THE ABBEY IN THE OAKWOOD

When Christmas time comes, I cannot avoid pondering over the Christmas spirit. I thought that it would be a good idea to post a brief text about this festivity, along with a characteristic painting. The birth of Jesus is one of the most important events of the Christian Liturgical Year, and it has awakened a great interest between artists throughout the years. I have chosen the El Greco’s work about the subject, because he is an artist whose paintings I beheld in some occasions in Madrid and Toledo. What I consider the most remarkable thing about El Greco is the fact that he was seen as a forerunner by many different artists in the XIXth and XXth centuries, probably due to his expressionist and subjectivist worries, away from the faithful imitation of reality. His extremely distorted bodies and the contrasts between light and dark are two of the main characteristics of his painting. I thought that I could use this painting as a pretext to talk about the Christmas spirit,...

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...

This blog is part of the course Foreign Language Skills Through Art and Culture (UNED), which I am doing currently. In order to limit my work by addressing a particular subject matter, I have decided to write about art (painting) as a way of developing the spirit (in a broad sense). I have been always attracted to religious issues, even in art, to such an extent that I consider that many of the most beautiful and meaningful works of art are connected with religion. Of course, I am not going to write about religion itself, but at least, the paintings that I am going to analyse have a religious-related content somehow. Additionally, I consider that talking about the spirit, especially at these ungodly times, is very important and rewarding. There is something comforting about some artworks, which leave us scarred for life. Furthermore, they usually pose a whole series of questions not only about the obvious intention of the artist, but also about the deep message of them, which is like ...