Get to work! New Non-Fiction Books: Like a fictional crime novel: a robbery by thieves or a robbery by fire.

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It was like an early Christmas: this fall the Kunstmuseum Winterthur showed the first major exhibition of the work of Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) in Switzerland. In one room were exhibited two of the most important oil paintings by the German Romantic artist: “Wanderer above the Sea of ​​Fog” (circa 1817) from the Hamburg Kunsthalle and “Chalk Cliffs on Rügen” (1818) from the Reinhart collection. in Winterthur. The works will tour Germany in 2024 as part of the artist’s 250th birthday celebrations.

It was like a delayed Christmas: Friedrich married Caroline Bommer (1793–1847) on January 21, 1818, “sharply at six in the morning,” as the German art critic and journalist Florian Illies (52, “The Golf Generation”) wrote in his current “Bestseller.” “writes about the artist. “So it’s still dark outside, with only a few candles illuminating the faces of the bride and groom in the Kreuzkirche church in Dresden.” Romantic atmosphere, like in front of a Christmas tree.

Later that year the couple travels to the Baltic Sea. “It is now August 11, 1818, and they have just spent their honeymoon in Rügen,” writes Illies, “he, a 44-year-old artist from Greifswald, and she, a 25-year-old from Dresden.” It is there, on the island, that he draws inspiration for his next oil painting. “The Chalk Rock on Rügen is perhaps Friedrich’s most famous painting today,” Illies continued about Friedrich’s work, which is now in Winterthur. “And yet, above all, it is a great mystery.”

Who are the two men and one woman on the edge of the cliff? Is the “chalk rock” a reminder of his wife “Line’s” honeymoon, as some art historians suspect? “If the painting had anything to do with the honeymoon and his brother Christian, then the family blessing would certainly be wrong,” argues Illis, because Christian’s wife Elizabeth was also there, but Caspar David would not have painted it. “Wonderful puzzles.”

Illies’ book also reads wonderfully mysteriously, like a crime novel, because Friedrich’s paintings have an eventful afterlife: in 1996 in Potsdam (Germany) they were stolen by thieves, in 1994 in Frankfurt (Germany) they were accidental because Friedrich ” hanging” next to him and still has room in her big bag.” Unfortunately, in 1931, nine of Friedrich’s paintings were destroyed by fire when Munich’s Glass Palace burned down, and in 1943, an oil painting and numerous valuable drawings were burned during the bombing of Leipzig, Germany.

True to the subtitle “The Journey of Caspar David Friedrich through Time,” art connoisseur Illies takes us on an episodic journey through time. He skillfully traces Friedrich’s life, and then allows Friedrich’s drawings to take on a life of their own, in which encounters with famous people of world history occur – romantic paintings that radiate the “magic of silence” have a long and rich life.

Source: Blick