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The Genius of Caspar David Friedrich: German Art in the Hermitage
Collection
20 April, 2002 - 18 August, 2002
The new exhibition in the Hermitage Rooms at Somerset House in London,
Great Britain, shows 12 masterpieces (six oil paintings and six sepia
drawings) of Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), the leader of the German
romantic painting. Alongside Friedrich's works, gouaches of Adolf Menzel
(1815-1905) and paintings of Friedrich Johann Overbeck (1789-1869), Josef
Anton Koch (1768-1839), Leo von Klenze (1784-1864), Karl Ferdinand Kügelgen
(1772-1832) and Albrecht Adam (1786-1862) are showed.
The life of Caspar David Friedrich was apparently uneventful. He was born
in the north of Germany, in Greifswald (then in Swedish Pomerania). His
contemporaries remembered him as a reticent and unsociable person who
abandoned his reserve only when among friends. As an artist, Friedrich
had a slow development, gradually freeing himself from the fetters of
traditional schooling. His favorite themes were the island of Ruegen,
Baltic coastline, Germanic antiquities and ruins of medieval cathedrals.
In 1794-1798 he attended the Academy of Arts in Copenhagen, whereupon
he made Dresden his home leaving it only to visit his native town and
travel to the various mountainous areas in Germany.
Friedrich's watercolors and sepia drawings were the first to attract the
public's attention; two of them, showed in 1805 in an exhibition in Weimar
won a prize with Goethe's support and were purchased by the Duke Karl
August. Friedrich started to use oil as late as 1807 but he at once showed
himself to be a mature master. His unordinary ideas and original artistic
language won him Romantics' praises. The artist's paintings were sought
by the King and Crown Prince of Prussia and he was elected to the Academies
of Berlin and Dresden. Inspired by the war against Napoleon, Friedrich
took part in the Patriotic Exhibition organized by the Saxon Governor
General Prince N.G. Repnin in Dresden occupied by the Russian Army. Then
the usual loneliness returned. As the Romantic era was dying out, interest
in his art was fading. He died in 1840 forgotten by all except his close
friends.
Almost all of the Hermitage works of Friedrich come from palaces in St.
Petersburg. In 1820 Nicholas Pavlovich visited his studio and bought the
canvases Sailing-ship and Harbor at Night for Alexandra Fedorovna.
Other paintings and drawings found their way to St. Petersburg due to
Vassily A. Zhukovsky. He met Friedrich in 1821 and was quick to understand
the originality of the kindred romantic spirit. Over many years, till
the artist's last days, the Russian poet used every chance to help him
buying his works himself and recommending them to the Empress and Heir.
Friedrich's art can not boast showy effects, expressive strokes, rich
chiaroscuro or impressive color nuances, however he may be now the most
popular German painter of the 19th century.
The cultivated Russian diplomat A.I. Turgenev wrote in his diary on 6
August, 1825, "We visited Friedrich's atelier today. Listening to
him and seeing his painting was wonderful. He has some bonhomie which
pleases people and his painting reveal his romantic imagination. As a
rule he expresses in them one thought or feeling, though vaguely. You
may meditate over his paintings but not have a clear understanding of
them, for they are vague even in his soul. They are dreams or daydreams.
He often employs very simple natural things such as an ice block floating
on sea waves, a few trees in a dale, window of his room (facing the beautiful
Elbe), knight meditating over ruins or tombstones, monk staring into the
distance or below his feet: all this captivates your soul, plunges you
into dreams, all invokes your imagination, powerfully though vaguely."
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Night in a Harbour (Sisters)
1818-1820
Larger view
On a Sailing Ship
Between 1818 and 1820
Larger view
Moonrise over the Sea
1821
Larger view
Sunset (Brothers)
Between 1830 and 1835
Larger view
Owl in a Gothic Window
Circa 1836
Larger view
Boat on the Shore. Moonrise
Circa 1837-1839
Larger view
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