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Friedrich's written commentary on aesthetics was limited to a collection of aphorisms set down in 1830, in which he explained the need for the artist to match natural observation with an introspective scrutiny of his own personality. His best-known remark advises the artist to "close your bodily eye so that you may see... |
Loneliness and death |
Both Friedrich's life and art have at times been perceived by some to have been marked with an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Art historians and some of his contemporaries attribute such interpretations to the losses suffered during his youth to the bleak outlook of his adulthood, while Friedrich's pale and withdraw... |
Friedrich suffered depressive episodes in 1799, 1803–1805, c. 1813, in 1816 and between 1824 and 1826. There are noticeable thematic shifts in the works he produced during these episodes, which see the emergence of such motifs and symbols as vultures, owls, graveyards and ruins. From 1826 these motifs became a permanen... |
Germanic folklore |
Reflecting Friedrich's patriotism and resentment during the 1813 French occupation of the dominion of Pomerania, motifs from German folklore became increasingly prominent in his work. An anti-French German nationalist, Friedrich used motifs from his native landscape to celebrate Germanic culture, customs and mythology.... |
In Old Heroes' Graves (1812), a dilapidated monument inscribed "Arminius" invokes the Germanic chieftain, a symbol of nationalism, while the four tombs of fallen heroes are slightly ajar, freeing their spirits for eternity. Two French soldiers appear as small figures before a cave, lower and deep in a grotto surrounded... |
Legacy |
Influence |
Alongside other Romantic painters, Friedrich helped position landscape painting as a major genre within Western art. Of his contemporaries, Friedrich's style most influenced the painting of Johan Christian Dahl (1788–1857). Among later generations, Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901) was strongly influenced by his work, and the... |
At the turn of the 20th century, Friedrich was rediscovered by the Norwegian art historian Andreas Aubert (1851–1913), whose writing initiated modern Friedrich scholarship, and by the Symbolist painters, who valued his visionary and allegorical landscapes. The Norwegian Symbolist Edvard Munch (1863–1944) would have see... |
Friedrich's modern revival gained momentum in 1906, when thirty-two of his works were featured in an exhibition in Berlin of Romantic-era art. His landscapes exercised a strong influence on the work of German artist Max Ernst (1891–1976), and as a result other Surrealists came to view Friedrich as a precursor to their ... |
A few years later, the Surrealist journal Minotaure included Friedrich in a 1939 article by the critic Marie Landsberger, thereby exposing his work to a far wider circle of artists. The influence of The Wreck of Hope (or The Sea of Ice) is evident in the 1940–41 painting Totes Meer by Paul Nash (1889–1946), a fervent a... |
In his 1961 article "The Abstract Sublime", originally published in ARTnews, the art historian Robert Rosenblum drew comparisons between the Romantic landscape paintings of both Friedrich and Turner with the Abstract Expressionist paintings of Mark Rothko. Rosenblum specifically describes Friedrich's 1809 painting The ... |
Critical opinion |
Until 1890, and especially after his friends had died, Friedrich's work lay in near-oblivion for decades. Yet, by 1890, the symbolism in his work began to ring true with the artistic mood of the day, especially in central Europe. However, despite a renewed interest and an acknowledgment of his originality, his lack of ... |
During the 1930s, Friedrich's work was used in the promotion of Nazi ideology, which attempted to fit the Romantic artist within the nationalistic Blut und Boden. It took decades for Friedrich's reputation to recover from this association with Nazism. His reliance on symbolism and the fact that his work fell outside th... |
Friedrich's reputation suffered further damage when his imagery was adopted by a number of Hollywood directors, including Walt Disney, built on the work of such German cinema masters as Fritz Lang and F. W. Murnau, within the horror and fantasy genres. His rehabilitation was slow, but enhanced through the writings of s... |
By the 1970s, he was again being exhibited in major international galleries and found favour with a new generation of critics and art historians. Today, his international reputation is well established. He is a national icon in his native Germany, and highly regarded by art historians and connoisseurs across the Wester... |
Work |
Friedrich was a prolific artist who produced more than 500 attributed works. In line with the Romantic ideals of his time, he intended his paintings to function as pure aesthetic statements, so he was cautious that the titles given to his work were not overly descriptive or evocative. It is likely that some of today's ... |
Notes |
References |
Sources |
External links |
Hermitage Museum Archive |
CasparDavidFriedrich.org – 89 paintings by Caspar David Friedrich |
Biographical timeline, Hamburg Kunsthalle |
Caspar David Friedrich and the German romantic landscape |
German masters of the nineteenth century: paintings and drawings from the Federal Republic of Germany, full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Caspar David Friedrich (no. 29–36) |
Charles Brooking (c.1723–59) was an English painter of marine scenes. |
Life |
It is highly probable that Brooking’s father was a Charles Brooking (1677–1738) who was recorded as employed by Greenwich Hospital (London) between 1729 and 1736 as a painter and decorator. Charles Brooking senior had earlier been active in Plymouth and Dublin where he is recorded as working on Trinity College Dublin i... |
On 27 November 1732 "Master Charles Brooking" was recorded as an apprentice, one of two taken on by Brooking senior on that date. |
An anecdote related by the marine artist Dominic Serres about Brooking is that he worked for a picture dealer in Leicester Square, London, who exploited him until his “discovery” by Taylor White, the Treasurer of the Foundling Hospital in London. |
