Friedrich, Caspar David

Friedrich, Caspar David (käs`pär dä`fēt frē`drĭkh), 1774–1840, German romantic landscape painter. After studying painting in Copenhagen he visited various scenic spots in Germany and chose to live in Dresden, where he remained until his death. Friedrich's melancholy and symbolic compositions were singular expressions of the significance of landscape. His use of unusual, often eerie, light effects unified the mood of his works. His approach was a solitary one and his influence was not great, although he taught from 1816 until his death. Such works as Capuchin Friar by the Sea, Man and Woman Gazing at the Moon (both: Berlin), and Two Men Contemplating the Moon (c.1830, Metropolitan Mus. of Art, New York City) typically project his mystical and pantheistic attitude toward nature.

Bibliography

See studies by H. Börsch-Supan (1974) and S. Rewald (2001).

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Friedrich, Caspar David

(born Sept. 5, 1774, Greifswald, Pomerania—died May 7, 1840, Dresden, Saxony) German painter. He studied at the Copenhagen Academy. After 1798 he settled in Dresden and began his career as a topographical draftsman in pencil and sepia wash. His first important oil painting, The Cross in the Mountains (1807–08), achieves an overwhelming sense of isolation. In 1824 he was appointed professor at the Dresden Academy. His vast, mysterious landscapes and seascapes, proclaiming human helplessness against the forces of nature, did much to establish the sublime as a primary focus of Romanticism. Interest in his work revived with the rise of Symbolism at the beginning of the 20th century.