Megalithic grave in the snow

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Megalithic tomb in the snow (Caspar David Friedrich)
Megalithic grave in the snow
Caspar David Friedrich , 1807
Oil on canvas
61.5 × 80 cm
New Masters Gallery in the Albertinum
State Art Collections Dresden

Hune grave in the snow is a painting by Caspar David Friedrich, probably made between 1807 and 1819 . The painting in oil on canvas in the format 61.5 cm x 71 cm is in the Galerie Neue Meister in Dresden .

Image description

The painting shows a barrow with a capstone on a snow-covered hill. The large stone grave is surrounded by three leafless oaks. The crowns of the two trees that are just towering up have broken away. The wind made the third tree grow bent. In the hazy background, the terrain slopes down into a deep forest. The gray sky lies far behind it over a brownish strip of bushes and brightens up towards the top. The first owner Karl Schildener left his own impressions of the picture in an article.

“First of all, a winter landscape 2 feet 2 inches high and 2 feet and 9 inches wide, depicting an old-world scene. Three ancient, huge oak trunks with few branches stand on a gently rising hill, sparsely covered with snow, in the center of the picture around a tomb from the heathen times. In the background down from the hill there is an abundance of shrub-like, leafless branches in a dull violet hue, behind which a deep blue, snow-threatening evening cloud, covering most of the horizon, has fallen, above the reddish reflection of the setting sun. - This picture is one of Friedrich's first oil paintings to be executed. It may also have some hardships, especially in the two front oak trees. "

- Karl Schildener, 1828

Image and nature

Different landscapes or landscape elements are brought together in the painting. The no longer preserved large stone grave originally stood on the Niederfelde near the Western Pomeranian town of Gützkow . It is assumed that it is the Gützkow large stone grave . The oaks were most certainly drawn in Neubrandenburg. The landscape with the hill can be located near the village of Wustrow on Lake Tollensesee . According to tradition, there was a Wendish royal tomb there. At the time the picture was taken, the stone setting of the grave was no longer available, the trees were no tall oaks, but windsurfers with a wide crown. However, the remains of the trunk should still be able to be found in the triangular constellation arranged by Friedrich. It can be assumed that the painter was primarily interested in the historical location and that the details (stone setting, oaks) have been added. This place belongs to the extended park landscape of the Hohenzieritz Castle , in which Friedrich often stayed.

Structure and aesthetics

Caspar David Friedrich: megalithic tomb by the sea , 1807

The painting is a further development of the Sepia megalithic barrow by the sea, which was completed in early 1807 . In the case of the megalithic grave in the snow , the motif is arranged in a more concentrated manner and the statement is pointed. The composition is based on the central axis of the picture. The heavy capstone of the stone grave located there corresponds to the winterly frozen nature of the defoliated oaks and the cool gray-blue haze of the background. The slight color difference between the darker oak on the right and the two lighter trees behind it seems to disturb the symmetry of the picture. The painter, however, evidently accommodates the habit of reading from left to right, from the lighter field to the darker one.

Image interpretation

Helmut Börsch-Supan sees the symbol of a pagan, heroic outlook on life in the old mutilated oak trees, in the barrow the symbol of the buried hero, in winter the realm of death. Kurt Wilhelm-Kästner interprets the picture patriotically and as a reminder from Frederick of the heroic disposition, "unbowed and defiant like the oaks in the picture, to outlast the icy severity of foreign arbitrariness". In doing so, he follows Karl Schildener's impression of an “old-world scene” that allows such an interpretation in a historical context. Jens Christian Jensen sees the picture as a political statement without any enthusiasm for the past after Prussia's devastating defeat at Jena and Auerstedt in 1806 and the surrender of the Napoleonic army. Detlef Stapf relates a historical interpretation to the presumed geographical location near Wustrow on Lake Tollensesee. At the time the painting was created, Duke Karl II of Mecklenburg-Strelitz , who resided there, was running a patriotic archeology with which he wanted to legitimize a Germanic-Slavic ancestry of his rule. Special importance was attached to the Wustower royal grave. With the winter picture, Friedrich commented on the ancestral cult that had frozen in bizarre vanities.

Suggestion

The view is widespread that the Ossian-Nordic view of Johann Gottfried Quistorp and Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten is present in Friedrich's megalithic images, and that this is where the painter's encounter with the Nordic Renaissance is made fruitful. Kosegarten called the oak tree the "tree of God" in the sense of a natural religious view. The oak could also be in the context of national literature, such as the poem Die Eichen by Theodor Körner or the drama Hermanns Schlacht by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock .

Counterpart

Caspar David Friedrich: View of the Elbe Valley , 1807

Helmut Börsch-Supan hypothesizes that the picture was created as a counterpart to the painting View into the Elbe Valley . He constructed a juxtaposition of oaks as pagan and firs as Christian symbols. This view is also adopted by other art historians, including Jens Christian Jensen, but is not interpreted in a Christian way. In relation to the French occupation of Prussia, the pair of images refer to the principle of hope. When the people wake up from paralysis, the earth will turn green again in peace and with certainty of faith.

