WINTER LANDSCAPE - CASPAR FRIEDRICH

Caspar Friedrich (1774-1840) was one of the leading artists of the German Romanticism art movement.  His aspiration was not to paint true representations of what he saw, but wanted his work to "reflect the artist's soul and emotions in the landscape."  

 

Winter Landscape - 1811

This painting introduces us to a bleak winter scene with a snow-covered ground stretching as far as the eye can see.  It features an old man, bent over with two wooden sticks or crutches, between two gnarled tree trunks.  To the left of the man are the stumps of trees that have been cut down.  Some art historians suggest this is symbolic of the end of life and that the painting is an allegory for the aged man coming to the end of his life....as the landscape and vegetation have also reached the end of their life cycle. 

The same year, 1811, Friedrich painted a companion piece showing a contradictory sequence to the first painting.  

Winter Landscape with Church - 1811

In this second painting, the artist paints a Gothic church emerging out of the misty backdrop, with a red-tinted threatening winter sky.  In the middle of the picture we have to look closely to see the same man leaning back against a boulder.  He had arrived at the end of his journey, and here he is leaning back, gazing up in prayer at the crucifix that's positioned in front of a cluster of evergreen trees.  The figure of Christ on the cross looks down upon the man.   Note the abandoned crutches laying on the snow.  The man is devoutly looking at the cross, and this is interpreted as the man's blind faith in his Christian beliefs and the security he feels from those personal values.

The first painting portrays a man's aloneness, but the second painting shows the same man in prayer and we know that he has reached the place where he wants to be.  The moods of the two companion paintings are very different.  The snow is the same, but the artist replaced hopelessness with hope.  The figure of Christ is symbolic of that hope.  

Looming on the horizon we see the spires of a grand Gothic church reaching up to the heavens.  The church's silhouette is similar to that of the trees.  We see Nature and the Christian faith in Friedrich's work.

The main focus of my December blogs is the winter season and how artists used winter to paint the beauty of nature, the passage of time and, most importantly, the human experience.  Winter is used in art to symbolize the end of something.....a relationship, a life, or looking forward to the future of spring after a time of personal struggles.   

We are learning that art may be considered a mirror of life.  When we stand before a painting, we don't just see shapes and colors.  Great artists encourage us to view life from various angles and perceptions, showing us the way to compassion and understanding.