controversy over the cross in the mountains dragged on for two years giving the modern viewer an idea of how radical a painting it was for the time we can also see this bold image as an introduction to a recurring feature of friedrich's work his use of symbolism it looks as though you're floating in mid-air and looking directly at this Mountaintop instead of having the normal introduction to a picture that you expect with a foreground and I think Friedrich adopted this because he wanted to focus on the image as a kind of symbolic effect and it was as though he was exploring this idea that there were different ways of looking at things different angles and if you look at things from different angles they appear different they have different meanings I think it started off as a celebration of a certain kind of German scenery which could be seen to have a patriotic Association and perhaps in the period when he was painting when Napoleon had just invaded Germany this had a particular resonance we said but it is interesting that he seemed to move away from that to this more specific religious meaning when it came to the actual Commission the cross in the mountains has been perceived by Sun as an image of patriotism and by others as an image of Christian faith many more great oil paintings were to follow all containing deep symbolic meaning mountain landscape with rainbow was exhibited in 1810 it is a dark canvas and the rainbow represents the communion between man and God the human figure can also be seen as Friedrich himself the artist whose work provides the link between Earthly man and divine nature the human figure is overwhelmed by the landscape another recurring feature of the artist's mature work [Music] we can see this in monk by the sea where the mysterious holy man is almost buried under the weight of the sky in this paintings companion piece we can also see human figures of minuscule proportion this is Abby in the oakwoods one of the best known of all friedrich's paintings here we can identify a funeral procession taking place outside the ruins of a Gothic Abbey this is a compelling image but it would be hard to describe this as an image of beauty instead Friedrich conveys a sense of something far more subtle the sublime the notion of the sublime was really set against the beautiful in the 18th century as an aesthetic concept the sublime described everything that was so inspiring horrific Grand I sometimes equate it to the sort of Nations development modern horror movies anything that really grabs you and of course Burke developed this in a kind of theoretical Treatise in Germany there was a bit of a problem with this way of looking at the sublime as being what I might call a purely physical response in Germany with the interest in metaphysics they saw it more in spiritual terms and I think it's very significant that the philosopher Manuel can't when he talks about Sublime talks about the sublime in terms of spiritual Elation he talks about it as being overpowering but not necessarily as frightening and one of the images he gives to suggest this is the image of the night sky he says you look at the night sky AI you see these wonderful galaxies and they are beyond our imagination but they don't frighten us they fill us with admiration and awe and wonder and I think that kind of sublime the sublime of something that is infinite that goes beyond us but it's not necessarily frightening can be inspiring is something that was much more appealing to freely I think Friedrich is more closely associated with that kind of sublime that you find in can't than the kind of horror Supply then you find in Burke The Abbey in the oakwoods remains a Triumph of romantic landscape painting he was now a successful and well-known figure though this self-portrait of the time hardly suggests a man content with his fortunes ultimately material gain was not fleetless ambition the evolution of his art was his goal in the summer of 1810 Friedrich left Dresden with a fellow artist and friend Georg kersting their destination was the reason gerberga mountains to the south of his home City that summer the two men sketched the harsh landscape of the region back in his Dresden Studio friedrich's sketches inspired oil paintings like this Sublime Mountain scene where we again see the dramatic symbol of the isolated crucifixion as before we might choose to see this as a symbol of Germany itself we can also detect a strong sense of patriotism in this 1814 canvas again we see a human figure dwarfed by the landscape this is a chassur a French soldier of the Napoleonic age [Music] by the time this canvas was completed Napoleon's armies had already been defeated in Russia and the fall of the French Empire was imminent this canvas celebrates these historic events it is the work of Friedrich the German Patriot the problem we have today we're talking about German nationalism is the fact that the second world war and the first world war happened in the meantime and that nationalism has rather Sinister implications where Germany's concerned this of course wasn't the case in Frederick's time in fact there wasn't a German Nation Germany was divided up into a 34 minor territories all of them ruled by various little princes nationalism only arrays out of French invasion when Germans were brought together