Caspar David Friedrich
Painting, Visual Artist
1774 – 1840
Who was Caspar David Friedrich?
Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic ruins. His primary interest as an artist was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic and anti-classical work seeks to convey a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich's paintings characteristically set a human presence in diminished perspective amid expansive landscapes, reducing the figures to a scale that, according to the art historian Christopher John Murray, directs "the viewer's gaze towards their metaphysical dimension".
Friedrich was born in the Pomeranian town of Greifswald at the Baltic Sea, where he began his studies in art as a young man. He studied in Copenhagen until 1798, before settling in Dresden. He came of age during a period when, across Europe, a growing disillusionment with materialistic society was giving rise to a new appreciation of spirituality.
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- Born
- Sep 5, 1774
Greifswald - Also known as
- Caspar Friedrich
- Nationality
- Germany
- Profession
- Education
- Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts
- University of Greifswald
- Employment
- Professor of Painting, Academy of Fine Arts Dresden
( - 1842)
- Professor of Painting, Academy of Fine Arts Dresden
- Lived in
- Greifswald
- Copenhagen
- Dresden
- Died
- May 7, 1840
Dresden
Submitted
on July 23, 2013
Citation
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"Caspar David Friedrich." Biographies.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.biographies.net/people/en/caspar_david_friedrich>.
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