Following Friedrich

"He attempts... to introduce allegory and symbolism into shadows and light, into nature, living or dead, into snow and water, and also into living figures." - Ludwig Tieck, (1773-1853), poet, critic, translator

Wanderer über den Nebelmeer, 1818

In my early twenties I had the good, if not genuine fortune of attending Professor Derek Knight's third year art history lectures at Brock University, 'Art in Revolution' and 'Modernism'. The two courses, which weren't offered every year, focused on the political, philosophical and socio-economic forces behind the great masterpieces of 19th century art, beginning in the late 1790s with the French Revolution and the neoclassicism of Jacque-Louis David and ending, in the second class with the First World War and Picasso's cubism.

To get into the two courses, one had to have a reasonable background in art history and have a credit in the first year introductory class. 

I had studied art in high school and spent the summer voraciously reading all the Taschen artist series books in the Brock library. This, with my passion for the subject helped me by-pass the prerequisite so long as I still signed up for the first year class while attending Prof.Knight's lectures. 

In the first semester, I was a quiet, reserved student. I sat at the back of the class, taking notes, secretly falling in love with the works of David and Delacroix in France, Goya in Spain and Constable in England.

And when we arrived at German Romanticism, Prof. Knight's always enlightening and eloquent lecture did not disappoint, as he delivered a stunning, indispensable talk on Caspar David Friedrich and his contemporary, Philipp Otto Rung. 

The former was especially important to me. I had seen Friedrich's paintings on the covers of classical music albums. (Wanderer Over a Sea of Mist was a personal favorite, appearing on a box set I had bought when I was nineteen). I had lived with them before attending this class. I conjured up his images whenever I listened to the piano sonatas and symphonies of Franz Schubert, a Viennese contemporary of the artist. 

So when deciding on a subject for my term paper, I devoted my research solely to the works of Friedrich, writing about the figures in his painting, their backs to us, what they meant, what they signified to the artist and how they went from solitary and lonely in his earlier works to accompanied in his later pieces. 

I received an 'A' (85%) for my paper with the inevitable comment that I should speak up more class. My professor was impressed with my use of language as I employed the word 'bodeful', a term coined by Thomas Carlyle in the 19th century, in describing Friedrich's works. I knew of Carlyle at the time but had no inkling nor idea it was his word. I suppose I was searching for something and 'forbidding' and 'foreboding' simply missed the mark for me.

Over the years, I thought I had lost my essay but before leaving for Europe, I suddenly rediscovered it amongst old papers and letters. I scanned my argument once again, I read certain paragraphs, glossing over the descriptions and interpretations but for the most part, I was simply happy to have found it again.

Though I had misplaced the essay, I always kept Friedrich in my thoughts. He was one of the reasons I was now going to Germany. Prof. Knight routinely commented on how his slide-projector in a darkened, basement room of the Schmon Tower did no justice to the great masterworks of the past. One had to see them live, in person to truly appreciate their nuances and genius. 

Kreuz an der Ostsee, 1815

After visiting Holland this year, seeing the great Rembrandts and Van Goghs, I arrived in Germany in late May. My Friedrich search got off to a solid but rather slow start. In Köln I had the opportunity to come face-to-face with my first Friedrich at the Wallraf-Richarz Museum. A lonely sea-side landscape, people-less but dominated by a solemn, wooden cross standing tall against the sunset, rooted in a stern, outcrop of rocks. The ghostly ships in the distances, I noted were almost too ephemeral to seem real and the sun could almost be mistaken for a moon rising over the Baltic waters. In no way was I disappointed and felt the experience to have a spiritual connotation. 

The other two were equally sublime but this one in particular had a certain pull on me.

After spending an otherwise lonely and restless week in Köln, I booked a place in Nürnburg. On my day of departure, looking for my platform at the Haupbahnhof, scanning the blue rectangular screens hanging from the ceiling, I saw one whose final destination was Greifswald.

I grinned. Friedrich's birthplace. He was born there in 1774.

I said to myself, somehow, sometime I would get there and visit the local museum. 

But things and life got in the way. While in Freiburg I tried to make plans for Greifswald but I couldn't find any cheap nor reasonable accommodations and decided to book at a later date.

