The Sea of Ice
Caspar David Friedrich · 1823
Caspar David Friedrich
Kingdom of Prussia · 1774–1840
The German Romantic who made landscape a subject for contemplation, his small figures seen from behind before sea, mist, ice and ruin.
Play 9 works from this collection on your TV, phone or tablet with Momentable Art TV.
Play CollectionGreifswald to Dresden
Caspar David Friedrich was born on 5 September 1774 in Greifswald, a Baltic port that then belonged to Swedish Pomerania. He learned his craft in Copenhagen from 1794 to 1798 and then settled in Dresden, where he spent the rest of his working life.
He is generally counted the leading German painter of his day, making symbolic, anti-classical landscapes that answer the natural world with feeling rather than with rules. The French sculptor David d'Angers said he had discovered "the tragedy of landscape". Fame fell away in his later years, and he died in 1840 little regarded.
The figure from behind
His signature image is the figure seen from behind, stopped before mist, bare trees, night skies and Gothic ruin. The viewer stands where the figure stands, looking with it rather than at it.
After long neglect his standing returned: a major revival has run since the 1970s, and his silent pictures influenced the Expressionists, and later the Surrealists and Existentialists. The Sea of Ice, buried in incomprehension when new, is now counted among his masterpieces.
Known works
Chalk Cliffs at Ruegen
Caspar David Friedrich · 1818
Chalk Cliffs at Ruegen. A woman in red and two companions lean over white cliffs above the sea, painted after his honeymoon walk on the island of Rügen in 1818.
Sunset
Caspar David Friedrich · 1837
State Hermitage Museum
Sunset. Two men stand facing the sea as the light goes, their backs to us; a canvas now in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg.
Rocky ravine in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains
Caspar David Friedrich · 1822
Upper Belvedere
Rocky ravine in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains. Rock walls closing over a ravine, the trees clinging where they can: high Romantic ground in the hills between Bohemia and Saxony.
Sea beach in the fog
Caspar David Friedrich · 1807
Upper Belvedere
Sea beach in the fog. Shore, water and vapour with almost nothing else, the horizon guessed at rather than shown.
Seashore with fisherman
Caspar David Friedrich · 1807
Upper Belvedere
Seashore with fisherman. A lone figure at work on an empty strand, the sea given more of the canvas than he is.
Ruins of the Oybin
Caspar David Friedrich · 1835
State Hermitage Museum
Ruins of the Oybin. A Gothic ruin dissolving into evening above the trees, its arches softened by the light.
Night in a Harbour
Caspar David Friedrich · 1818
State Hermitage Museum
Night in a Harbour. Ships and masts settled into darkness, a port emptied for the night.
Easter Morning
Caspar David Friedrich · 1828
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum
Easter Morning. A woman walking away from us into morning light, the resurrection read as one small figure on a road.
Sources
Invite Caspar David Friedrich into your living room
Play 9 works from this collection on your TV, phone or tablet with Momentable Art TV.
