Caspar David Friedrich quotes

Caspar David Friedrich was a German Romantic landscape painter, renowned for his evocative and atmospheric scenes. His work emphasized themes of nature, spirituality, and the sublime, often highlighting the smallness of humanity within vast landscapes. He became one of the most influential artists of Romanticism and inspired generations of artists with his visionary art. Here are 54 of his quotes:

The divine is everywhere, even in a grain of sand; there I represented it in the reeds.

Caspar David Friedrich

What the newer landscape artists see in a circle of a hundred degrees in Nature they press together unmercifully into an angle of vision of only forty-five degrees. And furthermore, what is in Nature separated by large spaces, is compressed into a cramped space and overfills and oversatiates the eye, creating an unfavorable and disquieting effect on the viewer.

Caspar David Friedrich

.. the great white blanket of snow [in one of his painting of Cemetery / Church in the Snow, mid-1820's].... the essence of the utmost purity, beneath which nature prepares herself for a new life..

Caspar David Friedrich

People are always talking about 'incidentals'; but nothing is incidental in a picture, everything is indispensable to the whole effect, so nothing must be neglected. If a man can give value to the main part of his composition only by negligent treatment of the subordinate portions, his work is in a bad way. Everything must and can be carefully executed, without the different parts obtruding themselves on the eye. The proper subordination of the parts to the whole is not achieved by neglecting incidental features, but by correct grouping and by the distribution of light and shadow.

Caspar David Friedrich

All authentic art is conceived at a sacred moment and nourished in a blessed hour; an inner impulse creates it, often without the artist being aware of it.

Caspar David Friedrich

Close your bodily eye, that you may see your picture first with the eye of the spirit. Then bring to light what you have seen in the darkness, that its effect may work back, from without to within.

Caspar David Friedrich

The pure, frank sentiments we hold in our hearts are the only truthful sources of art.

Caspar David Friedrich

Alas, the blue arc of heaven / Is covered with gloomy clouds, / And the bright radiance of the sun / Is completely hidden See the terrifying force of the tempest / Bows the oaks so that is groans, / And the rose on the beautiful pasture / has ben bent down by the rain.

Caspar David Friedrich

You should keep sacred every impuls of your mind; you should keep sacred every pious sentiment; because that is art in us. In an inspired hour she will appear in a clear form, and this form will be your picture.

Caspar David Friedrich

It is doubtful whether the artist [unknown] altogether knew what he depicted here in this panel, and even more doubtful whether he could have expressed it in words. That which we praise here as well thought-out and cleverly arranged may, in fact, have been achieved by him unconsciously; for the artist was transformed by pure harmoniousness while executing this picture, and his feeling become his law. Only his disposition, his spiritual exaltation, could have brought forth such a fruit as this picture. Just as the pious man prays without speaking a word and the Almighty hearkens unto him, so the artist with true feeling paints and the sensitive man understands and recognizes it; while even the less sensitive gain some inkling of it.

Caspar David Friedrich

Every truthful work of art must express a definite feeling, must move the spirit of the spectator either to joy or to sadness.... rather than try to unite all sensations, as thought mixed together with a twirling stick.

Caspar David Friedrich

Just as the reverent man prays without uttering words, and the Lord hears him, the sensitive painter paints, and the sensitive man understands and recognizes him, but even the more obtuse carry away something from his work.

Caspar David Friedrich

People say of such-and-such a painter that he has great command of his brush. Might it not be more correct to say that he is controlled of his brush? Merely for the satisfaction of his vanity, to paint brilliantly and display skill with the brush, he has sacrificed the nobler considerations of naturalness and truth – and thus achieved sorry fame as a brilliant technician.

Caspar David Friedrich

I am far from wanting to resist the demands of my time, except when they are purely a matter of fashion. Instead, I continue to hope that time itself will destroy its own offspring, perhaps quite soon. But I am not so weak as to submit to the demands of the age when they go against my convictions. I spin a cocoon around myself; let others do the same. I shall leave it up to time to show what will come of it: a brilliant butterfly or a maggot.

Caspar David Friedrich

If a painting has a soulful effect on the viewer, if it puts his mind into a soulful mood, then it has fulfilled the first requirement of a work of art. However bad it might be in drawing, color, handling, etc.

Caspar David Friedrich

The beauty, the spirit of Germany, its sun, moon, stars, rocks, seas and rivers can never be expressed this way..

Caspar David Friedrich

When a landscape is enveloped in mist it appears larger, more majestic, and increases the power of imagination... The eye and the imagination are on the whole more attracted.

Caspar David Friedrich

Man should not be held as an absolute standard for mankind, but the Godly, the infinite is his goal... Follow without hesitation the voice of your inner self; for it is the Godly in us and leads us not to astray..

Caspar David Friedrich

I must stay alone and know that I am alone to contemplate and feel nature in full; I have to surrender myself to what encircles me, I have to merge with my clouds and rocks in order to be what I am. Solitude is indispensible for my dialogue with nature.

Caspar David Friedrich

Gently rising hills block the view into the distance; line the wishes and desires of the children, who enjoy the blissful moments of the present without wanting to know what lies beyond. Bushes in bloom, nourishing herbs, and sweet-smelling flowers surround the quiet clear stream in which the pure blue of the cloudless sky is reflected like the glorious image of God in the souls of the children... There is no stone to be seen here, no withered branch, no fallen leaves. The whole of nature breathes, peace, joy, innocence and life.

Caspar David Friedrich

Through the gloomy clouds break / Blue sky, sunshine, / On the heights and in the valley / Sing the lark and the nightingale God, I thank you that I live / Not forever in this world / Strengthen me that my soul rise / Upward toward your firmament.

Caspar David Friedrich

I just stepped out of the dark, still forest and found myself on a rising hill. In front of me I saw a valley, surrounded by fertile hills, in which a town stood and the newly covered slate roof of the tower glowed in the evening light. Through the richly-flowered, carpeted meadow the river meandered.. .And behind the hills lay the mountains.. ..cliff after cliff rose far out into the horizon.. .Filled with soaring joy I stood there a long time and looked at the beautiful area..

Caspar David Friedrich