Brooking became much more widely known in 1754, when as a result of his “discovery” he was commissioned by the Foundling Hospital to paint what is now titled A Flagship Before the Wind Under Easy Sail, following which he was elected a Governor and Guardian of the institution. This painting is a huge sea piece intended ... |
It is claimed that Dominic Serres received some instruction for a short time from Brooking. It has also been suggested that Francis Swaine was another pupil, but the age difference between the two painters was a mere two years, and there is no visual evidence that Swaine followed Brooking’s manner. |
Brooking is said to have died of consumption on 25 March 1759, reportedly leaving his family destitute. |
Work |
Brooking's earliest known works are two pictures, one depicting a moonlit harbour scene and the other a burning ship, which he signed and inscribed with his age, 17, and thus datable to 1740. Since he was described as a "celebrated painter of sea-pieces" in 1752, when he worked for John Ellis (c.1710–76), he had eviden... |
Except for paintings such as this, which record specific historical events, Brooking’s early works are not easy to date more precisely, other than stylistically and by theme, and have not yet been closely examined for their chronological development. His first two pictures show some influence of Peter Monamy, but he wa... |
Brooking’s accuracy and exceptionally careful attention to detail manifest his intimate knowledge of maritime practice and naval architecture, as well as his remarkably close observation of the ocean conditions of wave and wind. Contemporary accounts suggest that he had been “much at sea” and he certainly owned a small... |
The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London holds 23 of his oil paintings, a complete set of 28 engravings after his works, and 4 drawings bequeathed by the U.S. President, J.F.Kennedy. A plaque to Brooking was unveiled by the Lord Mayor of the City of London at Tokenhouse Yard in October, 2008. |
Notes |
Bibliography |
John Ellis. A Natural History of the Corallines (1755). |
Edward Edwards. Anecdotes of Painters (1808). |
Colin Sorensen. Charles Brooking 1723 -1759 (Aldeburgh and Bristol Exhibition Catalogue, 1966). |
Benedict Nicolson. The Treasures of the Foundling Hospital (OUP, 1972). |
David Joel & James Taylor. Charles Brooking (1723-59) and the 18th Century Marine Painters (Antique Collectors Club, 1999). ISBN 978-1-85149-277-0 |
David Joel. The Call of the Sea: Peter Monamy, Charles Brooking and the early British marine painters (catalogue for an exhibition mounted at the St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Lymington, Hampshire, England, 13 August – 17 October 2009). ISBN 978-0-9559729-1-1 |
External links |
48 artworks by or after Charles Brooking at the Art UK site |
Charles Brooking online (ArtCyclopedia) |
The call of the sea (Exhibition of Brooking's work at the St. Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Lymington - review by Andrew Graham Dixon) |
Brooking at the National Maritime Museum (Greenwich, London) |
Brooking at the Tate (paintings on display at London's Tate Gallery) |
A Royal Yacht Firing a Salute (painting) |
Shipping in a Calm (painting) |
Hutchinson, John (1892). "Charles Brooking" . Men of Kent and Kentishmen (Subscription ed.). Canterbury: Cross & Jackman. p. 24. |
Charles-Antoine Coypel (French pronunciation: [ʃaʁl ɑ̃twan kwapɛl]; 11 July 1694 – 14 June 1752) was a French painter, art critic, and playwright. He became court painter to the French king and director of the Académie Royale. He inherited the title of Garde des tableaux et dessins du roi (Keeper of the paintings and d... |
Life |
Coypel was born in Paris on 11 July 1694 to a highly successful and influential family of history painters. His grandfather, Noël Coypel, had been Director of the French Academy in Rome as well as the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. Antoine Coypel, Charles-Antoine's father, received numerous commissions fr... |
Coypel would live in the Louvre Palace for almost his entire life, beginning when he was three years old, when his father received a brevêt de logement (residence permit) in 1697. His family's quarters comprised at least fifteen rooms beneath the Grande Galerie as well as a three thousand square foot studio space, all ... |
Under the tutelage of his father, Coypel showed a genuine talent for painting early in life. He had the rare distinction of being named an agréé and subsequently an académicien by the Académie Royale on the same day in 1715 for his reception work Jason and Medea. Coypel was just twenty-one years old, but he had skipped... |
He inherited his father’s design and painting duties as premier peintre to the Duke of Orléans when his father died in 1722. He became Premier Peintre du Roi and Director of the Académie Royale in 1747. He worked on several commissions for paintings for the royal Palace of Versailles, and for Louis XV and his wife, Que... |
Work |
Coypel was an excellent tapestry designer. He designed tapestries for the Gobelins manufactory. His most successful tapestries were created from a series illustrating Don Quixote. Coypel was the first to illustrate Don Quixote in a sophisticated manner. These illustrations were painted as cartoons for tapestries, and w... |
Alongside his painting career, Coypel wrote some forty plays between 1717 and 1747. Only Les Folies de Cardenio (1720) was published. It was staged at the Tuileries Palace in 1721. In La Poésie et la Peinture (Allegory of Painting), allegorical comedy in three acts, the artist compared the qualities of both arts. The p... |
Selected works |
Jason and Medea (1715) – Coypel's reception piece for the Académie Royale, now at Schloss Charlottenburg in Berlin |
Painting Ejecting Thalia (1732) – Norfolk, Chrysler Museum of Art |
Self-Portrait (1734) – J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
Fury of Achilles (1737) – Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg |
Self-Portrait (1739) – Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans |
Portrait of Philippe Coypel and His Wife (1742) – Exhibited at the Salon of 1742, now at the Art Institute of Chicago |
Gallery |
Works by Charles-Antoine Coypel |
References |
Further reading |
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