Sketches and studies

For the Großstein grave, Friedrich used the drawing from the back of the landscape study View from the south coast of Rügen over the island of Vilm to Wusterhusen, Kröslin and Wolgast from June 16, 1801. The pencil drawing shows a tree study and two views of the Gützkower Hünengrab , dated March 19, 1802. Above the central study is noted “16 feet / 11 feet”. On the capstone lies a figure that, according to Karl Schildener, Friedrich's drawing teacher Johann Gottfried Quistorp . The drawing is also the basis for the Sepia barrow near Gützkow from 1837 and the painting Dusk (around 1830). The megalithic grave of Gützkow was a motif in several drawings. The oak on the left comes from the study Oak from the Karlsruhe sketchbook made around 1804 . The oak in the background is also taken from it (drawing from April 26, 1804). The oak on the right goes back to a missing drawing.

“This tomb was near Gützkow and of a special kind. Quistorp relates the following about what I want to share here for the friends of patriotic antiquity: The large, about 12 feet long, 7 feet wide, and 5 feet thick upper capstone of the grave rested on four protruding only about a foot high from the earth Stones which (as is usually the case with such graves) formed the four walls of the grave below, deep in the earth. The pit was exactly the same as the field, full of earth, and the space between this and the lower surface of the cover stone was so low that I, who am narrow, could only crawl under with difficulty. When Friedrich was drawing the grave, I was lying on top of the capstones and smoking a pipe, and so he included me in his study book. What was in the grave when the stones were blown away and used elsewhere, I was not able to find out after various inquiries. "

- Karl Schildener, 1828

  • Caspar David Friedrich: Gützkower Hünengrab with Quistorp , 1802

  • Caspar David Friedrich: megalithic grave near Gützkow , not before 1802, around 1835

  • Caspar David Friedrich: Study of a barrow near Gützkow , 1809

  • Caspar David Friedrich: megalithic grave near Gützkow , around 1837

  • Caspar David Friedrich: Oak , around 1804

Provenance, designation, dating

The painting had been in the possession of Karl Schildener since 1826 and was auctioned off with the Schildener Collection in Leipzig in 1845 as a winter landscape with a megalithic grave, view from Gützkow . The new owner of the picture was Johan Christian Clausen Dahl . In 1905 the picture was acquired for the Dresden Gemäldegalerie from the estate of Johann Siegwald Dahl . Werner Sumowski doubts that the picture from Schildener's collection and that from the Dahl collection are identical and assumes that there were two similar versions. The mostly accepted date of 1807 was based on Karl Schildener's statement that the picture was one of Friedrich's first oil paintings. Since the stylistic classification seems to support this finding, other references to dating are largely ignored. According to a note in Johan Christian Clausen Dahl's card catalog, the painting was created in 1819 under the title "Winter landscape with a crumbling sacrificial stone or barrow, surrounded by three defoliated oaks". Given the contradictions of the statements in the relevant literature, neither the identity of the picture nor the date can be considered certain.

Classification in the complete work

The megalithic grave in the snow is integrated into the overall work from various points of view and is given its special status as one of the first oil paintings. Friedrich dealt with the motifs of megalithic tombs, oaks and winter in almost all phases of his work. The individual motifs are integrated into the various topics and are therefore not tied to one interpretation. The combination of oaks and barrows only occurs in a time window from 1806 to 1820 and can be seen in a historical context. The fact that in the painting Dusk , a picture of his late work, the painter himself depicts himself in prayer in front of a megalithic grave, withdraws the motif from the familiar patriotic and religious patterns of interpretation.

  • Caspar David Friedrich: The Winter , 1808

  • Caspar David Friedrich: Abbey in the Eichwald , 1810

  • Caspar David Friedrich: Monastery Cemetery in the Snow , 1818

  • Caspar David Friedrich: megalithic grave in autumn , around 1820

  • Caspar David Friedrich: Walk at Dusk , around 1830

Ground monument

There are two references to the location of the ground monument "Gützkower Großsteingrab", which was destroyed between 1809 and 1818: In 1755, Greifswald professor Albert Georg Schwartz wrote in his Diplomatic History of the Pomeranian-Rügischen Cities that "near Gützkow on this side" a " Sacrificial altar "would be. The Gützkow pastor Johann Carl Balthasar (1784-1853) wrote in 1848: “In the so-called Niederfelde near Gützkow there was a mighty sacrificial stone resting on other stones until some 30 years ago, which was also drawn by the landscape painter Friedrich from Greifswald at the time. The then mayor Johann Balthasar Pütter (1751–1818) had this sacrificial stone blown up in order to make the site economically viable. ”Pastor Balthasar had only come to Gützkow in 1824 and therefore had no direct inspection of the process. According to land maps, the Niederfeld was located north of the so-called Schiefenberg near Gützkow. The time of the demolition can be classified because Friedrich made the last sketches in 1809 and the mayor Pütter died in 1818. The grave was located 60 m south of the current Gützkower bypass road B 111 on a current forest ledge of the Schiefenberg. A rock fall site with remains of split stone from the blasted grave and a stone ax were found and documented.

