Caspar David Friedrich - The Soul of Nature

A richly illustrated and authoritative survey of Caspar David Friedrich, the German master whose visionary landscapes stand as defining icons of Romantic art. This comprehensive volume examines the work of Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), the nineteenth-century painter whose depictions of the natural world remain deeply influential for their emotional depth and symbolic resonance. Through an exceptional selection of paintings and drawings, the book traces how Friedrich employed his signature motifs—moonlit horizons, Gothic ruins, solitary wanderers, and veiled, mist-laden vistas—alongside pioneering compositional approaches to create images that are at once spiritually charged and profoundly introspective.

Working at a pivotal moment in European thought, Friedrich helped transform the experience of nature into an inward journey, reflecting the era’s growing interest in spirituality, mortality, identity, and the passage of time. Essays by leading scholars situate his work within its broader cultural and intellectual milieu, exploring how he forged an open-ended visual language that became central to the Romantic vision of landscape. The authors also assess Friedrich’s enduring legacy, from his status as a cornerstone of German Romanticism to his continued impact on visual culture in the United States. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press.