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Prestel Munich · London · New York

001_071_4627_CDF_engl.indd 15 27.03.12 11:14 I VI Caspar David Friedrich proximity and Distance

A New Image? Friedrich and Classical Weimar 18 110

II VII Ways and Byways Political Paintings

Artistic Beginnings in Greifswald and Copenhagen Wars of Liberation and Restoration 32 126

III VIII Picturing the Landscape Seeing in Belief

Working Towards Landscape Painting Monk by the Sea and Abbey in the Oak Wood 48 142

IV IX Crisis and Resolution The Eye of the Draughtsman

Sojourn in Pomerania: 1801/02 Friedrich’s Nature Studies 72 170

V X Under the Sign of the Cross Sublime Landscapes?

The Religious Picture Friedrich’s Critique of Contemporary Aesthetics 88 184

001_071_4627_CDF_engl.indd 16 27.03.12 11:14 XI Reflected Seeing appendix

Friedrich’s Rear-View Figures Notes 200 262

XII Selected Literature Picturing Time 272

Friedrich’s Pictorial Cycles Biography 224 276

XIII List of Works Painting and Depth 278 The Last Years Index 248 284

Photo Credits 286

Source of Quotations 286

Acknowledgements 287

Imprint 288

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A New Image? I

001_071_4627_CDF_engl.indd 19 27.03.12 11:15 20 Caspar David Friedrich

001_071_4627_CDF_engl.indd 20 27.03.12 11:15 Fig. 2 Caroline Bardua Portrait of Caspar David Friedrich 1810 Oil on canvas 76.5 × 60 cm Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin

he name Caspar David Friedrich immediately calls the Dresden artist — all the more astonishing since T to mind a unique, unmistakable artistic persona. Friedrich had despised all things French ever since The very mention of his name is enough to conjure the Napoleonic occupation of Germany. However, up a distinct impression of the artist and his work. Labroue had himself been obliged to leave Metz with We feel we know precisely who is meant. And yet, the his parents, settling first in Germany and later moving images of Friedrich by his contemporaries and later to Russia, which probably meant that he was easily generations are much more varied and contradictory able to converse with Friedrich in German. than might be expected. The existence of a remark- The miniature itself leaves us in no doubt that able number of portraits demonstrates that — contrary Labroue not only met the painter in Dresden but also to tales of a misunderstood artist — he was already became acquainted with his work. The muted, diffuse famous enough during his own lifetime to be a sought background of his portrait looks very much like an after subject.1 Not long ago another portrait emerged allusion to Friedrich’s preference for misty landscapes to join the ranks of those already familiar to us. It and twilight in his paintings, and the pose adopted by came as something of a surprise, not only for its small the artist combines the requirements of portraiture size (8.6 × 7.2 cm) and its style, but also for the fact with another ‘trade mark’ of Friedrich’s work, namely

that it was painted by a French artist, Alphonse de the figure seen from behind. Despite its small format, Fig. 3 Labroue (1792 – 1863) (fig. 1).2 It owes its existence Labroue’s portrait seems perfectly to anticipate the Pierre Jean David d’Angers Portrait of Caspar David Friedrich to an encounter between the two artists in Dresden admiration in David d’Angers evaluation of Friedrich’s 1834 in 1819, when the relatively unknown miniaturist aims a good ten years later: “Voilà un homme qui a Bronze medallion Musée des Beaux-Arts, Angers took the opportunity to capture the features of the découvert la tragédie du paysage!” (“Behold a man landscape painter. And he expressly noted on the who has discovered the tragedy of the landscape!”).4 back of the small ivory panel, painted in watercol- In an almost theatrical manner, Labroue has placed our and gouache, that the portrait was made “après the painter in the landscape as he himself imagined [la] nature”, that is to say, in the presence of the sub- it. Friedrich appears to have become the protagonist ject. In all likelihood, when the two men met Labroue in one of his own paintings, yet his attitude is also that will have been able to make only a detailed sketch of of the supreme master. In its integration of the painter ‹ Fig. 1 Friedrich, which he later painstakingly executed as a into a landscape typical of his own work, Labroue’s Alphonse de Labroue miniature and dated 1820. So it is now clear that long miniature has a certain affinity with an early portrait Portrait of Caspar David Friedrich 1820 5 before Pierre Jean David d’Angers (1788 – 1856) cre- of Friedrich (fig. 2) by Caroline Bardua (1781–1864). Watercolour and gouache on ivory ated a portrait medallion of Friedrich in 1834 (fig. 3),3 Labroue’s dramatisation of the portrait, in the small- 8.6 × 7.2 cm Foundation Custodia, another French artist had already made a portrait of est possible space, stands in the greatest possible Collection Lugt, Paris

