The Course / History of German Caspar David Friedrich 8/9

Established in 1994, The Course offers innovative and exciting lectures in Art History, Literature, Music and Opera.

In this series on German Art, we will go from medieval to modern Germany through artists who would come to be a major influence not just on Northern art but also on the Italian Renaissance and ultimately European art. It will begin in the 1460s and demonstrate the interconnectivity of German artists through their itinerancy, their ingenuity, and rigorous work ethic. Each of the weekly lectures will take a look at an individual artist and in so doing take us from the medieval wood carvings of Tilman Riemenschneider, to the Renaissance art of Lucas Cranach the Elder and Hans Holbein the Younger, to the Baroque art of Adam Elsheimer; from Neo-Classicism to Romanticism and finally to German art of the 19th century with its impact on French Impressionism.

Caspar David Friedrich (1774 – 1840)

Here, we emerge into the period of romantic painting through the work of Caspar David Friedrich. This German romantic was actually born in Pomerania, then part of Sweden, but he eventually settled in Dresden where he nurtured a close association with its circle of Romantic scholars and poets. Friedrich is principally famous for his lone figures in the landscape, and symbolic and imaginary images of the forest.