in a way by opposing Napoleon we know that Friedrich was associated with the circle of Dresden Romantics around the journal Phoebus that he contributed to the exhibition to Mark the defeat an explosion of Napoleon in 1814 and that the Chessa and the forest is supposed to represent if you like the might of an army humbled by the immensity of a land Germany's resistance to the French Friedrich comes from a Craftsman background he sees nationalism as being not only a way of uniting Germany politically but also bringing in a democratic Germany one that will be so different from the feudal Germany that he was aware of and which had been his experience in his life so what he was hoping with the wars of Liberation that came with in which Napoleon was driven out of Germany was in fact that there would be a new Democratic Society that would come in fact he was bitterly disappointed about this so although he remains a nationalist on one level he also remains highly critical of the regimes which actually exist in Germany at that time in 1815 the Battle of Waterloo brought the convulsions of the Napoleonic age to an end in Dresden Friedrich was just one individual who hoped for a new age a democratic age of German Unity [Music] his hopes would be in vain in the years that followed the end of the fighting Germany remained a loose collection of independent states and friedrich's liberal brand of patriotism eventually fell from favor there is no doubt that the artist was disappointed by political developments but his own life brought him compensations in 1816 he became a member of The Dresden Academy two years later to the great surprise of his friends he married his bride was Carolina bomber a woman 19 years his Junior the relationship brought Friedrich an unprecedented feeling of joy the normally Broody artist described a new Carefree happiness in his domestic life and the summer of 1818 saw the Newlywed couple enjoy a honeymoon on the island of Logan friedly used the journey as inspiration for his art on his return to Dresden he painted this famous image the chalk Cliffs of rugen here we can see the new Frau Friedrich and possibly her husband as well the painting May well have been intended as a simple souvenir of the honeymoon it's an image which is very memorable I think because it's fantastically painted is that the draftmanship is wonderful but it also captures a stark contrast between the cliffs color of the cliffs and the Sea the kind of dizzying perspective which hints at that idea of kind of the sublime landscape which leads to awe and wonderment it's more than that though I mean we feel that this is a symbolic and an autobiographical piece we feel that these figures symbolize certain aspects of how man contemplates nature whether it be bravely sort of trying it out and standing very close to the edge or peering inquisitively or enjoying the moment and of course we also feel it as a kind of autobiographical record of a moment of particular artistic and personal joy we know that it came from the experiences when he went back to Ruben with his new wife Caroline and yet what do you see in the picture you seem to see Friedrich on the right hand side alone on his own and Caroline with a relative perhaps friedrich's nephew or something like that looking on the cliff and the other and so there were already tensions you might say already differences of perception being alluded to by Friedrich so I think that sort of sense of variety of looking if you like is something that comes out very charmingly in this picture and gives it a particular cachet friedrich's marriage seems to have softened his character at least temporarily Carolina had three children and the family moved into a new house on the banks of dresden's river Elder Friedrich became the subject for a number of her husband's paintings though the artist's approach was typically individual [Music] this is Carolina looking out of a window at her home Friedrich loved to paint individuals with their back to the viewer this woman in the Setting Sun may also be the artist's wife contemplating the sublime light of the Evening Sun but we cannot be sure the effect of this technique can be disconcerting few landscape painters have sought to incorporate human figures who are themselves contemplating the landscape this is an unusual feature about friedrich's painting and I think it's actually one of the most significant trademarks he has when you have a portrait a figure that faces you straight on there are a few questions to be asked really you see what is what fate is you what is in front of you when you have somebody where you only see the back you immediately tend to kind of develop ideas about what they might or might not look like from the front and this seems to be one of the reasons why Friedrich painted figures from the back in a way it's a challenge to Traditions which had been through anthropocentric had asked us to read the face of the figure rather than read the landscape first in the sense that what we are faced with is nature and what we have to only read the back of is the human but actually there are also invitations for us to empathize to become subjectively involved with the contemplation of this landscape as the participant in the landscape does too in the sense that you know we like the figure in the