A New Image? 21

001_071_4627_CDF_engl.indd 21 27.03.12 11:15 7 Fig. 4 contrast to the painting that Georg Friedrich Kersting later (fig. 4), for now the painting on the easel, being Georg Friedrich Kersting (1785 – 1847) made of his artist-friend. This painting, scrutinised by the artist, is hidden from the viewer’s Caspar David Friedrich in His Studio (II) now in Hamburg (fig. 5),6 showing Friedrich at his gaze. Kersting evokes the artist’s concentration as 1812 Oil on canvas easel — a companion piece to his painting of the stu- he engages in the creative process, and the complete 53.4 × 40.9 cm dio of Gerhard von Kügelgen (1772 – 1820) — does not exclusion here of any outside influences recalls a Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin even hint at the works that are created in this plain, much-cited remark by Friedrich: “Close your physi- austere room. As far as the foreshortened view of the cal eye, so that you see your picture first with the spir- canvas allows, it is possible to make out a thunder- itual eye. Then bring what you saw in the dark into the › Fig. 5 Georg Friedrich Kersting ing waterfall in the painting Friedrich is working on. light, so that it may have an effect on others, shining Caspar David Friedrich The power of this natural phenomenon is entirely at inwards from outside.”8 While Kersting highlights the in His Studio (I) 1811 odds with the silence and seclusion of the studio. This difference between the artist’s immediate surround- Oil on canvas impression is heightened still further in the paint- ings and the landscapes he creates, Labroue suggests 54 × 42 cm Kunsthalle, Hamburg ing Kersting made of Friedrich’s studio just one year a oneness of the art and its maker. And whereas the

22 Caspar David Friedrich

001_071_4627_CDF_engl.indd 22 27.03.12 11:15 001_071_4627_CDF_engl.indd 23 27.03.12 11:15 studio views convey something of the rigorous preci- above all as political and social reflections. There are sion of Friedrich’s painting, the French artist’s paint- also opposing views as to whether fixed meanings ing conveys a sense of the “tragedy of the landscape”. are conveyed by his paintings, or whether his land- There is a remarkable and rich variety in the images scapes are in effect open-ended and that any attempt of Caspar David Friedrich that have come down to to attach particular meanings to them is unaccept- us: an early portrait, painted by Johan ­Ludvig Lund ably reductive.16 Might it be that in his paintings the (1777 – 1867) (fig. 6),9 reproduced as a copper engrav- Dresden artist had found a visual form for thoughts ing by Johann Benjamin Gottschick (1776 – 1844),10 that are on a par with the complex theoretical and aes- shows the young Friedrich in pensive mode, his left thetic deliberations in the air around 1800? Or did hand resting on a book, with no hint of any artistic his work constitute a naïve approach to the world that activity. Not so the much more dramatic portrait by was free of intellectualism and possibly evidence of a Gerhard von Kügelgen, where the artist’s gaze and relatively unsophisticated level of education? These pose are turned directly towards the viewer, giving him questions have been a source of endless, sometimes an unusually resolute air.11 A portrait drawing of 1823 heated, debate among art historians and — despite the by Carl Christian Vogel von Vogelstein (1788 – 1868) renewed efforts of the research community over the again shows the landscape painter without painting last ten years and more — there is as yet no end to the accoutrements and dressed in a coat that is not at all debate. like the Old German dress of Friedrich’s rear-view fig- Although the ongoing divergence of opinion regard- ures at that period.12 And whereas Johann Carl Baehr ing fundamental issues has at times led art historians (1801 – 1869) painted him, one year after his serious to indulge in questionable exaggeration, and spurious stroke, as a dignified, older man (fig. 7),13 Caroline alternatives (certainty of meaning versus open-ended- Bardua’s late portrait of 1839 makes no attempt to ness) have blocked the path to subtler approaches, it conceal Friedrich’s suffering (fig. 8).14 Prominently can also be highly productive. Scholarly debate has placed in the foreground there is an unused artist’s pal- repeatedly encouraged viewers to look at Friedrich’s Fig. 6 ette, with a fine shoot from a plant extending across it. compositions all the more closely and to pay greater Johan Ludvig Lund Portrait of Caspar David Friedrich Individually, each of these portraits appears to present attention to the circumstances of their making. Since c. 1800 Oil on zinc a more or less appropriate characterisation of Caspar the publication of the catalogue raisonné by Helmut Dia. 13.1 cm David Friedrich. But as soon as we view them as a Börsch-Supan and Karl Wilhelm Jähnig in 1973, Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum, Hanover group, the differences become positively disconcert- only four hitherto unknown paintings have come ing. At one moment the painter has a thoughtful, even to light that can be attributed to Friedrich with any melancholic air, at the next he is filled with determi- real ­certainty:17 the London Winter Landscape with nation; in one portrait he is deeply introspective, in Church (fig. 140),18 the Washington Nordic Landscape, another he seems to be directly addressing the viewer; Spring (fig. 11),19 Forest Interior by Moonlight (fig. 12), and whereas Alphonse de Labroue and Caroline Bar- and, most re­­cently, Owl in a Tree (fig. 10).20 By con- dua place the painter in his own landscapes, Kersting trast, while the material basis of research into the portrays him in the bare interior of his studio. work of Caspar David Friedrich has barely changed, Yet we should not be too surprised by the wide vari- in recent decades new documents relating to the art- ety of portraits. The same is seen in the case of other ist’s life have emerged, previously neglected aspects figures, such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who of his work have been explored, and supposed cer- seems to undergo so many transformations in his por- tainties have been questioned.21 Most notably, greater traits that one could be forgiven for doubting that they depth in the examination of Friedrich’s drawings and are all of one and the same person.15 However, in the recent investigations into his creative process have case of Caspar David Friedrich, the striking contrasts laid the foundations for greater sophistication in the in the portraits perfectly match the often irreconcil- interpretation of his work.22 Comparable efforts are able differences in the images of Friedrich in the lit- still required above all with respect to Friedrich’s own erature on his work. Few other artists seem to invite writings, which have, on the whole, not yet received such conflicting interpretations as Friedrich. To this the editorial attention they deserve. day, there is no general agreement as to whether his Since research on Friedrich has by now produced work is an expression of traditional, Protestant faith, an almost incalculable wealth of books and essays whether it arises from a fundamentally new approach and since there is not even consensus with regard to religion and aesthetics, or whether it should be read to some of the most fundamental issues, any attempt