While in Freiburg, however, I took the train to nearby Karlsruhe in hopes of seeing a Friedrich in the Staatliche Kunsthalle. Though I was impressed with the collection, from seeing Anselm Feurbach's famous Das Gastmahl des Plato (Plato's Symposium) to Rembrandt's Self-Portrait, not to mention the other masterpieces from the Dutch Golden Age and the works of French art from the late 19th century there was, unfortunately, no Friedrich that I could find. I asked about the piece, Felsenriff am Meeresstrand (Rock Reef near Seaside). One museum employee directed me to the top floor. Another shook her head, said no, no, it was amongst the German Romantic pieces on the main floor. Having searched the museum top to bottom, I finally asked a woman at a computer. After a few seconds of typing, she said the Friedrich was on loan for an art exhibit in Madrid, Spain. Shaking my head, chuckling, I thanked her, buying the catalogue as a quasi-souvenir of my lunch bag let down. 

I wouldn't see another Friedrich until I arrived late afternoon in sultry Munich some two weeks later. I got off the train at 4:00, deposited my suitcase and side satchel in a locker and made my way to the Neue Pinakothek, buying my ticket at 4:40, leaving me less than an hour and a half to explore the art gallery. I tried to be patient, visiting the museum floor by floor. But with time running out, I began to seek out the German master's works. 

Once again, upon finding the right room, I was in awe. There were seven pieces to behold this time. I went from one to the next, slowly trying to absorb as many details, to see the nuances Prof. Knight had advised his students to look for should they encounter their favourite works in person. I also had my camera though the images I digitally captured couldn't compare with the originals.

Reisenberglandschaft mit aufsteigender Nebel

What always astounds me about Friedrich is the very depth and solidity of his work. In his youth, he studied in Copenhagen under the then famous artist, Nicolai Abildgaard. Friedrich worked directly from nature, learning to draw models in chalk. There are many watercolours and sketches from this period.

When his career began in earnest in the early 1800s, he rarely if ever produced any sketches. His friend, fellow landscape painter Carl Gustav Carus (1789-1869) noted Friedrich was not typical of many artists. According to his peer, Friedrich did not 'commence work on a painting until its image presented itself in his mind's eye in a vivid manner, then he drew directly onto the stretched canvas, at first quickly with chalk or a pencil, then he reworked everything properly in detail with a pen and wash before finally going back to the first layer.'

Carus's Wanderer - compare with Friedrich's above.

Carus goes on to say that this is the reason Friedrich's landscape are so well organized and executed. Not only this, from my perspective, they appear more tangible and yet haunting compared to his peers' work. Carus, like Blechen, Dahl, Koch and Richter are all accomplished painters in their own right, many of them inspired by the same philosophers and poets as Friedrich, though rarely do they possess the truly sublime or symbolic touch so well-embodied in the latter's paintings. Carus, for instance, speaks the same language of Friedrich - note his 'wanderer' - though he doesn't have the same eloquence or depth, let alone vision. 

Friedrich, simply put, has something more. In the Neue Pinakothek, one could feel the alpine wind in his Reisenberglandschaft (mountain landscape), hear its howl. The lone, bare tree, too, seemed anthropomorphic, almost human. Standing in front of such a painting, I sensed the harrowing and sublime loneliness but there was less fear, more wonder, as if being a viewer I was more or less a visitor drawn into a strange but familiar land.

Friedrich himself once wrote that the artist must not only paint what is before him but inside him. Moreover, the true, genuine source of art is the human heart. 'A painting which does not surge up out of that is mere jugglery.' He wrote. 'Every authentic work is conceived in a sacred hour and born in a blessed one: created by an inner compulsion of which the artist is often unaware.'

'The divine is everywhere' Friedrich would comment. Even in the artist himself which might explain his  propensity for things distant and mysterious.  

'The sacred and the profane', is what Prof. Knight routinely said and reminded us during his lecture of long ago.

It is also true what my professor said, one must see the works in person. 

When I visited the Hamburg Kunsthalle in early July and stood before the famed (for me numinous) Wanderer Über den Nebelmeer (Wanderer over a Sea of Mist) I could distinguish a haze of pink in the clouds, something I failed to detect when I first described the painting in my art history essay. In my paper I wrote about the figure's stance, his clothing; in addition, I described the row of sandstone rocks, the large granite crag and the hazed mountain. I wrote that the painting had an aura of chill to it, that is, it felt cold, and the figure stood against the landscape, in opposition to it, alone. 

But the pink, I had to admit, undetected in classroom slides or art history texts, added an element of warmth and hope. 

I sat before the painting for almost twenty minutes. I felt a shift within me. For many years I had interpreted the picture as man's agon with nature. I had only seen the figure solely as a resolute but lonely, contemplative man. The painting always struck me as romantic and melancholic. The wild solitude surrounding the figure both wintry and harsh.

