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Cross in the Mountains

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Cross in the Mountains (Tetschen Altar) (1808). 115 × 110.5 cm. Oil on canvas. Galerie Neue Meister, Dresden.
Friedrich's 1807 design for the altarpiece. Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden.[1]

Cross in the Mountains, also known as the Tetschen Altar, is an oil painting by the German artist Caspar David Friedrich designed as an altarpiece. Among Friedrich's first major works, the 1808 painting marked his "decisive break" with the conventions of landscape painting,[2] and is regarded for its combination of landscape painting and Christian iconography, then associated with history painting, considered the highest genre of art. The painting was thus controversial, enlivening debate between proponents of neoclassical ideals and the new German Romanticism.[3]

Description

For the first time in Christian art, an altarpiece showcases a landscape. The canvas depicts a cross with the crucified Jesus in profile at the top of a rocky mountain, alone, and surrounded by pine or spruce trees. The cross reaches the highest point in the picture but is presented obliquely and from a distance. The pictorial space is almost two-dimensional, and the light from behind the cross darkens the foreground. The low sun may be rising or setting; its five stylized rays travel upward, and one creates a gleam on Christ, suggesting a metal sculpture.[4] Ivy grows at the base of the cross. Art historian Linda Siegel suggests that the sun is not the only source of light—that there is a mystical source of illumination. The colour of the sky appears unrealistic. The viewer's location is unclear, and wherever it is, the detail of the landscape would not be as visible as Friedrich makes it.

The gilded frame, designed by Friedrich and formed by the sculptor Christian Gottlieb Kühn [de], includes other Christian iconography, such as the palm branch, ivy, wheat, grape clusters, and the Eye of God within a triangle, which emits light.[5][1] Five angels emerge at the top of the frame, with a star above the central one. The design, in recalling sacred art of much earlier periods, solidified the painting's function as an altarpiece and encouraged contemporary viewers to find "an allegorical directive for reading the painting scene thus enclosed", although any allegorical finding would have been debatable in this unprecedented mixing of genres.[1]

The landscape shows great attention to detail in the modeling of nature. Friedrich made a number of studies of trees and rocks that can be located in this painting. Even the critical Ramdohr admitted the influence of Albrecht Dürer and other masters[6] in the precision of the depiction: "every little twig, every needle on the firs, every spot on the cliff is expressed... the outer silhouette is completely exact".[5] According to Siegel, the design of the altarpiece is the "logical climax of many earlier drawings of [Friedrich's] which depicted a cross in nature's world" (see Gallery).[5]

Commission: the altar's shifting genesis

The genesis of Friedrich's altarpiece is not straightforward. Art historians accepted the account of Friedrich's close friend, August Otto Rühle von Lilienstern, until new evidence arose. By Lilienstern's account, the altar was commissioned by the Countess Theresia von Thun-Hohenstein for her family's chapel in Tetschen, Bohemia. She had seen a similar sepia work by Friedrich and was enthused by it. The painter was at first resistant to accepting the commission, tending to paint only when the muse struck him, but he agreed when he found a design for an overall altarpiece that he thought would be in harmony with the chapel setting. Research in 1977 found that Friedrich intended to dedicate the altarpiece to King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden, but the king was deposed by the end of 1808. The Thun-Hohensteins became aware of the dedication, and in any event the countess's mother objected to both the price and the format of the artwork, stating that it would never be used in the chapel or elsewhere in the castle. The altarpiece was finally hung in the bedroom of the countess. When Friedrich visited them to view the work in the chapel, he was denied by the family.[4] The Tetschen Castle was home to the work from 1809 to 1921.[1] Art historian Joseph Leo Koerner concludes that the altarpiece was "conceived by Friedrich himself to honour his king.... Friedrich and his circle retooled the legend of the genesis and meaning of the work, by inventing a fiction about the altar's 'organic' integration into Thun-Hohenstein's private chapel.... The story of the Cross in the Mountains' original sacral function began as a buyer's ruse to encourage Friedrich to part with his masterpiece".[1]

Friedrich's desire to dedicate the painting to Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden complicates not only the story of the commission, but the painting's interpretation. Friedrich was from the town of Greifswald, an area that at times had been under Swedish rule since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, and ending with the invasion of Napoleon a few years before 1808. For German patriots, of which Friedrich was one, Napoleon's invasion inspired a German and Romantic nationalism. Gustav II's "saving" of Protestantism in the 17th century was conferred to Gustav IV in the minds of the nationalists, and Gustav IV confirmed his recognition of Germany in declaring, "May I yet see the day when I behold Germany, as my second fatherland, restored to the standing to which its estimable nation and the fame of centuries give it undeniable right".[4] According to Norbert Wolf, the Tetschen Altar was "thus first and foremost not an altarpiece but a piece of political propaganda... [taking] up the liberation ideology of the Swedish monarchy". Wolf asserts that when the political allegory was no longer available to Friedrich, the contemporary and art-historical interpretation of the picture shifted easily toward a more purely religious one, in line with the ideals of German Romanticism. Friedrich continued to use German-nationalist themes in his paintings throughout his career.

