Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Sturm und drang

At a certain point today I temporarily lost the will to live and wished that I could be transported back to the nineteenth century, preferably as a gentleman of means rather than a scabby peasant. I've always envied the man in this picture. I can imagine that he will make his way back down the mountain to enjoy and evening of good food and fine wines and there'll be no talk about house prices, double glazing or the difficulty of finding a decent builder.


And if you thought that was good, try these...



All by Caspar David Friedrich. He seems to appear as a footnote in many histories of art, but his paintings have a visionary quality that outshines most of his contemporaries. Surely he deserves to be more widely known than the man who painted this dreadful, but seemingly universally popular picture:

1 comment:

  1. Hi Steer

    Didn't you say something else rude about Constable recently? I was going to jump the bandwagon then, but this can't be resisted.

    Constable is the most mendacious painter ever; and not even talented in his mimesis. his two large canvases in the National both have the same dog, presumably paited from the same sketch or [I suspect] taxidermy. Pernicious.

    A few years back my dear old Mum wanted to see the Haywain, so we went. Beside it was a request for anyone with a household object [like a tray] decorated with a copy of the Haywain to submit it for a special exhibition on this print in popular culture. I commented that surely every house in England [except your and mine I think],would have such an object.

    I never heard if the resulting exhibition saw light of day; it pretty much equates with my idea of Hell.

    Like the Friedrich stuff tho - I'll try to find some

    Drew

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