And yet this hint of pink. There was something to it. The painting, I realized felt more welcoming and in turn, I saw the great distances not as obstructing or daunting but even welcoming. Seeing the painting from the figure's perspective, I felt invited into that greater world. The unknown wasn't necessarily 'bodeful' as there was a trace of kindness and peace in the clouds, that a sun was glowing behind the ephemeral veil of the mist. I sensed hope and I could understand truly what Friedrich indicated when he said he painted from his heart.

Shortly thereafter, I fell sick in Hamburg after a weary, forced trip to Lübeck (where as it happened, I came accidentally upon four Friedrich's in the Museum für Kunst and Kulturegeschicte). Instead of taking the train further east to Greifswald, which would have been a two-hour trip, I had already contacted a family friend in Berlin and was heading there to visit and recuperate.  

I had terrible congestion and the chills. I wore a coat though it was thirty degrees. Upon arrival, my nose became severely plugged and that night, alone, my host off, drinking beer with his friends in the park, I could only sleep while sitting up.

I had to leave. Beyond my present physical condition, I found the said friend's place far too chaotic to handle. Books and clothes everywhere, his recording and d.j. equipment took up much of the space. Thankfully, I found accommodations far from Kreuzberg, renting a vacation apartment east of the city, in a quiet suburb.

There, I recuperated in peace, albeit slowly, my congestion easing, my body purging itself of the illness. I took baths, I coughed most nights but was still able to get my rest, lounging out on the couch during the day, watching the first three seasons of Two and a Half Men and enjoying every guiltless moment (yes, I know it isn't a great show but I have a soft spot in my heart for it...).

For the length of my stay, I was only able to get out for groceries; I had no real hope of visiting Berlin's famous Museum Insel (Museum Island) where the Alte Natialgalerie housed some of the most famous German Romantic pieces.

My last day in Berlin I decided to make a go of it, to make it count. My throat was still rough but my energy had returned. After three transfers (one bus, two trains), I walked from Alexanderplatz, passing under the famed Fernseherturm, that postmodern icon of Modern Berlin to the Insel. I bought my ticket at the art gallery and headed directly to the top floor to find the 'Friedrich Room.'

I would have to describe this room as the climax of my search. From the first sprinkles of Friedrich in Cologne, to missing out on one of his minor masterpieces in Karlsruhe, to Munich's generous offerings and Hamburg's excellent collection (one room over from Runge's works), Berlin had by far the best on display.

Der Mönch am Meer, 1810

Toteninsel

Besides the Wanderer, I would describe Der Mönch am Meer (Monk by the Sea) as the most emblematic of Friedrich's works. The monk stands on the shoreline, and like in many of his paintings, the figure is dwarfed by his surroundings. One might say he appears helpless against the tumultuous backdrop of the sky and sea. Either a storm is approaching or a storm  has passed, the clouds are nonetheless dark in their appearance though there is a glimmering of light blue. And though he is small, the monk doesn't lack for significance.

Purchased by Crown Prince Fredrick of Prussia in 1810, one can trace this important piece to Arnold Böcklin's Toteninsel (Island of the Dead) to Rothko's expressionist masterpiece, Rust and Blue. In the former, we see the lone figure against the vast backdrop of nature, the monk transforming into the white cloaked figure in the boat; in the latter, if we squint our eyes, the three troubled bands of sky, sea and sand become the murky strips of brown, light blue and navy. 

Without the monk - again like many of the figures in Friedrich's works - to anchor us in the piece we would have no point of reference. While he meditates on existence, life and death and the mysteries of the world, we are drawn in to contemplate with him. I wrote in my essay of long ago that we as viewers place ourselves in Friedrich's paintings. 'The sensation of emotion we feel is not for the pensive individual but for ourselves' is how my twenty-year old self put it.

Looking at the monk in Berlin, I saw my surrogate self, the other that was me. And in this me, the twenty-year old who first fell in love with Friedrich's paintings, the one who wrote the paper, influenced by the artist but also equally devoted to the works of Dostoevsky and the films of Ingmar Bergman. A serious soul with a touch of arrogance, scholarly and lonely, sitting at the back of his lecture halls; always the same longing in his heart to belong to something greater but too afraid to reach out, to go after his dreams. 

Between writing the essay of long ago and the European trip, he moved eight times in ten years. He had also been severely ill and hospitalized three times, the last to receive a blood transfusion in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Before that, at the height of the illness, two doctors informed him he had less than two weeks to live.

