I wanted to put an image of Friedrich's 'Monk by the Sea' as it directly influenced a temporary sculpture/installation entitled 'Relic' created in 2006 (shown above). I was criticised for positioning the car sculpture just off centre in the photo frame as it was proclaimed too 'obvious' a composition. It was however a deliberate tongue in cheek depiction of the sea in the neo-romanticist tradition, only with an old ford mondeo... (silence followed by a cough).
"Monk by the Sea" Casper David Friedrich
(1809) Oil on canvas, 110 x 172 cm"The key to understanding Friedrich's ideas and work is the link between landscape and religion. The majority of his best-known paintings are expressions of a religious mysticism. His landscapes seek not just the blissful enjoyment of a beautiful view, as in the Classic conception, but an instant of sublimity, a reunion with the spiritual self through the lonely contemplation of an overwhelming Nature. Friedrich said, "The painter should paint not only what he has in front of him, but also what he sees inside himself. If he sees nothing within, then he should stop painting what is in front of him." Colossal skies, storms, mist, ruins, scattered tracks of life (ancient altars, wrecked ships) and crosses bearing witness to the presence of God are frequent elements in Friedrich's landscapes.Even some of his apparently non-symbolic paintings contain inner meanings, either religious or political, clues to which are provided either by Friedrich's writings or those of his literary friends.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_David_Friedrich#Philosophy_and_motives'It is splendid, in infinite loneliness by the shore of the sea under a cheerless sky, to stare at a limitless expanse of water; in part, this is due to the fact that one has gone there, that one must return, that one would like to cross over, that one cannot do so; that everything belonging to life is missing and that one hears one's own voice in the roar of the tide, in the billowing of the wind, in the passing of the clouds and in the lonely cry of the birds; in part it is due to a demand which is made by the heart and by the withdrawal of nature...'
(1809) Oil on canvas, 110 x 172 cm"The key to understanding Friedrich's ideas and work is the link between landscape and religion. The majority of his best-known paintings are expressions of a religious mysticism. His landscapes seek not just the blissful enjoyment of a beautiful view, as in the Classic conception, but an instant of sublimity, a reunion with the spiritual self through the lonely contemplation of an overwhelming Nature. Friedrich said, "The painter should paint not only what he has in front of him, but also what he sees inside himself. If he sees nothing within, then he should stop painting what is in front of him." Colossal skies, storms, mist, ruins, scattered tracks of life (ancient altars, wrecked ships) and crosses bearing witness to the presence of God are frequent elements in Friedrich's landscapes.Even some of his apparently non-symbolic paintings contain inner meanings, either religious or political, clues to which are provided either by Friedrich's writings or those of his literary friends.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_David_Friedrich#Philosophy_and_motives'It is splendid, in infinite loneliness by the shore of the sea under a cheerless sky, to stare at a limitless expanse of water; in part, this is due to the fact that one has gone there, that one must return, that one would like to cross over, that one cannot do so; that everything belonging to life is missing and that one hears one's own voice in the roar of the tide, in the billowing of the wind, in the passing of the clouds and in the lonely cry of the birds; in part it is due to a demand which is made by the heart and by the withdrawal of nature...'
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