BERLIN.- The Hamburger Kunsthalle is marking the 250th anniversary of the birth of Caspar David Friedrich (1774 Greifswald–1840 Dresden) with a celebratory exhibition. CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH: Art for a New Age. It is the biggest review of work by the exceptional Romantic painter for many years. It centres on a themed retrospective with more than 60 paintings, among them many major iconic works, and about 100 drawings. Also featured are selected works by Friedrich’s colleagues, notably Carl Blechen, Carl Gustav Carus, Johan Christian Dahl, August Heinrich and Georg Friedrich Kersting.

The relationship between people and nature, which found novel expression in Friedrich’s landscapes, is a key thematic strand. His treatment of this subject was an essential factor, during the first third of the 19th century, towards transforming landscape painting into “art for a new age”. The deep fascination unleashed by these works has been enduring and they lend themselves with great facility to issues of now-time, as demonstrated by a second, separate section of the exhibition that brings together responses to Friedrich in contemporary art.

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), Hikers above the sea of ​​fog, around 1817.  Oil on canvas, 94.8 x 74.8 cm. Permanent loan from the Hamburger Foundation Art collections © SHK / Hamburger Kunsthalle / bpk. Photo: Elke Walford

In contributions ranging from video and photography to installations, some 20 artists working across a variety of genres and media, both here in Germany and abroad, set out to explore the Romantic era, its attitude to nature, and the art of Caspar David Friedrich. The participants include Elina Brotherus, Julian Charrière, David Claerbout, Olafur Eliasson, Alex Grein, Hiroyuki Masuyama, Mariele Neudecker, Ulrike Rosenbach, Susan Schuppli, Santeri Tuori and Kehinde Wiley.

Superb and extremely rare loans of paintings by Friedrich, among them Chalk Cliffs on Rügen (1818), The Monk by the Sea (1808–10) and Two Men Contemplating the Moon (1819/20), will be on show alongside works from the holdings of the Hamburger Kunsthalle such as Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (c.1817) and The Sea of Ice (1823/24). These works are Romantic icons.

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), Chalk cliffs on Rügen, 1818. Oil on canvas, 90 x 70 cm, Art Museum Winterthur, Oskar Reinhart Foundation © Photo: SIK-ISEA, Zurich / Philipp.

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), The Monk by the Sea, 1808–1810. Oil on canvas, 110 x 171.5 cm, State Museums in Berlin, Alte Nationalgalerie © bpk / Nationalgalerie, SMB / Andreas Kilger.

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), Two men contemplating the moon, 1819/20. Oil on canvas, 33 x 44.5 cm, Albertinum / Gallery New Masters © Albertinum / GNM, Dresden State Art Collection. Photo: Elke Estel.

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), The Sea of Ice, 1823/24. Oil on canvas, 96.7 x 126.9 cm. © Hamburger Kunsthalle / bpk. Photo: Elke Walford

Friedrich applied his painterly skills to probing the ability of a landscape to express questions of his time, to tapping the potential associated with representations of nature and to finding ways to communicate with the viewer. His output of drawings was likewise prolific and the exhibition devotes special attention to these. Spending time in a natural outdoor environment in order to produce art was a distinctive characteristic of Romantic practice and essential to Friedrich’s œuvre.

The unique atmosphere that speaks to us from Friedrich’s works with their powerful motifs and compositions has inspired many artists to enter into a dialogue with their Romantic colleague, especially given the current relevance of ecological issues. The tension between the gradual destruction of the environment and a yearning for »untouched nature« has been an unbroken force from the Romantic age down to our own times. In Friedrich’s day, however, the Romantic perception of nature carried national connotations, whereas today’s artists approach the natural world and climate change from a global perspective. In this spirit, the exhibition also embraces recent work devoted to the darker sides and absences in Romantic art and later reactions to it. Colonialism and its impact on people and natural resources are as much a theme here as the Western, hegemonial concept of nature and its expressions in art. The exhibits include imposing adaptations of Friedrich by the American artist Kehinde Wiley (*1977), which reflect critically on an art canon informed by white Western input.