He was also the twenty-year old who first wanted to go to Germany, to study Friedrich and art history. In 2002 he applied for a year aboard and a scholarship with DAAD. The scholarship didn't fall through but it didn't matter as the illness had taken over by this point.

I suppose one must be grateful for the little tragedies and disappointments. In Berlin, I saw beyond what the twenty-year old might have seen, that is the great painting became for me a sombre, sober homage to all the unanswered questions. The scene is quiet, but not calm and yet it is grand, the figure alone and occupied and me, the viewer, occupied with all my own questions, both personal and philosophical, continually struck by the simplicity of the layout.

For me there are some things I cannot let go like, why did I have to become ill and why did it take so long to heal? Other questions feel rhetorical, impossible to answer like Why haven't I fallen in love? And of course, beyond the void of the future, what is waiting for me now?

Who is really satisfied with their life? I wondered, my hand cradling my chin. Yes, sometimes I wish my life was different. I have a few regrets but they don't weigh heavily on me (well, not always). Not really. I try to regard the regrets as just solemn moments of curiosity, the time when I considered the what ifs and the whys?, my own answers leading my imagination to conjure up another path that I didn't take. If the circumstances had been different, what would I have done, what would I be thinking now?

Friedrich lived through his own upheavals and hours of distress (what artist hasn't?). His mother died when he was seven. He lost two sisters, one to typhus. Perhaps the greatest tragedy came when he was thirteen years old when his brother Johann died trying to rescue him, falling through the ice of a frozen lake.

From family to the great events on the world stage, he came to his career during the years of Napoleon's occupation of the German territories. He was once severely ill, so sick he couldn't work, worried about another brother then staying in France. And though he had his faith to fall back on, one wonders by looking at such a picture if he felt certain of salvation.

For one, the monk isn't praying.  For me, he is, in a sense, living the questions, to quote Austrian poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. The answers are never there because we must creatively search for them inside ourselves. And creativity, one must remember, according to Friedrich is divine and from the heart.

But one must be open to such an approach, I feel. And there is always hope, some kind of way to make life better.

Frau am Fenster, 1822

In the same room as the monumental Monk by the Sea, there is a painting aptly entitled Frau am Fenster (Woman at the Window). It was completed in 1822, twelve years after the former, four years after Friedrich's marriage to Christiane Caroline Bommer. 

'Much has changed since "I" became "we" he wrote following his wedding. On the surface, his household became cleaner and welcoming, 'unrecognizable' according to him. 

He married relatively later in life (being forty-four) giving his heart to a woman nineteen years his junior. But it would eventually change the way he painted.

Mann und Frau den Mond betrachtend, 1830-35

Following 1818, the lone souls, the wanderers and philosophers, are no longer alone. Directly across from Frau am Fenster, there is a man accompanied by a woman in a twilight picture. It is a new departure, wholly new, a reworking of his figures. The single is coupled. There is no isolation. It isn't one man's agon against the universe. No. It is far more peaceful, far more tender, a togetherness. The same contemplation, the same aura of wonder and observation but fittingly shared. Here, the couple is joined by their affection for each other but also by their their curiosity: together they stare at the moon together, they are living the questions, albeit lovingly. 

Nearby, in the same Friedrich Room, a dark forest. At the bottom of the painting, in a kind of shallow grotto, one sees two souls warming by the fire. And the figure of the one is unmistakeably a woman. Man doesn't have to be alone in the wilderness, the artist is implying. He can find a partner, someone to share the hours, to share survival, the ordeal of existence. 

In my university essay, I had noted the changes in the artist's life. For me it had always made sense. Friedrich had to work solitary in order to gain enough recognition and money. If the artist wants to achieve success, the less distractions the better. But how lonely.

Last year I attended a wedding. My friend's daughter was getting married outside my hometown. I wasn't in a relationship so I had no date so I came as a single. After the ceremony and open bar, everyone was seated. The father of the bride placed me beside an old poet friend of his, Elizabeth. I had met her once and had quite a heated discussion about writing. It was quite the argument (how often does one yell at elderly woman?) and to this day, I'm not entirely sure how it started, just to say Elizabeth irritated me. 

During dinner, we were friendly. She knew I was writing a book. Actually two, one of them a kind of memoir, the second a verse novel. When I talked about my progress on the latter, she remarked that I had so much time, that I should be grateful I had no girlfriend or wife or family to distract me. I knew this but resented the fact. 

I had lost my twenties to illness, to my own close calls with death. In the years where I should have been drinking and partying, I had been recovering. There were no trysts or sexual adventures, no long lost loves or exotic romances that bring on the yearning and idealism of memory.  No. Instead I was sick. 

