ART CRITICISM: The Abbey in the Oakwood



The painting I am going to analyse in my first art review is the artwork which gives its name to the blog: The Abbey in the Oakwood, by the German artist Caspar David Friedrich. It is an oil on canvas painting which measures 110.4 cm by 171 cm. It was created between 1809 and 1810. Nowadays, it is displayed in the Alte Nationalgalerie, in Berlin. This artwork is, along with The Wanderer above the Mists and Monk by the Sea, one of the most famous paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, and, generally speaking, a key work of the German Romanticism. This painting depicts the ruins of an abbey from an ancient time. Friedrich probably drew inspiration from the ruins of Eldena Abbey. These ruins, near the town of Greifswald, in northeastern Germany, take pride of place in Friedrich’s paintings. We can distinguish two main parts in the picture: one sunk in the darkness, and the other bathed in a faint light. Another main characteristic in Friedrich’s compositions is the figure from the back: a person contemplating the view and with the back towards the beholder (e.g., The Wanderer above the Mists, Chalk Cliffs on Rügen, or Woman before the Rising Sun). This makes us focus and meditate on the landscape and the hidden message. In The Abbey in the Oakwood, this is represented through the people, probably monks, who are going towards the Abbey’s gate, carrying a coffin.

As we have said, the painting shows a clear contrast between the upper side, bathed in the light of the sunrise, and the lower side, immersed in the darkness. Friedrich used a very fine canvas, and the paint was applied in one or two very thin layers. As a result of this, the painting has been exceptionally prone to damage. From 1906, it endured intensive restoration work, and the loss of the original substance was noticeable. Between 2013 and 2016, the painting underwent a new work of restoration, which made possible a reconstruction of the original appearance of the work.

Friedrich’s works are characterized by metaphysical transcendence. In this painting, he combined landscape motifs with religious symbolism. The religious element and the Hereafter are portrayed by using the crooked tombstones and the crucifix in front of the Abbey’s gate –as the same time, the gateway to the Heavenly. This way, Friedrich emphasized the irrational, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendent, as a characteristic of Romanticism. It induces in the viewer a sense of mystery and religious awe.

At first glance, it could convey a feeling of sadness, with the tombstones and the bare oaks immersed in the darkness. However, the upper part of the ruins is bathed in a dim light. There seems to be a metaphor for the hope for salvation through the Christian faith in the light of the dawn. Likewise, the artist probably sought to express a metaphor for death and the Christian belief in resting in the Divine mercy after death, by depicting a winter landscape. Furthermore, the only light in the darkness is the one which comes from the two arms or crosspiece of the crucifix. It seems to me that this fact appeals to the beholder to live in the Cross, as the only path to salvation. An eternal life after death, which is real life and does not exclude, but rather it includes unsuspected possibilities of development in the Kingdom not finite, but infinite. We could also see the contrast between the eternal and the ephemeral, the spiritual side and the worldly side: the oaks, part of the Creation, although leafless, they are still there; whereas the Abbey, which was built by the mankind, has fallen apart.

Best regards,
Jacobo González

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE PAINTING:
http://www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/alte-nationalgalerie/collection-research/conservation-care/caspar-david-friedrich-project.html (web of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin)
https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/asset/abbey-among-oak-trees/UAEmmuxqtNUt-g (Google Arts & Culture)
http://www.caspar-david-friedrich-greifswald.de/ruins-of-eldena-abbey.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: George Tooker

Image
G eorge Tooker, whose timeless artworks are immediatly recognizable, is one of the most enigmatic American painters of the 20th century. He has been considered a symbolic or magic-realist painter. However, he seems to be a figurative painter, but neither a symbolist nor a magic-realist. He also refused to be considered a surrealist artist  −“I am after reality painting impressed on the mind so hard that it returns as a dream, but I am not after dreams as such, a fantasy ” −  and yet there is something mysterious about the way he depicted modern urban scenes, in what appears to be an otherworldly element juxtaposed with the mundane situations. George Tooker, by George Platt Lynes George Clair Tooker Jr. was born on August 5, 1920, in Brooklyn and grew up in Bellport (Long Island), where he studied painting with a local artist. Later he attended Harvard, where he studied English Literature, after graduating in Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He was a close frie
Read more

THE INTERESTING FACT: The Secrets of the Raphael's Rooms or The Cathartic Power of Art

Image
OVERVIEW The Catholic Church, over the centuries, has been a great sponsor of the arts and under its shelter some of the most beautiful and remarkable artistic works have been created. Along with Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, the Rooms of Raphael are the magnificent frescoes that epitomize the High Renaissance in Rome. The four rooms, also known as Stanze of Raphael or Stanze di Raffaello, formed part of the apartment situated on the second floor of the Pontifical Palace (or Apostolic Palace) that was chosen by Julius II, pontiff from 1503 to 1513, as his own residence and was also used by his successors. He was the pope who also commissioned the rebuilding of the St. Peter’s Basilica and the decoration of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The pictorial decoration of the rooms was executed by Raphael and his school between 1508 and 1524. Portrait of Pope Julius II, by Raphael (1511-1512) National Gallery, London/Uffizi Gallery, Florence T he Room of Constantine,
Read more

ART CRITICISM: Christina's World

Image
The artwork I am going to analyse in this second art review is Christina’s World,  by the American artist Andrew Wyeth, who was primarily a realist painter. It is a tempera on panel which measures 81,9 cm by 121,3 cm. It was painted in 1948 and hangs currently in the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), in New York. This is the most famous painting created by Wyeth, and one of the most important and known artistic icons of XXth century (along with American Gothic, by Grant Wood). Wyeth’s favourite subjects were the lands where he lived and their people, especially his hometown, Chadds Ford (Pennsylvania), and his summer home in the Mid Coast of Maine. This painting, set in this second geographic location, depicts an ageless girl, Christina, lying on a bare field. A vast area of the grass, surrounding the house is cut. The girl, leant back among the grown grass, is looking at an old house and other adjacent buildings, such as a barn, in the distance. In his works, Wyeth sought to d
Read more