Caspar david friedrich prints
Caspar david friedrich interesting facts...
Caspar David Friedrich, 'Winter Landscape', probably 1811
This was the first painting by Friedrich, one of the principal figures of German Romantic art, to enter a British public collection when purchased by the National Gallery in 1987.
It had been discovered in Paris in 1982 in the collection of an exiled Russian prince.
Caspar david friedrich national gallery
It shows a snowy landscape in which a man, having cast aside his crutches, lies against a large boulder as he prays in front of a shining crucifix protected by three fir trees (a trinity that recalls the Christian Trinity).
In the distance, the silhouette of a German Gothic cathedral looms in the mist, its facade and spires echoing the shapes of the trees in the foreground.
The picture most likely dates from 1811 and appears to be a pendant (companion) to another painting, of the same date and title, in the Staatliches Museum, Schwerin.
In the Schwerin picture, a similar tiny figure, leaning on a crutch, stares at a deserted snow-covered landscape under a grey-b
