Caspar David Friedrich

In the Mind of Great Artists

We could make this publication thanks to small donations. How is 3 minutos de arte supported?

 

“The artist should paint not only what he has in front of him, but what he sees inside himself.”
Caspar David Friedrich

 

It is a phrase uttered by a decidedly Romantic artist, and it is not surprising that Friedrich was one of the most important painters of the German Romanticism.

It is a phrase that masterfully expresses the vision of the modern artist, many decades before modernity. It makes us realize that the time limits imposed to the movements, the tendencies or styles are necessary to study and understand them, but may be relative: “seeds” and pioneers can be found long before that conventional and meticulous story. History is not a line.

Romanticism was a reaction against Neoclassicism at the beginning of the 19th century. Reason and intellect were left behind, to give priority to passion and imagination.

In most of his work, Friedrich —as in this painting— shows his inner point of view: man is tiny in the face of nature’s immensity.

Man is just a spectator of the wonderful show of the Divine Creation. In many of the paintings, the characters are with their backs turned, contemplating.

He is not another “Romantic landscape painter.” His paintings are not a simple and faithful imitation of the natural landscape. They are instead psychological, metaphysical, subjective, disturbing landscapes, full of melancholy and solitude and they are sublime at the same time.
In the infinite universe, man is small. Greatness can only be achieved through humility.

 

Image: Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818).

 

Recommended links:

The Raft of the Medusa (1818/19), Géricault.

The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up (1839), Turner.

Nightfall on the Thames (1880), John Atkinson Grimshaw.

Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth (1842), Turner.

Turner Seascapes and Romanticism.

You can also find more material using the search engine.

 

Would you like to support 3 minutos de arte?
Our project.

0 Comments

Leave a Reply

Avatar placeholder

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.