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Caspar David Friedrich

Caspar David Friedrich, born on 5 September 1774 in Greifswald and died on 7 May 1840 in Dresden, is the great painter of German Romanticism. After studying in Copenhagen he moved to Dresden in 1798 and stayed there for the rest of his life. From there he walked again and again into Saxon Switzerland – with sketchbook and pencil. He painted his pictures later in his studio, freely combining motifs from different places. Typical features are figures seen from behind, mist, evening light and a quiet, contemplative mood.

Walks in the Elbe sandstone

In the year 1800 alone, Friedrich visited the area at least five times; at the beginning of July he drew the gate and the “Schinderloch” in Hohnstein. Later came the Gamrig near Rathen (1808), the Polenztal, the Amselgrund and the old Elbe gate in Pirna. Around 1818 he walked to the Kuhstall with his wife and his friends Kummer and Carus, and in 1820 he drew the Coselturm in Stolpen. He spent a week in the Uttewalder Grund “among rocks and firs” – the accounts of the year vary.

The summer of 1813 in Krippen

In the spring of 1813, during the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon, Friedrich left Dresden, which was overrun with troops, and stayed with his friend Friedrich Gotthelf Kummer in the fishing village of Krippen on the Elbe. The turbulent times at first robbed him of any desire to work – only on 1 June did he note “the first drawing after a long time”. Two days later, on 3 June 1813, he drew a rocky summit at the foot of the Kaiserkrone. Years later this sheet became the rock on which his most famous wanderer stands. The sources differ on how long he stayed.

The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

The picture was painted around 1818 and now hangs in the Hamburger Kunsthalle. A man in a dark coat stands on a rock and gazes out over a sea of fog. The landscape exists nowhere in this form – Friedrich assembled it from pieces of Saxon Switzerland: the rock in the foreground comes from the Kaiserkrone, in the middle ground stands the Gamrig near Rathen, on the right the Zirkelstein, and to that he added the view from the Wolfsberg near Krippen; at the back on the left is a Bohemian cone-shaped hill – whether the Rosenberg or the Kaltenberg remains an open question among scholars. What the picture means has still not been settled to this day.

Rocky landscape and the Tetschen Altarpiece

The “Rocky Landscape in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains” of 1822/23, in the Belvedere in Vienna, shows the rocks at the gate of the Neurathen rock castle at the Bastei – Friedrich deliberately left out the paths and footbridges that already existed there. He made his name with the “Cross in the Mountains”, which he showed in his studio at Christmas 1808; in 1809 the Thun-Hohenstein couple bought it for their castle in Tetschen – hence the “Tetschen Altarpiece”. At the time, an indignant critic asked whether landscape painting should now be allowed to creep “onto the altars”. The controversy made Friedrich famous. The picture hangs today in the Albertinum in Dresden.

Later years and rediscovery

In 1816 Friedrich became a member of the Dresden Academy, in 1818 he married Caroline Bommer, and from 1823 the Norwegian painter J. C. Dahl lived in the same house on the Elbe. He never became a full professor – his painting was considered too personal. After a stroke in the mid-1830s he could barely paint any more; after his death he was almost forgotten. It took a major exhibition in Berlin in 1906 to bring him back. For his 250th birthday in 2024, the Hamburger Kunsthalle alone welcomed 335,000 visitors – more than ever before.

In his footsteps

The Caspar-David-Friedrich-Weg near Krippen, opened in April 2024, is a loop of around 15 kilometres over the Kaiserkrone, Zirkelstein and Wolfsberg. Boards show Friedrich’s sketches right beside today’s view, and on the Bächelweg in Krippen there is a sandstone stele bearing his profile. In 2025 the trail was voted “Germany’s most beautiful hiking trail” in the day-hike category. You can see his paintings in Dresden in the Albertinum, including the Tetschen Altarpiece, and around 70 drawings in the Kupferstich-Kabinett (Collection of Prints, Drawings and Photographs); on the Brühlsche Terrasse a monument commemorates him.

Links to other places

Friedrich’s motifs are found in many places I also know stories about: the Neurathen rock castle at the Bastei, Hohnstein castle, the Kuhstall with Wildenstein castle, the Zirkelstein and Kaiserkrone, Stolpen castle with the Coselturm and Schloss Děčín, for which the Tetschen Altarpiece was intended. His friend and pupil was Carl Gustav Carus, and his neighbour in the same house was J. C. Dahl.

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