Caspar David Friedrich
The Soul of Nature
Alison Hokanson editor Joanna Seidenstein editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Metropolitan Museum of Art
Publishing:28th Jan '25
£40.00
This title is due to be published on 28th January, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
A richly illustrated volume surveying the career of Caspar David Friedrich, the German landscape painter whose emotionally profound visions of nature are among the most iconic works of Romantic art
The paintings and drawings of the nineteenth-century German landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) brilliantly illuminate our experience of the natural world. This generously illustrated volume explores how Friedrich, who created some of the most indelible images of Romantic art, deployed signature motifs—moonlit skies, Gothic ruins, isolated figures, and misty panoramas—together with innovative compositional strategies to create paintings and drawings that are metaphorically rich and emotionally profound. Friedrich worked at the dawn of a new understanding in Europe of the human relationship with the natural world, as German artists and intellectuals elevated the exploration of nature into a journey of self-discovery, yielding insights into spirituality, mortality, identity, and history. Essays by leading scholars examine Friedrich’s career, considering how he created a new and open-ended pictorial language to express the Romantic vision of nature. Placing his works in cultural and historic context, the authors evaluate his status as an icon of German Romanticism and as a touchstone for visual culture in the United States, while also exploring his working methods and the complex themes that underpinned his art.
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press
Exhibition Schedule:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
(February 8–May 11, 2025)
ISBN: 9781588397898
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
256 pages