Depictions of fog encroach upon visitors as they wander through the ‘Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature’ exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The purple-painted walls lure us into the exhibit and keep us there in admiration of the artwork it yields. As we observe Caspar David Friedrich’s artwork, we are quickly made to be curious journeymen who venture on in anticipation, and who yearn to see beyond.
Open until May 11th, 2025, the exhibition features over seventy pieces collected from various lenders across the world. Visitors of the MET get to trace Friedrich’s life across different phases and take note of the fragmented details that remain consistent, despite the fluctuations in popularity of his work over the years.
Even with the varying goals he had throughout his artistic career, Caspar David Friedrich often focused on themes of mortality, spirituality, and solitude; mountains, crosses, and mile markers are common subjects in his pieces.
Caspar David Friedrich was largely influenced by the Romanticism movement; it emphasized intellectual and artistic expression that focused on the reflection of emotion, imagination, and self. The movement strayed away from the Enlightenment ideals of the 17th and 18th centuries, which championed reason and objectivity. With the late 18th century and early 19th century, came an influx of people who supported more subjective and personal interpretations of art. Nowadays, this is something we have come to expect, but it was radical and out of the ordinary for its time.
Today, Friedrich is considered as one of the most prominent German artists of his generation. His legacy paved the way for more reflection and contemplation relating to the natural world, setting the stage for other artists even now.
“‘In Friedrich’s hands…seemingly endless views of shimmering water and open sky became vehicles for the evocation of solitude, melancholy, and longing.’” – The Breakthrough Gallery
Along the horizon are clouds that only darken with the distance. You are alone, standing by a cliff looking to treacherous waters, and entranced in an enigmatic state. Unbeknownst to you, hundreds of onlookers pass you by in a matter of minutes.
This, I imagine, is the experience of a Monk by the Sea in Friedrich’s artwork by the same name from 1808.
The stark emptiness of the setting envelopes the monk. At face value, we wouldn’t even know that he once shared the frame. An infrared reflectogram of the painting—pictured on the adjacent wall—reveals an underdrawing featuring not only the monk but three ships right off the shore. By eliminating the ships from the composition, the monk appears relatively smaller when compared to the imposing emptiness around him. He braves the vast view before him in complete solitude and tethered from the rest of humanity.
As we turn the next corner, we come across Two Men Contemplating the Moon (1825-30); this time each of them have each other’s company. They gaze upon the yellowed moon together and stand much closer to the foreground than the monk had. Still, they face the other direction and we, as viewers, have no way to know what they see, what they look like, or what their hypothetical conversation entails. What we can do is imagine.
It is easy to get lost in Caspar David Friedrich’s work and imagine yourself among the immense forces of nature that he portrays. In many of his pieces, we are made to feel like a small part of something significantly larger than ourselves, something that may consume us without our knowledge. This is the sublime.
In simple terms, the sublime is anything so imposing and grand that it becomes incomprehensible to us. Despite the challenges of communicating this feeling, this is what Friedrich aimed to translate to his audience through his art. He recognized the near-impossible task at hand—to replicate a setting exactly as he saw it—and championed that “the artist’s task is not the faithful representation of air, water, rocks, and trees, but rather his soul, his sensations should be reflected in them.”
He manages this by putting the concept of the sublime into a visual perspective. To accomplish this he looks to nature as his muse. This aspect of his artwork lends itself to naturphilosophie, a product of German Romanticism.
Naturphilosophie refers to the philosophy that nature is a part of a whole that can be used as a reflection of the divine and spiritual.
One of the hallmarks of Friedrich’s art is his ability to evoke a sense of the sublime—that overwhelming mixture of awe and terror when confronted with nature’s vastness and power.
Through his artwork, he would take people into large landscapes, landscapes so large that it may even threaten to engulf the person whole. This unsettling feeling of the sublime and the unknown is best observed in his use of rückenfigur.
Rückenfigur, German for “back figure,” is the term for when an artist places a figure that is seen from behind.
We can see Friedrich using the rückenfigur frequently in his pieces to suggest that there is more that we cannot see, more that we do not know or can’t quite put our finger on. In Moonrise over the Sea, The Evening Star, and—most famously—Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, we can note his use of the technique.