Exhibition and contemporary reception

On Christmas Day of 1808, Friedrich, responding to his friends' interest in the painting, exhibited the work in his studio.[5] The artist was reluctant to do so, given that the altarpiece was designed with a specific location, the Tetschen chapel, in mind. The altar was never meant to be hung from a wall, as it is today, but placed on a table as in Friedrich's design drawing. Friedrich therefore tried to recreate the conditions of a chapel in his studio: he lowered the lighting and placed the piece on a table covered with black cloth. Lilienstern, who was present, documented the event and concluded: "Torn from [the chapel] context and placed in a room not adapted for such a display, the picture would lose a large part of its intended effect."[1]

Although it was controversial and generally coldly received, it was nevertheless Friedrich's first painting to receive wide publicity. The artist's friends publicly defended the work, while art critic Basilius von Ramdohr, who had attended Friedrich's studio exhibit, published an article rejecting Friedrich's use of landscape in a religious context. Ramdohr asked if Cross in the Mountains succeeded as a landscape painting; if allegory was suitable in landscape painting; and if the work's "ambition to serve as an altarpiece for Christian worship [was] compatible with the true nature of art and religion".[7] His answer was always no: "It is true presumption when landscape painting wants to slink into the church and creep on to the altars".[1] Ramdohr was also early in identifying the "Germanness" of the painting, and the element of nationalism.[8] Siegel notes that Ramdohr, a classicist, did not understand the philosophy of the new German Romantic artists, who felt that "traditional religious iconography could not allow man to experience a mystical union with God".[5]

The debate about the painting, termed the Ramdohrstreit and carried on mostly in Zeitung für die elegante Welt (Journal for the Elegant World), morphed into one about the challenge to Enlightenment (Aufklarung) aesthetics by the burgeoning Romanticism.[7] Koerner considers Friedrich's supporters to have failed in replying to Ramdohr's specific criticisms, but their agenda was just as much to present a new way that art could be understood and evaluated. The art historian concludes, "Just as Cross in the Mountains constitutes a revolution in landscape painting, its Romantic defense signals a revolution in the language and practice of art criticism".[9]

Gerhard von Kügelgen and other artists responded to Ramdohr in defense of Friedrich. Kügelgen objected to Ramdohr's seeming desire to dictate artistic principles, arguing that the art of the future cannot be limited by ideals developed out of the past: "Throughout art history we observe art consent to varied forms, and who among us wants and is able to determine that it might not agree to forms not yet known. Friedrich's originality should be all the more welcome to us, since it presents us with a form of landscape painting previously less noticed, in which, within its very peculiarity, is revealed a spirited striving after truth."[10]

Friedrich responded to criticisms with a programme describing his intentions, marking the only time that he publically offered commentary on his art. He wrote:

"Jesus Christ, nailed to the Cross, is turned to the setting sun, here the image of the totally enlivening Father. With Christ dies the wisdom of the old world, the time when God the Father wandered directly on Earth. This sun set and the world was no longer able to apprehend the departed light. The evening glow shining from the pure noble metal of the golden crucified Christ is reflected in gentle glow to the earth. The Cross stands raised on a rock, unshakably firm, as our faith in Jesus Christ. Around the Cross stand the evergreens, enduring through all seasons, as does the belief of Man in Him, the crucified."[11]

Antecedents and studies

  • Gebirgslandschaft, 1804/05. Earlier setting of the cross in a landscape.
    Gebirgslandschaft, 1804/05. Earlier setting of the cross in a landscape.
  • Wallfahrt bei Sonnenuntergang, c. 1805. Earlier setting.
    Wallfahrt bei Sonnenuntergang, c. 1805. Earlier setting.
  • View of the Elbe Valley, 1807. Earlier setting.
    View of the Elbe Valley, 1807. Earlier setting.
  • The painting uses this 1807 study of a tree[5]
    The painting uses this 1807 study of a tree[5]
  • This pencil and sepia (c. 1805/06)[4] had been shown in an 1807 Dresden Academy exhibition (Koerner claimed the exhibited item is lost,[1] but Wolf pictures it)[4]
    This pencil and sepia (c. 1805/06)[4] had been shown in an 1807 Dresden Academy exhibition (Koerner claimed the exhibited item is lost,[1] but Wolf pictures it)[4]
  • The present altarpiece without a frame
    The present altarpiece without a frame
  • Morning in the Riesengebirge (1811). Friedrich situated the cross in other paintings made soon after the Tetschen Altar.
    Morning in the Riesengebirge (1811). Friedrich situated the cross in other paintings made soon after the Tetschen Altar.
  • Cross in the Forest (1811). Later setting.
    Cross in the Forest (1811). Later setting.
  • Winter Landscape with a Church (1811). Later setting.
    Winter Landscape with a Church (1811). Later setting.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Koerner, 56–61
  2. ^ Spitzer, Gerd; et al. (2006). From Caspar David Friedrich to Gerhard Richter: German Paintings from Dresden. Getty Publications. p. 34. ISBN 9780892368631. {{cite book}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
  3. ^ Koerner, 75 passim
  4. ^ a b c d e Wolf, 23, 27–29
  5. ^ a b c d e f Siegel, 55–58
  6. ^ Koerner, 71
  7. ^ a b Koerner, 64–71
  8. ^ Koerner, 72
  9. ^ Koerner, 68
  10. ^ Koerner, 69
  11. ^ Mitchell, Timothy F. (1982). "From Vedute to Vision: The Importance of Popular Imagery in Friedrich's Development of Romantic Landscape Painting". The Art Bulletin. 64 (3): 414–424. doi:10.2307/3050244.
  • Koerner, Joseph Leo (2009) [1990]. Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape (2nd ed.). London: Reaktion Books. ISBN 978-1-86189-439-7.
  • Siegel, Linda (1978). Caspar David Friedrich and the Age of German Romanticism. Boston: Branden Publishing Co. ISBN 0-8283-1659-7.
  • Wolf, Norbert (2003). Caspar David Friedrich. Köln: Taschen. ISBN 3-8228-2293-0.
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