Rocky Landscape in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains – Works – Sammlung Online

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The image depicts a rocky landscape with tall, fog-enshrouded rocks surrounded by trees. In the foreground, there are moss-covered stones and fallen tree trunks. The scene conveys a mysterious and wild natural ambiance, with a mix of well-lit and shadowed areas.

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Oberes Belvedere
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Rocky Landscape in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains
Date1822/1823

Künstler*in Caspar David Friedrich (1774 Greifswald – 1840 Dresden)

ULAN

Object typePainting
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions
94 × 74 cm
SignatureUnbezeichnet
Inventory number2589
Locations Belvedere, Upper Belvedere, 1. Floor (west), Room SW1
The rocks forming the gate to Neurathen Castle in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, southeast of Dresden, soar into the sky. Before them our gaze traverses a ravine with trees clinging to its steep slopes—some that are lush green, others that are dead. A mighty uprooted tree cuts through the picture space in a diagonal. It forms a break in the image, separating the view of the chasm from the lofty heights of the rock gate. All of this is symbolic: trees, ravine, and rocky pinnacle represent the genesis and demise of all that is earthly, are visual metaphors of both the divine and of death. When this was painted in the early 1820s there were already hiking trails in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains and a footbridge leading to the gate of Neurathen rock castle, but these have not been depicted by Friedrich. The rocks forming the gate to Neurathen Castle in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, southeast of Dresden, soar into the sky. Before them our gaze traverses a ravine with trees clinging to its steep slopes—some that are lush green, others that are dead. A mighty uprooted tree cuts through the picture space in a diagonal. It forms a break in the image, separating the view of the chasm from the lofty heights of the rock gate. All of this is symbolic: trees, ravine, and rocky pinnacle represent the genesis and demise of all that is earthly, are visual metaphors of both the divine and of death. When this was painted in the early 1820s there were already hiking trails in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains and a footbridge leading to the gate of Neurathen rock castle, but these have not been depicted by Friedrich.

Provenance
Exhibitions

bis 1924 Thoerner, Wien. - Ulrich Thieme, Leipzig
1926 Ankauf Kunsthandel, Berlin

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