Doreen took me to a show called Melancholie at the Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) in Berlin. I enjoy dark, gothic paintings so I expected some captivating art. What I didn't expect was seeing one of my favorite paintings - The Abby in the Oakwood. Described below, it is one of those paintings that grabbed me the first time I saw it and I've remembered it ever since.
The picture below was the ticket front - which I really liked - but found it rather difficult to find out who painted it. I finally found it at a Franz von Stuck gallery - it is titled Lucifer.
The picture below was the ticket front - which I really liked - but found it rather difficult to find out who painted it. I finally found it at a Franz von Stuck gallery - it is titled Lucifer.
Ticket Front (above) and painting from Franz von Stuck (below)
So back to one of my favorite paintings...we walked around the corner and there it was, Caspar David Friedrich's The Abbey in the Oakwood. Such a great painting. Definitely melancholy but instantly conveys so many feelings.
Now, I realize to many a painting like this is too dark, sullen, or even uninteresting. To me, however, this scene captures many of my favorite things - from the emotion to how the trees mirror the ruins. Friedrich painted many pictures of a similar feel. Two more of my favorites are shown below. Brighter, but equally cold, Cloister Cemetery in the Snow is simply perfect to me and discovering these two similar scenes made me realize I'd probably been interchanging them over the years. It's good to put them together. Equally interesting is online collections seldom show both in the works of Friedrich, which may be due to the destruction of Cloister Cemetery in the Snow.
Cloister Cemetery in the Snow, 1817-19. Oil on canvas, 121 x 170 cm.
Destroyed 1945, formerly in the National Gallery, Berlin.
Destroyed 1945, formerly in the National Gallery, Berlin.
The Sea of Ice, 1824. Oil on canvas, 96.7 x 126.9 cm. Kunsthalle, Hamburg
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