CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH Among the first Northern
European artists to depict the Romantic transcendental landscape
was Caspar David Friedrich(1774–1840). For Friedrich, land-
scapes were temples and his paintings were altarpieces. The reveren-
tial mood of his works demands from the viewer the silence appro-
priate to sacred places filled with a divine presence.Abbey in the Oak
Forest (FIG. 30-21) serves as a solemn requiem. Under a winter sky,
through the leafless oaks of a snow-covered cemetery, a funeral pro-
cession bears a coffin into the ruins of a Gothic church that Friedrich
based on the remains of Eldana Abbey in Greifswald. The emblems
of death are everywhere—the season’s desolation, the leaning crosses
and tombstones, the black of mourning that the grieving wear, the
skeletal trees, the destruction time has wrought on the church. The
painting is a meditation on human mortality. As Friedrich himself
remarked: “Why, it has often occurred to me to ask myself, do I so
frequently choose death, transience, and the grave as subjects for my
paintings? One must submit oneself many times to death in order
some day to attain life everlasting.”^2 The artist’s sharp-focused ren-
dering of details demonstrates his keen perception of everything in
the physical environment relevant to his message. Friedrich’s work
balances inner and outer experience. “The artist,” he wrote, “should
not only paint what he sees before him, but also what he sees within
him. If he does not see anything within him, he should give up
painting what he sees before him.”^3 Although Friedrich’s works may
not have the theatrical energy of the paintings of Géricault or
Delacroix, a resonant and deep emotion pervades them.
JOHN CONSTABLEOne of the most momentous develop-
ments in Western history—the Industrial Revolution—influenced
the evolution of Romantic landscape painting in England. Although
discussion of the Industrial Revolution invariably focuses on tech-
nological advances, factory development, and growth of urban cen-
ters, its effect on the countryside and the land itself was no less se-
vere. The detrimental economic impact industrialization had on the
prices for agrarian products produced significant unrest in the En-
glish countryside. In particular, increasing numbers of displaced
farmers could no longer afford to farm their small land plots.John Constable(1776–1837) addressed the agrarian situation
in his landscape paintings.The Haywain (FIG. 30-22) is representa-
tive of Constable’s art and reveals much about his outlook. A small
cottage sits on the left of this placid, picturesque scene of the country-
side, and in the center foreground a man leads a horse and wagon
across the stream. Billowy clouds float lazily across the sky. The muted
greens and golds and the delicacy of Constable’s brush strokes aug-
ment the scene’s tranquility. The artist portrayed the oneness with na-
ture that the Romantic poets sought. The relaxed figures are not ob-
servers but participants in the landscape’s being.
Constable made countless studies from nature for each of his
canvases, which helped him produce in his paintings the convincing
sense of reality that won so much praise from his contemporaries. In
his quest for the authentic landscape, Constable studied it as a mete-
orologist (which he was by avocation). His special gift was for cap-
turing the texture that the atmosphere (the climate and the weather,
which delicately veil what is seen) gave to landscape. Constable’s use
of tiny dabs of local color, stippled with white, created a sparkling
shimmer of light and hue across the canvas surface—the vibration
itself suggestive of movement and process.
The Haywain is also significant for precisely what it does not
show—the civil unrest of the agrarian working class and the outbreaks
of violence and arson that resulted. The people who populate Consta-
ble’s landscapes blend into the scenes and are at one with nature.
Rarely does the viewer see workers engaged in tedious labor. Indeed,
this painting has a nostalgic, wistful air to it, and reflects Constable’s
memories of a disappearing rural pastoralism. The artist’s father was a
rural landowner of considerable wealth, and many of the scenes Con-
stable painted (The Haywain included) depict his family’s property
near East Bergholt in Suffolk, East Anglia. This nostalgia, presented in
such naturalistic terms, renders Constable’s works Romantic in tone.
That Constable felt a kindred spirit with the Romantic artists is re-
vealed by his comment “painting is but another word for feeling.”^4
J.M.W. TURNER Constable’s contemporary in the English
school of landscape painting,Joseph Mallord William Turner
(1775–1851), produced work that also responded to encroaching in-794 Chapter 30 EUROPE AND AMERICA, 1800 TO 187030-21Caspar David
Friedrich,Abbey in the Oak
Forest,1810. Oil on canvas,
3 71 – 2 5 7 – 41 . Nationalgalerie,
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
Berlin.
Friedrich was a master of the
Romantic transcendental land-
scape. The reverential mood
of this winter scene with the
ruins of a Gothic church and
cemetery demands the silence
appropriate to sacred places.1 ft.30-21AFRIEDRICH,
Wanderer
above a Sea of
Mist,1817–1818.