CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH with his artist quotes on art, painting and biography; painter of German Romanticism and famous for his wide Romantic landscape paintings: ‘The Monk’, ‘Moonrise’
CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH (1774 – 1840) was a painter artist in German Romanticism, famous for his wide landscape painting, at sea or in the high mountains, like in his famous picture ‘The Monk’. Most of Friedrich’s landscapes show a few humble human beings in a wide surrounding, very often seen from their back. Friedrich’s primary interest as an Romantic artist was the contemplation of Nature. His often symbolic art works seek to convey a subjective, emotional response to Nature. Friedrich’s paintings characteristically set a human presence in diminished perspective amid expansive landscapes, reducing the figures to a scale that directs “the viewer’s gaze towards their metaphysical dimension” (Christopher John Murray) of Nature. At the bottom some useful art links for biography notes and more information about the great painter Caspar David Friedrich (ed: Fons Heijnsbroek).
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Caspar David Friedrich: ‘Moonrise’, 1822 |
CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH, 4 quotes & comments by the artist in German Romanticism, famous painting ‘The Monk’
- The artist’s feeling is his law. Genuine feeling can never be contrary to nature; it is always in harmony with her. But another person’s feelings should never be imposed on us as law. Spiritual affinity leads to similarity in work, but such affinity is something entirely different from mimicry. Whatever people may say of Y’s paintings and how they often resemble Z’s, yet they proceed from Y and are his sole property.
* Caspar David Friedrich, source of his artist quotes on romantic painting art style & life: ‘Thoughts on Art’, Caspar David Friedrich, as quoted in ”Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock -”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 32 (painter in German Romanticism period, famous for his wide romantic landscape paintings; art links for more biography facts and information at the bottom)
- People say of such-and-such a painter that he has great command of his brush. Might it not be more correct to say that he is controlled of his brush? Merely for the satisfaction of his vanity, to paint brilliantly and display skill with the brush, he has sacrificed the nobler considerations of naturalness and truth – and thus achieved sorry fame as a brilliant technician.
* Caspar David Friedrich, source of his artist quotes on romantic painting art style & life: ‘Thoughts on Art’, Caspar David Friedrich, as quoted in ”Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock -”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 32 (painter in German Romanticism period, famous for his wide romantic landscape paintings; art links for more biography facts and information at the bottom)
- In this big moonlit landscape by the painter N.N., that deservedly celebrated technician, one sees more than one would wish, or that can actually be seen by moonlight. But what the perceptive, sensitive soul looks for in every painting, and rightly expects to find, is missing… …If that painter could find it in himself to paint fewer, but more deeply-felt, pictures instead of so many clever ones, his contemporaries and posterity would be more grateful to him.
* Caspar David Friedrich, source of his artist quotes on romantic painting art style & life: ‘Thoughts on Art’, Caspar David Friedrich, as quoted in ”Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock -”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 33 (painter in German Romanticism period, famous for his wide romantic landscape paintings; art links for more biography facts and information at the bottom)
- People are always talking about “incidentals’’; but nothing is incidental in a picture, everything is indispensable to the whole effect, so nothing must be neglected. If a man can give value to the main part of his composition only by negligent treatment of the subordinate portions, his work is in a bad way. Everything must and can be carefully executed, without the different parts obtruding themselves on the eye. The proper subordination of the parts to the whole is not achieved by neglecting incidental features, but by correct grouping and by the distribution of light and shadow.
* Caspar David Friedrich, source of his artist quotes on romantic painting art style & life: ‘Thoughts on Art’, Caspar David Friedrich, as quoted in ”Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock -”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, pp. 33-34 (painter in German Romanticism period, famous for his wide romantic landscape paintings; art links for more biography facts and information at the bottom)
Caspar David Friedrich; art links for more biography and history information on the painter artist and his painting art in Romanticism style
