Eldena ruins in the Giant Mountains

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Eldena ruins in the Giant Mountains (Caspar David Friedrich)
Eldena ruins in the Giant Mountains
Caspar David Friedrich , around 1830/34
Oil on canvas
103 × 73 cm
Pommersches Landesmuseum Greifswald

Ruin Eldena im Riesengebirge , also Ruin im Riesengebirge , is a painting by Caspar David Friedrich, dated 1830/34 . The painting in oil on canvas in the format 103 cm × 73 cm is in the Pomeranian State Museum Greifswald .

Image description

In the painting, the painter directs the eye on a path that begins on the left in the foreground and at the starting point of which lies a bizarre root structure. The path hooks and finally leads in the direction of the center of the picture to a thatched farmhouse. In front of it are two men with a dog on a sandy area. From the right, a swampy landscape pushes itself into a depression that extends over two thirds of the foreground. The marsh water reflects the silhouettes of the two men. Behind the farmhouse, a forest bar builds up over the entire middle distance. Apparently belonging to the farmhouse, the choir of a church ruin forms the center of the picture. Further walls of the ruin protrude right out of the forest. The part of the landscape painted with internal drawings ends with a flat mountain ridge, dividing the picture at about a third. In the hazy background, a low mountain range rises in rhythmically compressed ridges and areas of color that wander from dark olive to delicate purple tones. The splendid evening sky mixes the violet with a bright yellow illumination.

Image interpretation

The painting is interpreted from a religious and biographical point of view as well as a construction image. With no other landscape composition does Friedrich astonish his audience more than with this compilation of the Greifswald ruins of Eldena and the Giant Mountains, which are geographically far from the coast . In 1931 Otto Schmitt was the first to discover the puzzle of a wide variety of landscape and architectural pieces. The topographical difference only became apparent through the determination of the natural studies that the painter used. Later research concentrates on the question of what sense Friedrich gave to this Capriccio .

Wistful memory

An exact dating of the painting has not yet been possible, it ranges from 1830 to 1834. Friedrich lived in Dresden at this time, was only slightly successful with his work and plagued by diseases. So it makes sense to assume that the painting is an expression of wistful memory and "to unite his first home on the Baltic Sea with the second, which he hiked from Dresden." This homeland reference is supported by the assumption that the picture should have been in the possession of Friedrich's brother Adolf in Greifswald and that it was intended as a gift for him. In order to understand the picture, Helmut Börsch-Supan also assumes knowledge of the traditional, but not proven, Silesian origin of the painter's ancestors, which can be associated with the Giant Mountains of the snow pits and the frost carrier. The evening mood can indicate the return to God at the end of the path of life, the mountains in the background the visions of the afterlife and the dry branch in the foreground a memento mori.

Construction picture

Hirschfeld's theory of garden art

The interpretation of the ruins in the Giant Mountains as a construction image is based on a text equivalent in Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld's theory of garden art . According to Hirschfeld, the "mixture of regions" succeeds in creating a "composition of compound movements" "where objects are perceived by different forces at once." A reference text can be found for the picture.

“We see how nature forms areas of different characters and influences. But these natural characters can be intensified in manifold ways by the hand of man. A lively area can gain a lot of influence through a shepherd's hut or a country house, a melancholy one through a monastery or an urn, a romantic one through Gothic ruins […]. If these buildings and monuments are brought into connection with the regions for which they are by their nature intended: then buildings and regions share their forces with one another, their characters become clearer, and a union of concepts and images arises which with have a completely definite and powerful impression on the soul. [...] Every object and every direction of it should be such that with all the presence and diversity of other objects that are perceived at the same time, the impressions of all always converge, as it were, in an uninterrupted line to a point, where they result and strengthen through their mixture . "

- Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld

Accordingly, elements of a lively and a romantic area are to be brought together in the painting for a mood capriccio to form an indescribable but effective area. The preliminary study for this was drawn up in the summer of 1815. If Friedrich follows the Hirscheld text in the picture, then the mountain background has only indirectly to do with the mixture of motifs, but probably corresponds to Hirschfeld's recommendation, "the lovely appearance at the rising and setting of the sun, the effects of the light between rocks and Bergen, the grace of accidental lighting and darkening, the gentle charm of fragrant distances, "to include in the representation.

During the restoration of the painting in 2003, overpainted fishing nets were discovered in the area of ​​the marshland when the picture background was examined using IR reflectography. This apparently gave the painter even more options for "mixing" the motifs.

Sketches and studies

The mountain range in the background corresponds to the reverse of the drawing on the sheet View of the snow pits and the frost support of Hainbergshöh and two rock studies from July 14, 1810, made during a hike in the Giant Mountains. The added notes "further than foreground" and "the lines have to stretch even more, the light touches the edge of the mountains" indicate that the painter was already clear about the further use of the study of nature. For the architecture the drawing The ruin Eldena with thatched farmhouse and pond is used, made during the trip to Rügen in the summer of 1815. This sheet serves as a preliminary study for the painting. The branch in the foreground comes from the drawing Astwerk , dated to the period 1807–1812 and is used in several paintings, including the oil painting Landscape with a rainbow . The drawing used for the path is lost, but has also been used several times, including in the oil painting Bohemian Landscape with the Milleschauer .