But even during the years of my illness, I still wrote and read. I persevered. I remember living in Vancouver, poor, still bleeding internally but reading the Sturm und Drang plays of Schiller, the otherworldly poetry of Hölderlin and the critical works of Nietzsche. It was this time I discovered Anna Akhmatova and read Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Yes, even in the most dire of hours, I was still educating myself, reaching for the future that always seemed a little uncertain and feeble. I figured I had to live and somehow, somewhere, I would find healing.

Returning to my trip, I left Berlin early the next morning. I wouldn't see another Friedrich until I reached Madrid (a beautiful piece though I couldn't find the one on loan from Karlsruhe). When I returned to Germany in late summer I revisited the Museum der Bildenden Künste in Leipzig, twice with my mother. I had seen the collection in late June but wanted to share my observations with her. 

Die Lebenstuffen, 1835

There are only three Friedrich's in the collection but one happens to be a favourite of mine. Another later Friedrich, often referred to as Die Lebensstufen (Stages of Life). In it, we see five figures. Behind them, five ships upon the sea. Each figure is likened to a ship. There is a boy and a girl playing with a Swedish flag, a man and woman and an old man approaching with his cane. Some have interpreted the main ship, the one closest to the shoreline to be the old man's, that is, he is nearing his end as the ship is nearing its destination. Others view the ship in the far right, the furthest from the viewer to be a symbol of the older man.

Looking at the old man I could see the great Wanderer of the Kunsthalle in Hamburg. It made me smile. For even the wild and melancholic souls must have their families, get old and prepare for the beyond they spent their youth romancing about. It made sense, as the work was part of a natural progression, a fitting masterwork which would be one of Friedrich's last.

In my paper I wrote about  Der Abendstern (The Evening Star), a similar piece completed about the same time showing a family walking up a hillside near Greifswald. Like Die Lebensstufen, Der Abendstern is filled with an orange evening light. Here too is a sense of journey's end, though instead of ships, the sun is setting and one sees homecoming over the hill.

For Friedrich, the city often stood for the city of God just as the open sea stood for the vast unknown after life.The little boy at the top of the hill, greeting the twilight like a future monk by the sea.

Leaving the museum, walking the streets with my mother and step-father, I realized I had fallen in love with Leipzig, this beautiful, quaint city in Eastern Germany, less touristy than Berlin. I had stared at the Friedrichs knowing it would be awhile before I could return to them or any of his pieces in the other cities I had visited. In a week, I would have to go 'home', to another continent far from the art I loved.

And I thought of the twenty-year old, how I had done this trip for him, for us. The quiet soul at the back of the class. Yes, he was arrogant and stubborn, proud and lost but he was humbled for a reason.

I felt for myself. The youth of my twenties has passed, though I know it never existed. If I had been able to make this trip earlier, I might have been be able to return with the hopes of returning the following year with plans on finding a job. As it stands, I have debts but also hope. 

Looking back I was never able to finish school because of the illness but I did manage to see Germany. I still have my two books. The memoir is ready for publication and I am actively searching for an agent. I hope to publish the book, make enough money and return to Leipzig.

Reading and re-reading my book, I see Friedrich's influence in my writing, how his sunset and solemn landscapes shaped how I remembered my childhood scenes which I painted reverently with words, my canvas being the digital pages on my laptop. Though there was always something in me that was looking for Friedrich's paintings. Even as a child I had seen in nature and life at an early age something already haunting and mysterious but in finding his work at nineteen, it was like coming home to what I already knew and sensed. That someone else saw the same things and made sure no one was alone in the experience of life by relating to the same unanswered questions. 

I am proud of my book. Like Friedrich, I have come to my art from the same source, and without the illness, I would never have discovered it, namely my heart.

The twenty-year old still had a lot to learn but he was aware of what was needed. At the end of the art history essay, he wrote about Russian poet and statesman Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky (1783-1852) who urged and assisted the Russian Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich, the future Czar Nicholas I in selecting several of Friedrich's paintings for his home. 'Zhukovsky's opinions are fitting of Friedrich, the twenty-year old noted, and in conclusion we will finish with a quote by the poet:

"His paintings please by their truthfulness, because each one of them awakens in the viewer's soul memories of something familiar. If you find in them more than what the eyes see, that is because the painter looked at nature not as an artist, who seeks only a model for his brush, but as a human being with feelings and imagination, who finds in every aspect of nature a symbol for the human soul."