"A painting must stand as a painting, made by human hand,” wrote Caspar David Friedrich, "not seek to disguise itself as Nature.” One of his generation’s most popular painters, Friedrich imagined landscapes of powerful beauty and spirituality from within the confines of his studios. This breathtaking monograph, filled with glorious reproductions and details of his paintings, argues for Friedrich’s reputation as a sublime artist and interpreter of nature. In his thoughtful and well-researched commentary, author Johannes Grave explores Friedrich’s approach to landscape painting as well as his revolutionary thoughts about how these paintings should be received by their viewers. Looking closely at pieces such as Monk by the Sea, Abbey in the Oakwood, and the Tetschener Altar, Grave shows how Friedrich developed an innovative approach to landscape painting, one that communicated a new sense of space and time, and which draws the viewer into a unique aesthetic experience. Highly readable, insightful, and copiously illustrated, this compelling book sheds crucial light on Friedrich’s celebrated body of work.
»the most handsome large-format art book around«
Biography
Johannes Grave
Johannes Grave is a professor of art history at the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Germany. He has published works on the painting of the early Renaissance and Giovanni Bellini.
Quotes
“Luxuriant.”
»Caspar David Friedrich ... conveys a fuller sense of Friedrich’s enigmatic, landscape-centered art than any single museum or exhibition could possibly provide.«
»a big, impressive volume with wonderful reproductions«
»[Friedrich’s] haunting and mysterious canvases are beautifully reproduced by Prestel in Caspar David Friedrich.«
»gorgeous images and a wealth of information«
»a magnificent and uniquely detailed overview«
»a must, smartly organised and opulently illustrated.«
»This magnificent visual record of the work of the German artist, who was virtually unknown before the 1960s, is matched by its scholarly text.«
“The sumptuously illustrated Caspar David Friedrich…is a good guide to one of the major artists of the Romantic era.”
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