Caspar David Friedrich, now viewed as the leading German Romantic artist
of the nineteenth century, was described by one contemporary as the pioneer
of a new genre: ‘the tragedy of landscape.’

Here, Werner Hofmann considers Friedrich’s principal achievement, the invention
of ‘landscape as icon’, and vividly demonstrates the artist’s extraordinary ability to
reproduce the natural world in faithful detail, while at the same time imbuing it with
spiritual and religious significance.

Carefully placing the artist in a wider context, Hofmann examines contemporary
judgments and influences on Friedrich’s work and his difficult relationship with
critics such as Goethe, as well as the way that his religious and political beliefs
informed his art, and his unique place within the framework of European Romanticism
as a whole.

The beautiful illustrations include many of Friedrich’s drawings and watercolours as
well as over ninety of his works in oils.

Friedrich extended an invitation for others to read multiple meanings into his pictures.
Hofmann’s ideas cast a remarkable new light on Friedrich’s work, yet at the same time
leave it open to individual interpretation.

Werner Hofmann was born in Vienna. He was Director of the Kunsthalle, Hamburg,
from 1969 to 1990 and has also held guest professorships at Berkeley, Columbia and
Harvard universities. He has published numerous books on the art of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries.