Chalk Cliffs on Rügen

Chalk Cliffs on Rügen has arisen a 1818 painting by Caspar David Friedrich. It is one of the most important works of the Romantic and this has had a lasting influence. The 90.5 × 71 cm big picture is now in the Museum Oskar Reinhart, Winterthur.

Formation

The Greifswald Caspar David Friedrich stayed six times on Rügen. 1801, 1802, 1806, 1815, 1818 and 1826 By 1815, he drew the watercolor of the Wissower latches still without personal decoration.

On January 21, 1818 Caspar David Friedrich had married the younger almost twenty years Christiane Caroline Bommer. Together with his wife he visited on their honeymoon in July and August 1818 Related in Neubrandenburg and Greifswald. From there he went with his brother Christian and his sister a trip to the island of Rügen. In this context, the idea for the painting was created, as a sort of " wedding picture ".

Image description

The picture shows the view from the chalk cliffs of Stubbenkammer, one of the then already known landmarks on the island of Rügen. It is often incorrectly assumed that Wissower latches were presentation of the painting - it existed at the time of the creation of the painting but not yet, but arose later erosion due. Frederick continued his landscape paintings often carefully outlined elements of different landscapes together, so that a concrete assignment is usually not possible.

In the foreground two frames added by Frederick the scenery trees whose leaves occupy the upper third of the painting. Against this background, marvel two men and a woman, as a tourist in city clothes, the view.

The mean, lean figure is interpreted as a self-portrait of Caspar David Friedrich. The cylinder as a sign of humility lying next to him, he seeks halt in the grass as a symbol of the transience of life and directs our attention to the opening before him abyss - the abyss of death.

The second man with arms crossed leaning right in the picture on the stalk of a dead tree, looking out over the abyss away into the distance and the sea. The two sailboats on the sea as a symbol for the soul which breaks to eternal life.

The female figure in red dress, usually identified as Frederick's wife Caroline left in the picture, holding on to a nearly withered shrub, only the leafy branches are around her face. With her right hand she indicates either the abyss or on the flowers at its edge. In contrast to the two men whose gaze is directed toward the abyss or into the distance, it communicates with the other two figures.

The basic form of the painting is a heart, which then disreputable worked in combination with the woman and the two men in the circles of scholars.

In the painting conceals a color symbolism in the color of the clothes of the figures. The blue color of the faith, the central figure, the red color of love, the left figure and the green color of hope, the right figure leave the figures as personifications of the theological virtues of faith, hope and love interpret.

The art historian Helmut Börsch -Supan looks in the picture is a representation of Frederick relation to the death and threat of life through death, " clearly [ ... ] as never before, at the same time but also in a rare cheerful mood ."

Another interpretation reads the paintings as a memory image for the late Neubrandenburg Pastor Franz Christian Boll ( 1776-1818 ). After Friedrich is to be seen on the floor crawling between Boll and his wife Friederike. Could characterize this constellation of the ratio of the two men, the self-doubting painter and the fearless confidence in God theologians.

Sketches from August 11, 1815

Sketch sheet 14 ( Hinz 648)