Germany celebrates 250 years of Caspar David Friedrich
January 19, 2024
“Save the Year”, notes the website dedicated to Caspar David Friedrich’s 250th birthdaywhich Germany will celebrate throughout 2024 with a variety of events and exhibitions.
While the Hamburger Kunsthalle opened its exhibition dedicated to the romantic painter on December 15th, the anniversary year officially begins on January 20th at St. Nicholas Cathedral in Greifswald, where Friedrich was baptized.
The painter’s legacy was already in the headlines before the official celebrations, when one of his sketchbooks was sold for 1.8 million euros (almost $2 million) at an auction in Berlin at the end of November.
Shortly before the sale, the Department of Culture of the Berlin Senate initiated procedures to have Friedrich’s work entered into Berlin’s state register of cultural assets of national value. This prevented buyers outside of Germany from taking the sketchbook out of the country – at least until after the process was complete. Even so, it would only be possible to export the notebook if it did not meet the criteria that consider it a valuable cultural asset.
A look at the item’s provenance, however, shows that it is indeed a truly unique treasure.
Nationally valuable cultural asset
The “Karlsruhe Sketchbook”, as it is known, had been in the possession of the Kersting family for over 200 years. Georg Friedrich Kersting, a notable German Romantic painter, was a close friend of Caspar David Friedrich – who was born in Greifswald, today in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, on September 5, 1774.
In his recently published book about Caspar David Friedrich, “Zauber der Stille” (Magic of Silence), German author Florian Illies writes that the artist’s contemporaries reported that Kersting helped his friend with the depictions of figures in his paintings. Why?
Illies writes that Friedrich was considered an untalented portraitist, for which he was even ridiculed during his time at the Copenhagen art academy.
Could this be the reason why the figures in Friedrich’s paintings are usually seen from behind?
Source: DW
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