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Caspar David Friedrich
31 quotes
“The beauty, the spirit of Germany, its sun, moon, stars, rocks, seas and rivers can never be expressed this way..”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) first seen 1798 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Friedrich, shortly after his return in 1798; as quoted in C. D. Friedrich by H.W. Grohn; Kindlers Malerei Lexicon, Zurich, 1965, II p. 46; as cited & transl. by Linda Siegel in Caspar David Friedrich and the Ag…
“I just stepped out of the dark, still forest and found myself on a rising hill. In front of me I saw a valley, surrounded by fertile hills, in which a town stood and the newly covered slate roof of the tower glowed in the evening light. Through the richly-flowered, carpeted meadow the river meandered.. .And behind the hills lay the mountains.. ..cliff after cliff rose far out into the horizon.. .Filled with soaring joy I stood there a long time and looked at the beautiful area..”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) first seen 1803 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Friedrich's Diary-note, 1803; as cited by C. D. Eberlein in C. D. Friedrich - Bekenntnisse, pp. 72-73; translated and quoted by Linda Siegel in Caspar David Friedrich and the Age of German Romanticism, Boston…
“Gently rising hills block the view into the distance; line the wishes and desires of the children, who enjoy the blissful moments of the present without wanting to know what lies beyond. Bushes in bloom, nourishing herbs, and sweet-smelling flowers surround the quiet clear stream in which the pure blue of the cloudless sky is reflected like the glorious image of God in the souls of the children.. .There is no stone to be seen here, no withered branch, no fallen leaves. The whole of nature breathes, peace, joy, innocence and life.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) first seen 1803 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Friedrich's Diary entry, written Aug. 1803 at Loschwitz; as cited in Religious Symbolism in Caspar David Friedrich, by Colin J. Bailey, paper; Oct. 1988 - Edinburgh College of Art, pp. 11-12
“Through the gloomy clouds break / Blue sky, sunshine, / On the heights and in the valley / Sing the lark and the nightingale God, I thank you that I live / Not forever in this world / Strengthen me that my soul rise / Upward toward your firmament.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) first seen 1802 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: some poetry lines of Friedrich, c. 1802-05; as cited by C. D. Eberlein in C. D. Friedrich Bekenntnisse, p 57; as quoted & translated by Linda Siegel in Caspar David Friedrich and the Age of German Romanticism, Boston Br…
“Alas, the blue arc of heaven / Is covered with gloomy clouds, / And the bright radiance of the sun / Is completely hidden See the terrifying force of the tempest / Bows the oaks so that is groans, / And the rose on the beautiful pasture / has ben bent down by the rain.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) first seen 1807 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: some poetry lines of Friedrich, c. 1807-09; as cited by C. D. Eberlein in C. D. Friedrich Bekenntnisse, p 57; as quoted and translated by Linda Siegel in Caspar David Friedrich and the Age of German Romanticism, Boston …
“If a painting has a soulful effect on the viewer, if it puts his mind into a soulful mood, then it has fulfilled the first requirement of a work of art. However bad it might be in drawing, color, handling, etc.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) first seen 1809 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Friedrich's letter 8 Feb. 1809, to 'Akademiedirektor Schulz'; as cited by Helmut Bôrsch-Supan and Karl Wilhelm Jàhnig in Caspar David Friedrich: Gemâlde, Druckgraphik und bildmassige Zeichnungen (Munich: Preste…
“Why, the question is often asked of me”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The picture [Friedrich's painting: 'The Cross on the Baltic Sea' ] for your friend has already been sketched out, but there is no church in it, not a single tree or plant, not a blade of grass. On a bare and rocky seashore there stands, high up, the cross - for those who see it that way, a consolation, and for those who don't see it that way, just a cross.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) first seen 1815 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Friedrich's letter to Louise Seidler, 1815; as cited in Romanticism and realism : the mythology of nineteenth-century art - (from Chapter: Friedrich and the language of Landscape), Charles Rosen and Henri Zer…
“The divine is everywhere, even in a grain of sand; there I represented it in the reeds.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) first seen 1820 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Friedrich on his painting Swans in the Rushes (c. 1820), as cited in "Absent Presences in Liminal Places: Murnau's Nosferatu and the Otherworld of Stoker's Dracula" by Saviour Catania in Literature Film Quarter…
“I must stay alone and know that I am alone to contemplate and feel nature in full; I have to surrender myself to what encircles me, I have to merge with my clouds and rocks in order to be what I am. Solitude is indispensible for my dialogue with nature.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) first seen 1790 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Friedrich, 1821; as cited in Authenticity and Fiction in the Russian Literary Journey, 1790-1840 (2000) by Andreas Schönle, p. 108, from memoirs of Vasily Zhukovsky