Having witnessed it myself, I would argue that the best way to observe Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog is in a gallery, especially alongside its earlier or later counterparts. Despite the dozen people surrounding the piece alongside you, there is an inherent isolation that comes with viewing an artwork when it is right in front of you. As you focus on a singular detail, your periphery blurs and the bustling sounds of fellow visitors dulls slightly. At this point, you are alone in your viewing experience and it is completely unique to you. It is possible you’ve already fled the scene, onto the next painting, or have already stood in place for the past five minutes. If you do linger and position yourself right in front of the Wanderer, you may even find that your imagination may paint you into the scene, atop a mountain and now right behind him.
This is natural and is what many artists beg for their audience to do; Friedrich wants us to dig deep and ruminate with our thoughts. He wants us to be aware of ourselves and to question if we are truly aware at all, and how we fit into the context of what we do not know.
The man with the staff is in constant longing and bears resemblance to us as we stand behind him. But like many others, we will never know what it is he longs for or how much he has discovered standing just a few feet ahead of us. It is just as possible that he is overjoyed at the sight of the mountains through the fog as it is that he is in tears, overwhelmed by the weight of the world. Regardless, we are held in a state of curiosity and imagination—which may be the human experience Friedrich wanted us to come to terms with.
“He invigorated his subjects with dramatic manipulations of perspective and atmosphere that emphasize the wonder and yearning of a personal journey of belief.” – The Nature and Faith Gallery
I would argue that the ‘Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature’ exhibition is a dramatic manipulation of perspective and atmosphere in itself.
It is clear that the organizers understood Friedrich’s goals in his artwork and created an exhibit that stays true to them. Each sharp turn and literal window to a future destination paves a unique journey for the average MET museum visitor. It leaves us in anticipation for what is to come and in awe of its length and detail. The floor plan itself is enough to enthrall us with the sublime.
Rooms are separated as smaller galleries, labeled with the introduction of a new era or pattern in Friedrich’s artwork. Larger wall texts with details of his life and the state of Germany during each era followed the heading of a new gallery; “Breakthrough,” “Nature and Faith,” “Alone Together,” and “Home and Away,” were among the names of some headings. Much like the mile markers depicted in his more melancholic works, these signaled a new stage of our journey.
Until we stubble upon the concluding gallery, it isn’t clear where the exhibition ends given the many twists and turns along the way.
Looking upon the exhibition as a whole, it was curated to create this unnerving feeling of vastness; the efforts of over thirty lenders and countries all around North America and Europe are apparent. The collection of these pieces does not go unnoticed; with pieces from over thirty different sources, each is framed in a way unique to the lender.
A dark stained, wooden frame surrounds Plant and Leaf Studies (1799) lent from The Kupferstichkabinett, The Museum of Prints and Drawings.
The Statue of the Madonna in the Mountains (1804), lent by The Art Institute of Chicago from the Margaret Day Blake Collection, is surrounded by an equally thick, gold frame.
Lent from the Louvre Museum in France is Cemetery in Moonlight with an Owl (1834), with a black frame that has been somewhat weathered with the years.
These clues to the collaboration it took to create the exhibition behind the scenes makes the efforts of the curators clear and gives us the chance to get a true grasp on Friedrich’s enduring influence on the world.
Despite the many varying elements of the exhibition, it’s easy for a visitor to digest and develop a more holistic understanding to who Caspar David Friedrich was and the patterns that emerged in his artwork. Among his sketches and watercolor studies is where I first noticed his style of painting pine needles and grass, a quick flick that looks uniform in paintings created years and even decades apart. As I walked through the exhibition, I picked up on the details that made his art so distinguishable—there were multiple proud moments of correctly picking out paintings from his companions and those he inspired.
“A visionary evocation of humanity’s complex relationship with the living earth.” – The Great Beyond Gallery
The MET’s ‘Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature’ exhibition is nothing less than a branch to artists everywhere. Curated such that the rooms are split as parts of different sections, visitors are taken across different parts of Friedrich’s creative process and the phases he took throughout his artistic journey. ‘Forging His Path’ and ‘Breakthrough’ are among the early parts of the exhibition, later galleries look into his different inspirations and how he was influenced by the world around him. Artists today can look to his work and this exhibition to understand that there is no linear path for art.