landscape is contemplating and we therefore feel some kind of sense of subjective association with that viewer that person in the midst of the landscape others will probably point to the fact that it had a sense of mystery it adds to the sense that we can't know exactly what the feelings are we can't read the face in that physionomical way which some insisted on doing in the early 19th century perhaps the most famous of all three this works depicts a human figure with his back to the viewer [Music] completed in 1818 the same year as the artist's marriage this is Wanderer watching a sea of fog there is much to consider in the painting Wanderer watching the Sea of fog is one of the most striking of his pictures which have figures viewed in the back but there's also a funny way in which the landscape almost seems to buckle under his gaze you can sort of see the way that it's almost caving in on one side or another as though the concentration of the thought is almost overcoming the landscape so it has this curious image of what you might call loneliness and empowerment at the same time this is somebody's Vision which is inspiring but also isolating and perhaps that kind of curious romantic image of the person who is in one sense tremendously excited but is also tremendously isolated is brought out in this picture it uses the motif of the figure scene from behind to greatest effect it has this man standing at the very center of the composition very large it fills the picture space immediately we're going to ask questions what is he doing there why is he standing on top of a mountain the mountains this man is presumably looking at are all covered in fog so we can't even see what he's looking at we're then confronted with another void another level of questions that means that futic opens up the whole business of painting for us to think about about our role about painter's role about the subject's role in 1820 two years after completing this remarkable work Fridley was at the height of his career he was famous relatively prosperous and enjoyed a happy married life in Dresden commissions arrived from patrons like the future Tsar Nicholas of Russia and in 1822 he worked on two companion paintings for Consul Wagner one of the leading art collectors of the day Village landscape in the Morning Light is one of the more pastoral images of friedrich's career the symbolism of components such as the shepherd and the oak is still debated today but with the companion painting the artist's meaning is perhaps clearer [Music] moon rise over the sea is a canvas that once again reveals profound spiritual concerns [Music] we see the ships representing the Journey of life and we also see the moon symbolizing new life in the salvation of Christ but we can also appreciate the painting without any knowledge of Christian symbols it may be that this Timeless image depicts no actual place on Earth friedrich's Landscapes are idealized scenes the great Gorge depicted in the chalk Cliffs of rugen has never been located on the island images like this are the product of the artist's personal vision the vision of the Soul the most famous quote of friedrich's career relates to this he advised young painters that they should close their bodily eye so that they could see with their spiritual eye Freda was very concerned that art was about the Innovation about what you felt about what you yourself had thought and he was very worried by the fact that so much of what people were taught in academies was that art was just about what everyone sees it's about the regular it's having to adopt somebody else's ideas having to learn what other people have done and he took the opposite view he was always saying to Young Artists no look inside yourself paint what comes from your inner being that's the most important thing that's much more important than anything you can learn in the academy and I think this is why he kept on emphasizing this in his remarks for the actual painting process he felt he had to shut himself away from anything that could disturb his inner Vision this Reliance on inner vision is essential to his art we know from paintings by a colleague of his showing Frederick in his Studio that the studio too was completely bare Friedrich had nothing absolutely nothing except his easel and even the shutters on his windows we can see from these paintings are closed so he couldn't look out we even have stories about him painting in the new to get this completeness of the self as an artist Friedrich put his Visionary ideas into practice though he sketched widely his completed paintings were idealized images the product of his inner eye he also tended to avoid the common practice of sketching in oils but in the winter of 1821 he did produce a number of oil studies when the river Elba froze over three years later he used these sketches as the basis for one of the most dramatic paintings of his career the Sea of Ice popularly known as the Shipwreck at the time Europeans were attempting to find the so-called Northwest Passage through North America to the Pacific Ocean in 1820 the Explorer William Parry LED an expedition on his ship the griper it may have been this journey that inspired friedrich's violent image of a ship crushed by polar ice but there may have been another inspiration for this memorable