This vast landscape by one of the central figures of German Romanticism dates from Caspar David Friedrich’s early years in Dresden, where he settled after studying in Copenhagen (then considered the artistic center of northern Europe). Subtly graded shades of gray wash evoke the gloomy, overcast days so common in Germany in November, when this image was created. The drawing also conveys, in the artist’s words, “Not only what he sees before him, but also what he sees within him.” In the center of the landscape, atop the highest peak, a tiny pilgrim kneels in prayer at the base of a statue of the Madonna. Nature—with its sheer, blank sky, stark hills, and mute firs—is depicted almost religiously. In this deeply spiritual image, humankind’s experience of nature seems as overwhelming as the unfathomable mystery of our existence. Just as the infinitesimal pilgrim wanders in this faraway, expansive landscape, so too did the artist embark upon his own Romantic quest, a search for meaning in the natural world that reveals the sacred.
Date
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Brush and black ink and gray wash, with graphite, on cream wove paper
Dimensions
24.4 × 38.2 cm (9 5/8 × 15 1/16 in.)
Credit Line
Margaret Day Blake Collection
Reference Number
1976.22
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Helmut Bösch-Supan and Karl Wilhelm Jähnig, Caspar David Friedrich: Genälde, Druckgraphik und bildmäßige Zeichnungen (Munich, 1973), pp. 280-81, no. 119 (ill.).
Harold Joachim, “A Drawing by Caspar David Friedrich,” Bulletin of The Art Institute of Chicago 70:5 (September-October 1976), pp. 18-19 (ill.).
James N. Wood and Sally Ruth May, The Art Institute of Chicago: The Essential Guide (Chicago, 1993), p. 212 (ill.).
Treasures from The Art Institute of Chicago, selected by James N. Wood, with commentaries by Debra N. Mancoff (Chicago, 2000), p. 184 (ill.).
Marsha Morton, “German Romanticism: The Search for ‘A Quiet Place,’“ The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 28:1 (2002), pp. 11-12 and 16, fig. 5 (ill.).
The Essential Guide (Chicago, 2009), p. 300 (ill.).
Christina Grummt, Caspar David Friedrich, The Complete Drawings (Munich, 2011), p. 398, fig 414 (ill).
Bremen, Germany, Kunsthalle Bremen, “Ein Halbjahrtausend deutscher Zeichnung,” June 9-August 30, 1936, cat. 78.
Wiesbaden, Germany, Städtisches Museum Wiesbaden, “Zeichenkunst in der deutschen Romantik,” May-July 1937, cat. 81; also traveled to the Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden.
Hamburg, Germany, Hamburg Kunsthalle, “Caspar David Friedrich 1774-1840,” September 14-November 3, 1974, cat. 56, cat by Werner Hofmann, et al..
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Great Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago: The Harold Joachim Years 1958-1983,” July 24-September 30, 1985, pp. 120-21, cat. 53 (ill.), cat. by Martha Tedeschi; also traveled to the St. Louis Museum of Art, March 10-May 17, 1986.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, “Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature”, February 3 - May 11, 2025, p. 80, 130, 134-135 (ill.), cat. 16, cat. by Alison Hokanson, Joanna Sheers Seidenstein, et. al.
Carl August Wuppesahl (1873-1954), Bremen, by 1936 [Bremen 1936 and Börsch-Supan and Jähnig 1973]. Sold by Auctionhouse Dörling, Hamburg, to Walter Feilchenfeldt, Zürich, 1975 [a letter from Walter Feilchenfeldt of January 5, 2004 in curatorial file]; sold to the Art Institute, 1976.
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