24 Caspar David Friedrich

001_071_4627_CDF_engl.indd 24 27.03.12 11:15 to provide an overview of his life and work must, of the image he saw of himself in a mirror to the sharp Fig. 7 Carl Johann Baehr necessity, operate within certain confines. It has to scrutiny that is required of anyone proposing to make Portrait of Caspar David Friedrich be all but impossible both to present his œuvre as a self-portrait. Some of these seven drawings may owe 1836 Oil on canvas comprehensively as possible and to do justice to the their existence to external circumstances — as in the 55.5 × 47.5 cm full complexity of the highly differentiated debate case of the earliest, from around 1800 (fig. 9) — which Galerie Neue Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, amongst scholars in the field. Moreover, it is impos- was drawn in return for a picture by Friedrich’s friend Dresden sible to delve more deeply into Friedrich’s work — as Johan Ludvig Lund. Other sheets are clearly more per- Fig. 8 is my intention here — without adopting a particular sonal — such as the self-portrait from September 1800 Caroline Bardua standpoint for one’s examination of his compositions. (fig. 14), with emphatically drawn features that almost Portrait of Caspar David Friedrich 1839 However, every decision in favour of a particular per- give it the air of a caricature. Meanwhile two portraits Oil on canvas 77 × 36 cm spective and every view of a work inevitably means from 1802 show an artist searching for his own iden- Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie, Dessau ignoring other matters. Therefore, I ask for forbear- tity. Self-Portrait with Raised Arm (fig. 15) depicts ance in advance from the numerous Friedrich schol- the artist in a melancholic pose at his drawing table, ars, from whom I have learnt both as a reader and in revealing his sensitive persona. However, contrary to conversation, for all the blind spots that by definition the impression created by the rapidity and spontane- arise in any attempt to present an overview of the work ity of the pen on the paper, this portrait could well be of this artist. the outcome of the detailed study of older precedents. In order to establish a point of departure for what Rembrandt van Rijn, for one, portrayed himself in an is to come, let us return once more to the portraits of etching of 1648 (fig. 16) in a similar configuration, Friedrich, but this time to some of his self-portraits, of drawing by a window,24 and in 1758 Georg Friedrich which there appear to be seven in total.23 On several Schmidt (1712 – 1775) chose the same scenario for occasions between 1800 and 1810 Friedrich subjected his own self-portrait.25 In showing himself resting his

A New Image? 25

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