painting the artist still recalled the tragedy of his childhood the skating accident that claimed the life of his brother the accident occurred when they were out skating and it seems what happened was that Friedrich himself got into trouble first and his brother came to help him and in the end the brother saved Friedrich but himself lost his life and I think the traumatic effect of that of somebody who saved you but lost their life in it probably made him think why me you know why was I saved why was my brother lost and you can imagine these tremendous mixed to a feeling of guilt and concern and bafflement that comes from that the Arctic shipwreck although it is something set in the Arctic was not something he'd seen himself he'd never been there he'd read about it in the newspapers but there is a telling incident he was living in Dresden at the times he had all his adult life almost and it was a very cold winter the Elba had frozen over then and he made sketchings of ice that was a rather unusual occurrence and it might almost be that we say suddenly there he is living in Dresden in the middle of Germany far away from the north where he has been brought up Suddenly the ice reappears perhaps that flicks back to a memory of childhood perhaps that sets something off in his mind and causes him to want to do that picture the Shipwreck may have had a deep personal meaning for the artist but as with many Friedrich works we do not need to know this to appreciate the painting as an image of the sheer force of nature it has few rivals sadly for the artist the Shipwreck was not well received and no buyer was found though he could not have known it at the time his fortunes were about to decline rapidly in 1824 the same year as the Shipwreck was completed the post of Professor of landscape became vacant at the Dresden Academy but the greatest German landscapist was not offered the job instead it was given to one of his friends the Norwegian painter Johann Dahl [Music] it was said that friedrich's art was so much the product of his personal vision that he would not be able to communicate his technique to students looking back we can almost see this as a compliment and Friedrich himself said he never wanted the job but the rejection was a public setback for him however he continued with his work and the following year he painted the vatsman an Austrian mountain landscape yet Friedrich had never visited the Alps instead he used the sketches of a young student artist who had traveled there the result was another Sublime landscape but shortly after its completion in 1825 the painter was struck down by illness that year Friedrich suffered a stroke though he recovered his personal life began to deteriorate [Music] as an artist he was still capable of creating superb images such as this depiction of a ruined Gothic Abbey a typical Friedrich symbol for the ultimate transience of man's activities but the creator of this romantic Masterpiece was now increasingly a troubled character he suffered terrible mood swings and shocked family and friends with his outbursts of Rage he also made a ridiculous allegation that his wife was having an affair with his friend Johan Dahl [Music] as he approached his sixties friedrich's personality began to cost him friends his painting also began to fall from favor many people found him too gloomy I mean there were those that said you know gloomy old fleetish I think also that more profoundly some of his profound spirituality was rather disturbing to those that were beginning to want to see nature in a more precise maybe even scientific light and for whom Faith had been slightly eroded as a kind of central core of composition and and an artistic inspiration you can't avoid the religious in Friedrich I think and for many of the later generations that was kind of disquieting he just fell out of fashion times were moving very fast and Friedrich almost got stuck with the formula he developed and wasn't prepared to change it would have been against his inner conviction as of the 1830s dawned Friedrich was already a sick and Troubled Man poverty now added to his problems as the popularity of his work declined at times he could hardly motivate himself to paint at all with this in mind it is remarkable that he now chose to experiment with new artistic media in the early 1830s he completed a series of transparent paintings designed to be illuminated from behind unfortunately some of these Works have been lost but we can still appreciate images like this mountainous River landscape this day scene is painted on one side of a sheet of tracing paper on the other side we see the same scene at night images like this reveal the older friedrich's Ambitions to create the complete work of art there is a kind of image that haunts German Arts the gazant kunstv this is the total work of art the work of art that will combine all the aspects of art together painting literature music I suppose it has its apotheosis in the dramas of Wagner in the operas of Wagner who is the person who talked incessantly about the gazammed kunstv having this total art experience all brought together but it is an idea that was already suggested in the Romantic Period Friedrich does seem to have been one of the artists who responded to it and many artists responded and he envisioned the idea