Germany is in Caspar David Friedrich fever. The romantic was not only good at painting, he has also always been taken in by many sides – a recipe for success.
This year Caspar David Friedrich is hiking almost 500 kilometers through Germany. On the occasion of the painter’s 250th birthday, museums in Hamburg, Berlin and Dresden are showing large “anniversary exhibitions”. The highest man in the state, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is the patron of the shows.
But that’s not all: there are also smaller exhibitions, including in Friedrich’s birthplace, Greifswald. A non-fiction book about the German painter has been on the “Spiegel” bestseller list for ten weeks and is currently in first place. There are also countless fan articles, a website for the painter that provides information about all events, and so on.
So much honor for a Romantic painter who will soon be dead for 184 years: The Germans love Friedrich, the landscape painter is the favorite painter of many people in this country. But why? What does Caspar David Friedrich embody that attracts Germans so much? A search for clues.
Let’s start with the pictures. They have an incredibly melancholic beauty. Friedrich’s paintings only develop their full effect when you look at the canvas in the museum. Friedrich’s greatest strength is his brushwork.
The play of light and shadow, the mostly dark images that are never monotonous, never dreary. Florian Illies, the author of Bestseller “The Magic of Silence”said in a “Zeit” podcast that Friedrich had invented his “own language” that was still accessible to everyone: “He paints longing. That is understandable worldwide. That is the most timeless feeling.”
Some of his pictures have become icons, especially “The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog”, the “Chalk Cliffs of Rügen”, “Two Men Contemplating the Moon”, and the “Tetschener Altar”. Many Germans are familiar with the paintings; they immediately flash before their minds. Which German painter has had a similar effect?
Friedrich’s best seller: A man (less often a woman) stands with his back turned to the viewer (probably because he wasn’t that good at painting faces) in front of beautiful nature in the twilight. “Observed loneliness” is what Friedrich expert and art historian Johannes Grave calls it on Deutschlandfunk. A feeling that many people apparently share.
“They are high-level atmospheric images,” says Grave. “We can’t really say whether it’s dusk or dawn.” This invites you to look closely, to linger, to puzzle. And to admire. Friedrich’s paintings illustrate the supposed melancholy of the Germans.
In addition: Friedrich painted Germany, more precisely East Germany. The native of Greifswald never visited West Germany for longer; he drew his inspiration from East German landscapes.
He spent more than 40 years of his life in Dresden and died here. Friedrich never traveled to Italy, although the country on the Adriatic was a place of longing for many of his contemporaries. For example, his contemporaries, such as the writer Johann Wolfgang Goethe and the painter Carl Gustav Carus, were drawn to Italy.
Friedrich stayed in Germany, he painted Germany. He painted the soul of the Germans. He painted himself into the hearts of the Germans. He is Frederick the Great. Friedrich, the great painter.