Effects in art

Friedrich's contemporaries and students such as Johan Christian Dahl or Carl Gustav Carus took up the megalithic tomb motif. However, it is unclear whether these painters followed a model or a fashion. Even in the second half of the 19th century, artists such as Friedrich Preller and Ferdinand Konrad Bellermann were enthusiastic about the megalithic graves on Rügen. In 1843 Friedrich Preller based his painting Hünengrab auf Rügen on Friedrich's sepia "Hünengrab am Meer" from 1806.

  • Johan Christian Dahl: Hune grave in winter , 1824/25

  • Carl Gustav Carus: Oaks by the Sea , 1834/35

  • Carl Gustav Carus: megalithic grave with resting wanderer , 1819/20

  • Friedrich Preller: Megalithic grave on Rügen , 1843

  • Ferdinand Bellermann: Oaks and a megalithic tomb on the beach of Rügen , around 1880

literature

  • Werner Busch: Caspar David Friedrich. Aesthetics and Religion . CH Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-50308-X .
  • Helmut Börsch-Supan, Karl Wilhelm Jähnig: Caspar David Friedrich. Paintings, prints and pictorial drawings . Prestel Verlag, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-7913-0053-9
  • Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work . 2 vol., Munich 2011
  • Jens Christian Jensen: Caspar David Friedrich. Life and work. DuMont, Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-7701-0758-6
  • Detlef Stapf: Caspar David Friedrich's hidden landscapes. The Neubrandenburg contexts . Greifswald 2014, network-based P-Book
  • Werner Sumowski: Caspar David Friedrich studies . F. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1970

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Otto Schmitt: A sketch sheet CD Friedrichs in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. In: Westdeutsches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 11, 1939, pp. 290–295.
  2. ↑ Detlef Stapf: Caspar David Friedrichs hidden landscapes. The Neubrandenburg contexts . Greifswald 2014, p. 311, network-based P-Book
  3. ^ Werner Busch: Caspar David Friedrich. Aesthetics and Religion . Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2003, p. 105
  4. ^ Helmut Börsch-Supan, Karl Wilhelm Jähnig: Caspar David Friedrich. Paintings, prints and pictorial drawings , Prestel Verlag, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-7913-0053-9 (catalog raisonné), p. 296
  5. ^ Kurt Wilhelm-Kästner, L. Rohling, KF Degner: Caspar David Friedrich and his home. Berlin 1940, p. 59
  6. ^ Jens Christian Jensen: Caspar David Friedrich. Life and work. DuMont, Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-7701-0758-6 , p. 102
  7. ↑ Detlef Stapf: Caspar David Friedrichs hidden landscapes. The Neubrandenburg contexts . Greifswald 2014, p. 301 f., Network-based P-Book
  8. ^ Jens Christian Jensen: Caspar David Friedrich. Life and work. DuMont, Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-7701-0758-6 , p. 102
  9. ^ Gotthard Ludwig Kosegarten: Gedichte , CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013
  10. ↑ Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock: Complete Works , Volume 6, Leipzig 1844, p. 96 f.
  11. ^ Helmut Börsch-Supan, Karl Wilhelm Jähnig: Caspar David Friedrich. Paintings, prints and pictorial drawings , Prestel Verlag, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-7913-0053-9 (catalog raisonné), p. 297
  12. ^ Jens Christian Jensen: Caspar David Friedrich. Life and work. DuMont, Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-7701-0758-6 , p. 102
  13. ↑ Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work . 2 vol., Munich 2011, p. 294 f.
  14. ↑ Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work . 2 vol., Munich 2011, p. 894
  15. ^ Helmut Börsch-Supan, Karl Wilhelm Jähnig: Caspar David Friedrich. Paintings, prints and pictorial drawings , Prestel Verlag, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-7913-0053-9 (catalog raisonné), p. 434
  16. ↑ Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work . 2 vol., Munich 2011, p. 384 f.
  17. ^ Otto Schmitt: A sketch sheet CD Friedrichs in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. West German Yearbook for Art History 11, 1939, pp. 290–295.
  18. ↑ Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work . 2 vol., Munich 2011, p. 859 f.
  19. ↑ Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work . 2 vol., Munich 2011, p. 561 f.
  20. ^ Helmut Börsch-Supan, Karl Wilhelm Jähnig: Caspar David Friedrich. Paintings, prints and pictorial drawings , Prestel Verlag, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-7913-0053-9 (catalog raisonné), p. 297
  21. ^ Werner Sumowski: Caspar David Friedrich studies . Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1970, p. 101
  22. ^ Albert Georg Schwartz: Diplomatic history of the Pomeranian-Rügischen cities of Swedish sovereignty. According to their origin and first constitution . Greifswald. printed by Hieronymus Johann Struck. 1755
  23. ^ Johann Balthasar Pütter, grandfather of the painter Otto Heyden (1820-1897)
  24. ↑ Find report of the local archaeological monument maintenance to the state office