Caspar David Friedrich

A childlike disposition coupled with deep melancholy, a somewhat eccentric outsider, a politically inconvenient mind: Caspar David Friedrich – born in Greifswald, controversial during his lifetime, forgotten for half a century after his death, now the most important painter of German Romanticism.

In his concise biography, Boris von Brauchitsch describes how Caspar David Friedrich revolutionised painting, decisively challenged with his contemporaries’ understanding of art and became a formative forerunner of modernism with his enigmatic paintings. In doing so, he reveals surprising connections, takes a look at the rediscovery and enthusiastic reception of the painter and makes it clear why the fascination of his work has a special effect today – in times of scepticism about growth and a return to the powers of a visibly threatened nature.