Friedrich’s use of light and shadow adds to the mystical and meditative atmosphere of his paintings. The play of light, especially the dramatic contrasts between light and dark, enhances the emotional tone of his works. His favorite subjects included misty forests, rugged mountains, and expansive seascapes, often bathed in the soft glow of dawn or sunset. These scenes evoke feelings of melancholy, nostalgia, and longing.
While we get to experience the artistic process through a smaller lens, by looking at his sketches and brief studies, we can also look at his art through a wider perspective, and place pieces of his mind together as we collect context on his life and the political turmoil at the time.
The exhibition refers to the geography of Friedrich’s environment as a “shifting constellation of aristocratic territories.” During Caspar David Friedrich’s lifetime (1774–1840), present-day Germany was experiencing profound changes due to the effects of political upheaval and war. These changes played a significant role in shaping his artistic focus on nature, the sublime, and the inner human experience.
Friedrich drew inspiration from the world around him; as he grew as an artist, he expanded his sphere of inspiration. From his hometown Greifswald he journeyed into the mountains, coasts, and countryside.
It wasn’t until after Friedrich’s lifetime, in 1871, that Germany became a unified nation. With his early career in 1806, also came the dissolution of the remainder of the Holy Roman Empire by Napoleon Bonaparte during the long and arduous Napoleonic Wars. For years after that the land distribution among German states was largely controlled by France. Paired with the shifting political state also came a shift in German terrain; the fir forests, oak trees, and castles of the German landscape were then decorated with graves and debris.
Industrialization began to take root in Germany in the early 19th century. The rapid rise of factories, urbanization, and technological advances marked a shift from rural, agrarian economies to more mechanized, urban environments. This change led to the growth of large cities as people moved in search of work, and the countryside, which had once been the center of life, became increasingly neglected. Industrialization also brought about significant environmental changes, such as the pollution of rivers, deforestation, and the clearing of land for factories and infrastructure.
For artists like Friedrich, these transformations were deeply unsettling. The rapid development of industry and the encroachment of modernity onto the natural world evoked feelings of alienation and loss. Friedrich’s landscapes often reflect a longing for a simpler, more harmonious relationship with nature, contrasting the ever-expanding cities and factories. His paintings emphasize solitude and the majesty of nature, offering a retreat from the anxieties of an industrializing world.
This climate of political instability, combined with the anxiety of industrial progress, contributed to Friedrich’s focus on the natural world as a source of spiritual refuge and emotional expression. The stark, often solitary figures in his landscapes reflect a yearning for deeper meaning and connection in a rapidly changing world.
In his artworks, Friedrich portrayed a moment of vulnerability and a lack of control on our part. The grandeur of nature in his paintings leaves their subjects small and shadowed by something so unknown.
Now at the end of the exhibition is the final gallery entitled ‘The Great Beyond.’ After suffering from a stroke in his later years, it became difficult for him to paint. His influence in the artistic sphere began to diminish and yet he continued to paint. His work, especially during this period, lends itself to graveyards, tombs, and an emphasis on death. Cemetery in Moonlight with an Owl (1834) was described by Pierre Jean David d’Angers, a companion of Friedrich’s, as “a new genre: the tragedy of the landscape.”
Humanity no longer has dominion over nature. In this sense, Friedrich takes us away from the growing infrastructure and overwhelming development of the present—both ours and his own.
Just as Caspar David Friedrich set the standard for a new genre of contemplative art, the ‘Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature’ exhibition set a precedent for future exhibitions at the MET, matching the atmosphere and intellectual outlook of Friedrich’s artwork on all fronts; it truly is an immersive experience that only edges us further into the sublime.
Friedrich’s landscapes often reflect a longing for a simpler, more harmonious relationship with nature, contrasting the ever-expanding cities and factories. His paintings emphasize solitude and the majesty of nature, offering a retreat from the anxieties of an industrializing world.