The Romantic Vision of Caspar David Friedrich: Paintings and Drawings from the U.S.S.R.

by Robert Rosenblum, Boris I. Asvarishch, Sabine Rewald (Editor)

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), Germany's greatest Romantic painter, is acclaimed for his hauntingly evocative landscapes—the Baltic shore at twilight, the mountains of the Riesengebirge at dawn, the harbor of his native Stralsund at midnight. The combined loan of nine paintings, ten watercolors, and one drawing by Friedrich from the State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad, and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, to The Art Institute of Chicago and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, is the first exhibition of Friedrich's work in the United States and a landmark event. Friedrich's paintings and drawings in the Soviet Union, acquired during the artist's lifetime for the Russian imperial family, form the only major collection of the painter's work outside Germany. The first Russian purchase took place in 1820, when the future Czar Nicholas I visited Friedrich's studio in Dresden.

Robert Rosenblum, Henry Ittleson, Jr., Professor of Modern European Art at New York University, in an astute Introduction to the catalogue, charts the artist's international rediscovery during the last two decades and places Friedrich in a broad cultural context. Boris I. Asvarishch, Curator of European Paintings at the Hermitage Museum, recounts in his catalogue essay the fascinating story of the acquisition of Friedrich's work by the imperial family, whose contact with the artist lasted until Friedrich's death in 1840. Sabine Rewald's informative contributions shed new light on Friedrich's works and are augmented by comparative photographs and by bibliography and exhibition histories. Rewald is Associate Curator in the Department of Twentieth-Century Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Genres: Art

110 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1990

About the author

Robert Rosenblum (24 July 1927 - 6 December 2006) was a curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and a professor at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. He is the author of multiple volumes on modern and contemporary art, including The Paintings of August Strindberg and Paintings in the Musee d'Orsay. Rosenblum is the recipient of a Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism.

Reviews

[R.G. Ziemer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exhibition catalog for a show of Caspar David Friedrich's work, on loan from the Hermitage Museum in Russia, which traveled to the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum in NYC among others, in 1990 or so.
Friedrich's work is not well-known, one reason being the fact that so many of his paintings belong to the Russians. Apparently the future Tsar Nicholas I was a fan; he and his wife, the German Princess Alexandra, bought a lot of his work and displayed pieces in their various palaces, including the Peterhof. I caught a glimpse of something of his, while vacationing, in the Hermitage, but on a tour didn't have time to explore for more.
Besides enjoying the moody romantic scenes he painted, I take an interest in the German Friedrich because he was from Pomerania, my Ziemer family's homeland. (Although he was a shop-keeper's son from Greifswald in Ost-pommern--not exactly relatable to my rural Hinterpommern farmworker ancestors.) In my one trip to Germany my wife and visited Greifswald, though, and Stralsund and the Isle of Ruegen, which Friedrich sketched and painted often.
I'd like to go back and spend some time in other places he depicted in his art -- Dresden, where he lived most of his life, and the mountains of Northern Bohemia, another favorite subject.

[Holly Lindquist · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nicely-done intro to Friedrich's works from the Russian collections, including some sepia drawings and more obscure paintings. Lots of classic C. D. Friedrich vistas, things like cathedral spires in fog, mist-wreathed mountains, lonely graves, mysterious and melancholic figures, the rock towers in Bohemian Switzerland, and ruined churches. Lovely, romantic stuff. The text provides interesting details on his life and touches lightly on some of the recurring symbols and themes in his art. The only drawback is that some of paintings are not in full color, but as that would most likely result in a more expensive book, it's not a large complaint.

[Frank McAdam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written to accompany an exhibit of the artist's paintings from Russia's Hermitage collection. A good introduction to Friedrich's work with excellent (though smaller format) reproductions and intelligently written text dealing with the recognition and patronage the painter received from aristocratic Russian collectors. The book fails, however, to put Friedrich in the context of the early 19th century Romantic movement.