Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature | Metropolitan Museum of Art
I watched the recent remake of Nosferatu on the plane to New York. Even on a tiny back-of-seat screen, I was bowled over by the film’s vibe: craggy mountains, gothic ruins, the skeletal shadows of ship masts in the fog. The vibe is pinched wholesale by the film’s director from Caspar David Friedrich. Maybe I was mentally primed to notice that, given there’s an outstanding exhibition of Friedrich’s work, on at the Met. A show I was particularly excited to see, once I reached my destination.
I’m sure Friedrich, as a deeply religious man, wouldn’t have been pleased to be associated with vampires and the occult. But it’s a testament to the strength of the vibe. What he originated in the Romantic early 1800s has proved powerful enough to curdle into horror movie cliché, centuries later. All the more surprising considering Friedrich, after some early success, fell out of favour in his own lifetime and died poor and obscure.
Pretty much all of the artist’s most famous paintings are in the show - a tribute to the Met’s galactic pulling power. It was a thrill to see them all for real. The proto-abstract Monk by the Sea, shockingly large and blank where so many of the other paintings are postage-stamp small. The iconic Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, where I noticed for the first time that the titular hero, dead centre of the canvas, is wearing a dandyish green velvet suit.
Most exciting for me was The Chasseur in the Forest, taken from a private collection and pictured above. The interior of the pine forest seemed so much browner and warmer than the cold, blurry reproduction that I had on a poster on my bedroom wall when I was a goth-curious student.
Surrounding this last painting were some small studies of trees the artist had done later in life. My favourite of all was Spruce Thicket in the Snow, painted from a heath near Friedrich’s home in Dresden.
It’s a simple nature study of trees in the snow. Just like the trees surrounding the hunter. They’re as pointy - and sublime - as the ruined Gothic church windows Friedrich also loved to paint. Along with his ship’s masts, his seas, his mountains, his clouds. Then as now, the vibe is flawless.
Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City). 08 February - 11 May 2025