POTM EP. V: Discover the Thought-Provoking World of Caspar David Friedrich Masterpiece
“Two Men Contemplating the Moon” — Caspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) was a German Romantic landscape painter. He was considered one of the most influential artists of his time and specialized in mid-period allegorical landscapes featuring contemplative figures against night skies, morning mists, barren trees, or Gothic ruins.
Growing up in a family of ten siblings, Friedrich experienced tragedy at an early age with the loss of two sisters and one brother who drowned while attempting to save him from a frozen lake.
In 1790, Friedrich began studying art under Johann Gottfried Quistorp, where Adam Elsheimer’s work was first exposed, and the theology of Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten, which posits that nature is a revelation of God. Friedrich went on to attend the prestigious Academy of Copenhagen in 1794, where he studied literature and aesthetics and honed his art skills by copying casts from antique sculptures and drawing from life.
Norse mythology and Icelandic folklore influenced The Sturm und Drang movement, which was introduced to Friedrich at the Academy and subsequently impacted his ability to convey mood in his paintings.
In the late 19th century, his work fell out of favor as Germany moved towards modernization. Still, it wasn’t until 1906 that his paintings were exhibited again and gained popularity with Expressionists and Surrealists throughout the 20th century. It was in the late 1970s that Friedrich’s reputation as an icon of German Romanticism returned internationally.
Two Men Contemplating the Moon
The moon, the central motif of romantic longing, forms the center of the picture. Friedrich groups the other pictorial elements in a circular motion.
It rises to the right with the bare gnarled tree, a symbol of death. At the top, its dry branches reach into the crown of the evergreen spruce, which can be understood as the promise of eternal life.
Below her, two men have gathered, who watch the natural spectacle together as one trustingly puts his arm on the shoulder of the other. One could tell from the chemistry that these are two familiar individuals.
According to contemporary tradition, it is the painter himself and his pupil August Heinrich — the picture stands in the practice of romantic artist friendship, which the literature of the time practically celebrated.
Together, the two have hiked on the stony path and pause. The night as an alternative to the busyness of life during the day offers the calm to measure the felt infinity of the distance to the moon, which in turn leads to the innermost part of the viewer. With his clothing, Frederick takes a political stand. It is the so-called old German costume, with which the students of the time expressed their resistance to the restorative currents of the ruling governments — Author: Holger Birkholz, 2018
These two figures are seen from behind so that the viewer may participate in their communion with nature. Fascination with the moon ran high among the German Romantics, who regarded the motif as an object of pious contemplation.
Origins and Inspiration
Throughout his life, Friedrich had a small number of people influence him. He did not travel to Rome as most painters do in search of inspiration, and he paid less attention to Italian masters like Michelangelo. Friedrich developed his own style by fusing less well-known sources with his aesthetic ideals.
A significant influence on Friedrich’s thought process came from Kosegarten, a theologist the artist met early in his career. Kosegarten believed that God was not just in nature but above nature. After meeting him, Friedrich’s painting took on a more religious subject matter.
Friedrich frequently returned to themes during his career, and this painting is one of them. These pieces are written with only a few grips, allowing for two levels of interpretation: political and religious.
For the political, one must comprehend the work in its original context. Carlsbad Resolutions were issued during the restorative Congress of Vienna (1814/15), which barred any liberal or national trend in Germany following Napoleon Bonaparte’s reign. As an original German emblem, the oak tree represents optimism for a nation-state that is slowly but steadily fading.
Friedrich’s pictorial personnel, dressed for the substantiation of this theory, escapes from society and daylight to catch a glimpse of light in the truest sense of the word through the waxing moon, which in stark contrast to the oak is to be interpreted as a bearer of hope. In favor of this theory is that the moon is positioned centrally in the picture and above the implied abyss and attracts the viewer’s attention by its very bright appearance in the night scene.
Since the artist was also very religious, a religious interpretation also makes sense. According to this, the rotten oak would stand for everything pagan, which the Christian religion has overcome with its savior Jesus Christ, who is present in the picture through the rising, waxing moon.
Until 1890, when symbolism began to resonate with creative emotions, particularly in Central Europe, Friedrich was mainly ignored due to a disregard for the “painterly impact.” Regardless, he had numerous contemporaries, like Johan Christian Dahl and Arnold Böcklin, whose work he profoundly inspired.
His spiritual paintings inspired American painters like Albert Pinkham Ryder, Ralph Blakelock of the Hudson River School, and New England Luminists. In 1906, an exhibition of Friedrich’s works sparked modern Friedrich scholarship, and he has been seen as a precursor to the Symbolist movement by symbolist painters.
Numerous 20th-century artists, including Mark Rothko, Gerhard Richter, Gotthard Graubner, and Anselm Kiefer, have cited Friedrich as an inspiration in their works. Robert Rosenblum compared Friedrich’s paintings with those of Turner’s The Evening Star and Rothko’s Light Earth & Blue. At the same time, Paul Nash depicted crashed German planes similar to The Sea of Ice. Chilean history has also been reinterpreted through landscapes inspired by Friedrich’s work by Christiane Pooley.
The opening scene of Samuel Beckett’s groundbreaking play, “Waiting for Godot,” is suggested by Friedrich’s composition. The iconic scene depicts “A country road. A tree. Evening.” This image is later echoed in the first act as Estragon contemplates the moon while standing under a tree, generating an unexpected moment of self-awareness for the characters. Finally, at the end of the second act and the close of the play, there is another reference to Friedrich’s painting.