Kehinde Wiley (*1977), The Prelude (Ibrahima Ndiaye and El Hadji Malick Gueye), 2021. Oil on canvas, 87.2 x 305 cm, Rennie Collection, Vancouver. Courtesy of the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London © Kehinde Wiley

The exhibition at the Hamburger Kunsthalle is the prelude to the Caspar David Friedrich Festival. To celebrate the anniversary year, the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin and the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden will each follow suit with shows on their own themes. The three museums boast the world’s biggest collections of works by Friedrich. A reciprocal flow of substantial loans will permit unprecedented displays on different aspects of his œuvre. These exhibitions to mark the 250th anniversary of Caspar David Friedrich’s birth enjoy the patronage of Germany’s president Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

To complement the Festival, the Hamburger Kunsthalle has teamed up with the Alte Nationalgalerie/ Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden to set up a Web portal with curated multi-media content around Friedrich’s art as part of a project called Datenraum Kultur. This is one of several flagship projects set up under the Federal government’s Digital Strategy to facilitate digital networking between cultural establishments and to promote the independent exchange of arts-related data. Its development has been entrusted to the Deutsche Akademie der Technikwissenschaften e.V. (acatech), the Ministry of Culture and Media in the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology (FIT).

Hamburger Kunsthalle, Caspar David Friedrich: Art for a New Age, December 15th, 2023 - April 1st, 2024

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), Self-portrait with arm supported, around 1802. Pen in brown over pencil, 26.7 x 21.5 cm, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett © Hamburger Kunsthalle / bpk. Photo: Christoph Irrgang.

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), The Feldstein near Rathen, 1828.X atercolor, pencil, black border line on paper, 26.2 x 23.1 cm, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg. On loan from the Nuremberg City Museums. Art collections.

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), The Watzmann, 1824/25. Oil on canvas, 135 x 170 cm, State Museums in Berlin, Alte Nationalgalerie © bpk / Nationalgalerie, SMB, loan from DekaBank / Andreas Kilger.

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), Moonrise by the Sea, 1822. Oil on canvas, 55 x 71 cm, State Museums in Berlin, Alte Nationalgalerie © bpk / Nationalgalerie, SMB / Jörg P. Anders.

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), Evening, 1824. Oil on textile image support on hardboard, 20 x 27.5 cm, Mannheim Municipal Art Gallery, Mannheim © Photo: Kunsthalle Mannheim / Cem Yüceta.

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), Eldena ruins in the Giant Mountains, 1830/34. Oil on canvas, 72 x 101 cm, Pomeranian State Museum Foundation, Greifswald.

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), Meadows near Greifswald, 1821/22. Oil on canvas, 34.5 x 48.3 cm © Hamburger Kunsthalle/bpk. Photo: Elke Walford.

Elina Brotherus, The Wanderer 2, 2004. From the series The New Painting Giclée print based on a digitized negative, 105 × 128 cm (Artist's Proof), Miettinen Collection, Berlin-Helsinki © Elina Brotherus / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023

David Claerbout (*1969), Wildfire (meditation on fire), 2019–20203, D animation, stereo sound, color, 24 min. In collaboration with Musea Brugge. Courtesy of the artist and Kunstmuseum Bonn, on permanent loan from the KiCo Collection Bonn © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023

Ann Böttcher (*1973), Pause I (after Frühschnee, “Early Snow”, Caspar David Friedrich, ca. 1827), 2000, pencil on paper, 26.4 × 29.6 cm, Maria Bonnier Dahlins Stiftelse, Stockholm © Bonniers / Lenz.

Julian Charrière (*1987), The Blue Fossil Entropic Stories III, 2013. Archival pigment printing, 160 × 240 cm. Courtesy DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM, Berlin © Julian Charrière / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023

Susan Schuppli (*1959), Arctic Archipelago, 2021. HD video, color, stereo sound, 26:20 min. (Film still). Courtesy of the artist © Susan Schuppli