“Sometimes I try to think and nothing comes out of it; but it happens that I doze off and suddenly feel as though someone is rousing me. I am startled, open my eyes, and what my mind was looking for stands before me like an apparition - at once I seize my pencil to draw; the main thing has been done.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) first seen 1821 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Friedrich, recorded by Vasily Zhukovsky, c. 1821; cited by Sigrid Hinz, Caspar David Friedrich in Briefen und Bekenntnissen; Henschelverlag Kunst und Gesellchaft, Berlin ,1968 p. 239; as cited in 'The Phantasma…
“..the great white blanket of snow [in one of his painting of Cemetery / Church in the Snow, mid-1820's].. ..the essence of the utmost purity, beneath which nature prepares herself for a new life..”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) first seen 1820 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Friedrich, mid-1820's; as cited by Sigrid Hinz, Caspar David Friedrich in Briefen und Bekenntnisse, p. 133; as cited in Religious Symbolism in Caspar David Friedrich, by Colin J. Bailey, paper; Oct. 1988 - Edin…
“Just as the reverent man prays without uttering words, and the Lord hears him, the sensitive painter paints, and the sensitive man understands and recognizes him, but even the more obtuse carry away something from his work.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Friedrich, in Romanticism and realism : the mythology of nineteenth-century art - (from Chapter: Friedrich and the language of Landscape), Charles Rosen and Henri Zerner; Viking Press, New York, 1984, p. 63
“Man should not be held as an absolute standard for mankind, but the Godly, the infinite is his goal.. .Follow without hesitation the voice of your inner self; for it is the Godly in us and leads us not to astray..”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from: Caspar David Friedrich, by Irma Emmerich; Herman Böhlaus, Weimar, 1964, p. 11; as cited & transl. by Linda Siegel in Caspar David Friedrich and the Age of German Romanticism, Boston Branden Press Publishers,…
“The artist should not only paint what he sees before him, but also what he sees in himself. If, however, he sees nothing within him, then he should also refrain from painting what he sees before him. Otherwise his pictures will be like those folding screens behind which one expects to find only the sick or the dead.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Awe-Struck Witness" in Time magazine (28 October 1974) and in "On the Brink: The Artist and the Seas" by Eldon N. Van Liere in Poetics of the Elements in the Human Condition: The Sea (1985) ed. Anna-Teresa Ty…
“Close your bodily eye, so that you may see your picture first with the spiritual eye. Then bring to the light of day that which you have seen in the darkness so that it may react upon others from the outside inwards. A picture must not be invented but felt. Observe the form exactly, both the smallest and the large and do not separate the small from the large, but rather the trivial from the important.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in The Romantic Imagination: Literature and Art in England and Germany (1996) by Fredrick Berwick and Jürgn Klein, and in "Culture: Caspar D. Friedrich and the Wasteland" by Gjermund E. Jansen in Bits of News (3 …
“You should keep sacred every impuls of your mind; you should keep sacred every pious sentiment; because that is art in us. In an inspired hour she will appear in a clear form, and this form will be your picture.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) first seen 1825 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: as quoted in Nature and Culture: American Landscape and Painting, 1825-1875, Barbara Novak; Oxford University Press, 2007, note 74
“The pure, frank sentiments we hold in our hearts are the only truthful sources of art. A painting which does not take its inspiration from the heart is nothing more than futile juggling. All authentic art is conceived at a sacred moment and nourished in a blessed hour; an inner impulse creates it, often without the artist being aware of it.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in 'Culture: Caspar D. Friedrich and the Wasteland', by Gjermund E. Jansen in Bits of News (3 March 2005)
“You call me a misanthrope because I avoid society. You err; I love society. Yet in order not to hate people, I must avoid their company.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The artist's feeling is his law. Genuine feeling can never be contrary to nature; it is always in harmony with her. But another person's feelings should never be imposed on us as law. Spiritual affinity leads to similarity in work, but such affinity is something entirely different from mimicry. Whatever people may say of Y's paintings and how they often resemble Z's, yet they proceed from Y and are his sole property.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Friedrich's writings Thoughts on Art, Caspar David Friedrich; as cited in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 32
“Every truthful work of art must express a definite feeling, must move the spirit of the spectator either to joy or to sadness.. ..rather than try to unite all sensations, as thought mixed together with a twirling stick.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What pleases us about the older paintings is above all their pious simplicity.. .However, we do not want to become simple as many have done, but rather become pious and imitate their virtues.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Friedrich, in C. D. Eberlein, C. D. Friedrich Bekenntnisse, pp. 72-73; as cited by Linda Siegel in Caspar David Friedrich and the Age of German Romanticism, Boston Branden Press Publishers, 1978, p. 36
