Master Watercolors

Caspar David Friedrich

Watercolor, detail.
"Torruine bei Meissen", 1824.
Musée d'Angers, France. (17,9 cm x 11,7 cm)

Caspar David Friedrich, born in Greifswald, a port on the Baltic Sea, can be regarded as the foremost German Romantic painter.
He travelled throughout northern Europe and made detailed sketches of its terrain, but his paintings contain elements of different settings in wholly imagined scenes.
After studying in Copenhagen, Friedrich left his home, Greifswald, for Dresden, the art capital of Europe in the nineteenth century. He specialised in sepia, watercolors, and topographical drawings, turning to oils by 1808.
He met Goethe in 1805 when he won a prize for two drawings in a competition sponsored by the poet.


"The pure, frank sentiments we hold in our hearts are the only truthful sources of art. A painting which does not take its inspiration from the heart is nothing more than futile juggling. All authentic art is conceived at a sacred moment and nourished in a blessed hour; an inner impulse creates it, often without the artist being aware of it."























The Sea of Ice (German: Das Eismeer), also called The Wreck of Hope (German: Die gescheiterte Hoffnung), oil on canvas, of 1823-1824.
(96.7 cm × 126.9 cm) Kunsthalle Hamburg, Germany.

Literature:
Börsch-Supan, Helmut; Jähnig, Karl Wilhelm,Caspar David Friedrich: Gemalde, Druckgraphik und bildmaßige Zeichnungen.

Werner Hofmann, Caspar David Friedrich.

Gottfried Riemann, Von Caspar David Friedrich Bis Adolf Menzel: Aquarelle Und Zeichnungen Der Romantik.


Photographs: masterwatercolors




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posted by P.S. @ 10:06 PM