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Hi Luis,
I really like Caspar paintings, this one to me is so peaceful and clear, very little fog, Caspar brings out the quietness in me just by looking at this. The little ponds and the animals. Then I wonder what kind of storms this tree has been through with it's broken limbs. Have you noticed on so many of his paintings he has a church steeple, some times only a part of it, but it is there.
Dear Myrna,
Thanks for this most stimulating post. But first, please forgive me for my delay in replying. As I told Roger this morning (in another thread of this forum) these last days have been pure madness to me for several reasons, and I have hardly been able to post anything at my forums - let alone other forums.
As to your comment, Caspar David Friedrich seems to have been sort of obsessed about certain things, for example, fog, mountains and, of course, trees; if not, why would he paint them so frequently in his works? I don't believe he only was trying to find a style to impress their viewers with strangely twisted shapes and an atmosphere of mystery; he rather seems to have been a great and honest artist without other interests than a natural desire to communicate his vision of life through his art. This vision was primarily of a spiritual sort, which he most frequenly expressed through such symbols as those I have just mentioned plus the steepled churches that you mention. This makes sense if you consider that all of these symbols consist of vertical forms oriented to heaven. The fog sometimes occults these symbols but for those who can see, they become visible even in the fog through an ocassional ray of light from the sun which, of course, represents God and his angelic powers.
All of this obviously has to do with our personal spiritual journey, such as in Jill's journey to the Mountain of Love only in this case the mountains and trees and churches rather are the path (the Axis Mundi) and not the divine goal proper. But the idea is the same.
Thanks again,
Miguel
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