“I am far from wanting to resist the demands of my time, except when they are purely a matter of fashion. Instead, I continue to hope that time itself will destroy its own offspring, perhaps quite soon. But I am not so weak as to submit to the demands of the age when they go against my convictions. I spin a cocoon around myself; let others do the same. I shall leave it up to time to show what will come of it: a brilliant butterfly or a maggot.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People say of such-and-such a painter that he has great command of his brush. Might it not be more correct to say that he is controlled of his brush? Merely for the satisfaction of his vanity, to paint brilliantly and display skill with the brush, he has sacrificed the nobler considerations of naturalness and truth – and thus achieved sorry fame as a brilliant technician.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from his writings Thoughts on Art, Caspar David Friedrich; as cited in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 32
“In this big moonlit landscape by the painter N.N., that deservedly celebrated technician, one sees more than one would wish, or that can actually be seen by moonlight. But what the perceptive, sensitive soul looks for in every painting, and rightly expects to find, is missing.. ..If that painter could find it in himself to paint fewer, but more deeply-felt, pictures instead of so many clever ones, his contemporaries and posterity would be more grateful to him.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from his writings Thoughts on Art, Caspar David Friedrich; as cited in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 33
“To many it is incomprehensible that art has to emerge from a person's inner being, 'that it has to do with one's morality, one's religion..'. But so it does. You should trade only in what you recognize to be true and beautiful, noble and good in your soul.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from: Caspar David Friedrich, Wieland Schmied; Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York, 1995, p. 45
“People are always talking about 'incidentals'; but nothing is incidental in a picture, everything is indispensable to the whole effect, so nothing must be neglected. If a man can give value to the main part of his composition only by negligent treatment of the subordinate portions, his work is in a bad way. Everything must and can be carefully executed, without the different parts obtruding themselves on the eye. The proper subordination of the parts to the whole is not achieved by neglecting incidental features, but by correct grouping and by the distribution of light and shadow.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from his writings Thoughts on Art, Caspar David Friedrich; as cited in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, pp. 33-34
“When a landscape is enveloped in mist it appears larger, more majestic, and increases the power of imagination.. .The eye and the imagination are on the whole more attracted.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Friedrich's remark to Carl Gustac Carus, as cited by Sigrid Hinz, Caspar David Friedrich in Briefen und Bekenntnissen; Henschelverlag Kunst und Gesellchaft, Berlin ,1968 p. 239; translated and quoted in Religious Symbol…
“What the newer landscape artists see in a circle of a hundred degrees in Nature they press together unmercifully into an angle of vision of only forty-five degrees. And furthermore, what is in Nature separated by large spaces, is compressed into a cramped space and overfills and oversatiates the eye, creating an unfavorable and disquieting effect on the viewer.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) said by 1840 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: cited by Timothy Mitchell, (September 1984), in 'Caspar David Friedrich's Der Watzmann: German Romantic Landscape Painting and Historical Geology', 'The Art Bulletin', 66 (3), p. 452–464, doi:10.2307/3050447, JSTOR 3050…
“Jesus Christ, nailed to the Cross [in his painting 'Cross in the Mountains (Tetschen Altar)',] is turned to the setting sun, here the image of the totally enlivening Father. With Christ dies the wisdom of the old world, the time when God the Father wandered directly on Earth. This sun set and the world was no longer able to apprehend the departed light. The evening glow shining from the pure noble metal of the golden crucified Christ is reflected in gentle glow to the earth. The Cross stands raised on a rock, unshakably firm, as our faith in Jesus Christ. Around the Cross stand the evergreens, enduring through all seasons, as does the belief of Man in Him, the crucified.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) first seen 1810 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Friedrich, c. 1810; cited by Timothy F. Mitchell, (1982) in 'From Vedute to Vision: The Importance of Popular Imagery in Friedrich's Development of Romantic Landscape Painting', The 'Art Bulletin', 64 (3): pp. …
“It is doubtful whether the artist [unknown] altogether knew what he depicted here in this panel, and even more doubtful whether he could have expressed it in words. That which we praise here as well thought-out and cleverly arranged may, in fact, have been achieved by him unconsciously; for the artist was transformed by pure harmoniousness while executing this picture, and his feeling become his law. Only his disposition, his spiritual exaltation, could have brought forth such a fruit as this picture. Just as the pious man prays without speaking a word and the Almighty hearkens unto him, so the artist with true feeling paints and the sensitive man understands and recognizes it; while even the less sensitive gain some inkling of it.”
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) first seen 1774 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: cited in: Vaughan, William-Börsch-Supan, Helmut- Neidhardt, Hans Joachim, Caspar David Friedrich. 1774-1840. Romantic Landscape Painting in Dresden, London, The Tate gallery, 1972, p. 104