Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840)

Being a catalog of an exhibition of German Romantic landscape painter Friedrich which consists of holdings of Russian museums of his drawings and paintings. The choice is not as abstruse as it might seem, as the Russian royal family was his main patron. Friedrich's mystical approach to landscape, which turned rather gloomy as his health declined in his last years, contains a sublimity which is difficult to describe, though the two essayists who begin the book make a good stab at it. Appended are an exhaustive chronology, table of exhibitions, and bibliography. The quality of the reproductions and captions are very good, though odd in that the first reproduction one sees is sometimes a detail which leaves out some of the points the caption is attempting to make. Though not definitive, the book is an enjoyable and necessary book for the Friedrich enthusiast.… (altro)