Friedrich: Inventing Romanticism

Description

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) was a German painter, graphic artist and draftsman. Today he is recognized as one of the most significant artists of German early Romanticism. Through his constructed visual inventions oriented toward aesthetic effect, which contradict conventional notions of romantic painting as emotional expression, he made an original contribution to modern art. In Friedrich's major works, the break with Baroque and Classical landscape painting traditions is executed in revolutionary fashion. The thematic and motif canon of these images unites landscape and religion primarily in allegories of solitude, death, afterlife concepts and hopes of redemption. Friedrich's melancholy-infused worldview and self-understanding is seen as exemplary for the artist's image in the Romantic era. The painter offers open-ended meanings through works with largely unfamiliar image contexts, involving the viewer's emotional world in the interpretive process. The semantic openness of the images has led, since Friedrich's rediscovery at the beginning of the 20th century, to numerous often fundamentally different interpretations and theoretical frameworks from art historical, philosophical, literary, psychological or theological perspectives. Exhibition catalog: Museum Folkwang Essen, May 5–August 20, 2006; Hamburger Kunsthalle, October 7, 2006–January 28, 2007. Published by Hirmer, Munich, 2006. 383 pages with numerous illustrations. Hardcover, folio format. Excellent condition.