  • Caspar David Friedrich: View of the Snow Pits , 1810

  • Caspar David Friedrich: Branches , around 1807–1812

  • Caspar David Friedrich: Eldena ruins with farmhouse , around 1815

Provenance

The painting was in the possession of Friedrich's brother Adolf and around 1900 in the collection of his grandson, the Greifswald merchant Adolf Langguth and owner of the Friedrich soap maker, later owned by the chemist Wilhelm Levien, partner in the Friedrich soap maker. In 1934 the picture was acquired by the Greifswald Municipal Museum and has been in the Pomeranian State Museum Greifswald since 2001.

Classification in the overall work

The painting belongs to a group of later mountain pictures that were created between 1830 and 1835. The connection between the ruins of Eldena in Greifswald and a Silesian mountain region means that the picture is perceived as spectacular. Even though the bringing together of the north German motif and mountains in Friedrich's work is not a singular event. The paintings Neubrandenburg and Village Landscape with Morning Illumination are striking examples of this. The architectural capriccio of Fischerhütte and Gothic choir, regarded as a compilation, has a natural equivalent in Friedrich's memory. Until it was demolished in 1828, there was a day laborer's house on the walled up choir interior of the Greifswald ruin Eldena, which specified this mood value of the painting, such as the watercolor The Eldena Abbey near Greifswald (1836), the painting Ruine Eldena (1825) and the Sepia west facade the ruins of Eldena with bakery and barn (around 1837). The actual topic of the ruins in the Giant Mountains has a longer lead time with the study from 1815. The installation of residential houses and farm buildings in the ruins of monasteries and city fortifications was common in the 18th century. Friedrich seemed to be interested in the aesthetic effect of the structural contrast not only in Greifswald. The sepia landscape with ruins (around 1835) shows the Zingel of the Friedländer Tor in Neubrandenburg with a built-in hut.

  • Caspar David Friedrich: Eldena Monastery Ruins , 1825

  • Caspar David Friedrich: The Eldena Abbey near Greifswald , 1836

  • Caspar David Friedrich: West facade of the Eldena ruins with bakery and barn , around 1837

  • Caspar David Friedrich: Landscape with Ruins , around 1835

Web links

literature

  • Helmut Börsch-Supan: Caspar David Friedrich. Feeling as law. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-422-06807-0 .
  • 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).
  • Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work. 2 volumes, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-61905-2 .
  • Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld: Theory of garden art. MG Weidmanns Erben and Reich, Leipzig 1797 to 1785, Volumes 1–5.
  • Werner Hofmann: Caspar David Friedrich. Natural reality and art truth. CH Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-46475-0 .
  • Otto Schmidt: The Eldena ruins in Caspar David Friedrich's work. Art letter No. 25, Berlin 1944.
  • Detlef Stapf: Caspar David Friedrich's hidden landscapes. The Neubrandenburg contexts . Greifswald 2014, network-based P-Book

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Otto Schmidt: The Eldena ruins in the work of Caspar David Friedrich. Art letter No. 25, Berlin 1944, p. 22 f.
  2. ^ Werner Hofmann: Caspar David Friedrich. Natural reality and art truth . CH Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-46475-0 , p. 186.
  3. ^ Helmut Börsch-Supan: Caspar David Friedrich. Feeling as law . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin 2008, p. 40.
  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. 440.
  5. ↑ Detlef Stapf: Caspar David Friedrichs hidden landscapes. The Neubrandenburg contexts . Greifswald 2014, pp. 259 f., Network-based P-Book
  6. ^ Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld: Theory of garden art . MG Weidmanns Erben and Reich, Leipzig 1797 to 1785, Volume 1, p. 227 f.
  7. ^ Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld: Theory of garden art . Christian Cay Lorenz, MG Weidmanns Erben and Reich, Leipzig 1797 to 1785, Volume 1, p. 146 f.
  8. ↑ Surprise at the restoration of Friedrich painting . The world v. November 5, 2003
  9. ↑ Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work . 2 vol., Munich 2011, p. 602.
  10. ↑ Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work . 2 vol., Munich 2011, p. 686.
  11. ↑ Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work . 2 vol., Munich 2011, p. 536.
  12. ^ 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. 307.
  13. ^ 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. 313.
  14. ^ 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. 440.
  15. ↑ Detlef Stapf: Caspar David Friedrichs hidden landscapes. The Neubrandenburg contexts . Greifswald 2014, p. 59 f., Network-based P-Book .
  16. ↑ Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work . 2 vol., Munich 2011, p. 883.
  17. ^ 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. 459.
  18. ↑ Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work . 2 vol., Munich 2011, p. 902.
  19. ↑ Christina Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The painting. The entire work . 2 vol., Munich 2011, p. 864.