of having his paintings shown to the accompaniment of music and the recitation of verses one particularly interesting way in which he did this was that he actually designed some transparencies that is paintings that were done that were meant to have light shining through them and I think we have to remember this was the time when the Magic Lantern first became popular there was a great pop popular interest in the idea of the projected image and showing this in a while a theatrical way so Friedrich in a way was responding to a popular taste for the Magic Lantern and trying to bring this if you might say into the world of high art where you would have this total experience of Music words and pictures altogether ultimately though his ambition to create the complete work of art remained unfulfilled on June 26 1835 he suffered a stroke that left the left side of his body paralyzed it was effectively the end of his career but just before this cruel blow friedlish painted a canvas that may well have been inspired by a sense of impending doom this is the stages of life an image whose symbolic ships we have already encountered in friedrich's work there may also be a subtle meaning in the imminent birthing of one of these vessels its journey is almost complete and this may also be the case for the man that we see with his back to us this is believed to be Friedrich himself a man now in the last of the four stages of life the other individuals represent earlier stages and all are believed to be members of the artist's own family his youngest children Agnes and Gustav Adolf symbolize childhood his eldest daughter Emma is a figure of Youth beside her his nephew is a symbol of maturity finally Friedrich himself the figure of old age still reluctant to reveal his face to the world but whose genius is evident in this canvas the Beauty and the Poise of its composition in the sense that it is balanced it has you know the five human figures the five ships it's that invitation if you like to read it symbolically that also adds an extra Dimension to it in the sense that we see a figure very much resembling the old Friedrich walking towards the sea as a ship comes in its sails sort of seemingly dropped ready to come to shore comes in the other way we have sort of reflections of we see what we think is his family so that we have Melancholy end of life kind of feeling but at the same time a sense of cycle of Happiness of the possibility of new generations Friedrich died on May the 7th 1840. he was 65 years old his life had often been troubled but his faith remained with him until the end his family also brought him comfort and he had the consolation of his achievements as an artist of all the great painters of the Romantic age 3D is one of the most enigmatic his work was all but forgotten in the decades after his death but the 20th century saw the rediscovery of a painter who more than any other Define the Romantic idea of the sublime Friedrich probably is remembered most of all for being somebody who seemed to have created almost what you might call the spiritual landscape the landscape in which you look at nature and are aware of the spiritual as well as the material this isn't in cultural terms a new invention we can see this in poetry going all the way back you can see this in the 17th century the great mystical Poets of the time but what he does is he makes it visible he makes it into a pictorial experience he relates it and he brings together this very beautiful and detailed perception of nature which he has observed so carefully with the sense of inner feeling what Friedrich achieved was to depict in a very honest way his personal feelings but to at the same time Express a historical situation almost without trying to make a big statement he didn't try to produce beautiful pictures he showed the kind of Despair and the instability and the powerlessness of ordinary people at the time he didn't Pander to any patrons wishes he was perfectly himself to the point almost of self-destructions I think fleeting's achievement was to expanded the possibilities of landscape painting under his brush if you like the landscape becomes saturated with meaning with symbolic religious significance but of a particularly modern kind his finding a kind of landscape correlative to Modern spirituality is very important but he's also an extremely acute Observer of nature he's for someone who can bring a new aesthetic to the artistic imagination and he's also someone who leaves one always with the sense of depth the sense that somehow painting must at least strive to convey something Beyond observation and something of the spiritual something even one might glibly say of the Divine [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Perspective

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Keywords: Caspar David Friedrich legacy, Perspective, art critique, art documentary, art inspiration, cultural impact, emotion in paintings, historical paintings, influential painter, intense emotions in art, landscape imagination, landscape paintings, landscape symbolism, nature connection, nature expressionism., nature in art, nature portrayal, nature transcendence, nature worship, romantic art movement, symbolism in art

Id: 5IGEUY95LFM

Length: 47min 39sec (2859 seconds)

Published: Thu May 04 2023