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Caspar David Friedrich
German RomanticismPatron Master

Caspar
Friedrich

1774 – 1840German

Caspar David Friedrich (5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. His symbolic and anti-classical work conveys a subjective, emotional response to the natural world.

Selected Works

Born
1774
Died
1840
Nationality
German
Movement
German Romanticism

Selected Masterworks

Definitive works that define this master's artistic legacy.

View all 15 works
Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon
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c.1824

Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon

c.1824Major Work
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Two Men Contemplating the Moon (German: Zwei Männer in Betrachtung des Mondes) and Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon are a series of similar paintings by Caspar David Friedrich, the setting being among his best-known works. Friedrich painted at least three versions, with one variation featuring a man and a woman. The 1819–20 version in the Galerie Neue Meister is considered the original; the c. 1824 variant with a woman is in the Alte Nationalgalerie; and the c.

The Stages of Life
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1835

The Stages of Life

1835Major Work
Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig

The Stages of Life (German: Die Lebensstufen) is an allegorical oil painting of 1835 by the German Romantic landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich. Completed just five years before his death, this picture, like many of his works, forms a meditation both on his own mortality and on the transience of life.

The Sea of Ice
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1823–1824

The Sea of Ice

1823–1824Major Work
Kunsthalle Hamburg

himself does not even know what he will paint; he waits for the moment of inspiration, which (in his own words) occasionally comes in a dream.

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog
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1818

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

1818Major Work
Kunsthalle Hamburg

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog[a] is a painting by German Romanticist artist Caspar David Friedrich in 1818. It depicts a man standing upon a rocky precipice with his back to the viewer; he is gazing out on a landscape covered in a thick sea of fog through which other ridges, trees, and mountains pierce, which stretches out into the distance indefinitely.

The Abbey in the Oakwood
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1808–1810

The Abbey in the Oakwood

1808–1810Major Work
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin

The Abbey in the Oakwood (German: Abtei im Eichwald) is an oil painting by the German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich. It was painted between 1809 and 1810 in Dresden and was first shown together with the painting The Monk by the Sea in the Prussian Academy of Arts exhibition of 1810. On Friedrich's request The Abbey in the Oakwood was hung beneath The Monk by the Sea. This painting is one of over two dozen of Friedrich's works that include cemeteries or graves.

Cross in the Mountains (Tetschen Altar)
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1808

Cross in the Mountains (Tetschen Altar)

1808Major Work
Galerie Neue Meister, Dresden

Cross in the Mountains, also known as the Tetschen Altar, is an oil painting by the German artist Caspar David Friedrich designed as an altarpiece. Among Friedrich's first major works, the 1808 painting marked an important break with the conventions of landscape painting by including Christian iconography.

Chalk Cliffs on Rugen
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Chalk Cliffs on Rugen

Major Work

Chalk Cliffs on Rügen (German: Kreidefelsen auf Rügen) is an oil painting of circa 1818 by German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich.

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