Art Eyewitness Essay: A Late Winter Idyll at the Rodin Museum

 

                               Art Eyewitness Photo Essay:                         

   A Late Winter Idyll at the Rodin Museum

Original photography by Anne Lloyd

Commentary by Ed Voves

The calendar page has flipped to April 2025. It is time to bid farewell to March and prepare to greet spring in the first blush of its glory.

The magnolia trees are flowering. Forsythia bushes are clad in yellow-gold, as are the first of this year’s daffodils. Best of all, cherry and apple blossoms, delicate in pink and silvery white, are starting to appear. These are familiar sights which never grow old.

Normally, the passing of March is not an occasion for regret. The third month of the year is tricky and unpredictable. It dangles the promise of spring but is often slow to deliver. But when the first buds and blossoms reveal themselves – what wonder!

So, let’s drink a “cup of kindness” in honor of the month of March and, while we do, let’s not forget to praise the blue skies of March.

The late winter/early spring skies – when March is in a cooperative mood – have a clear, crystalline brilliance which other seasons often cannot match. The clarity of vision at this time of the year can be quite extraordinary. There is a sharpness to perception which, coupled with the chill of the air, creates a heightened state of awareness.

Taken to extremes, this visionary state can engender a form of "March Madness." It's easy to get carried away, snapping photos heedlessly - and forgetting that it's still winter.

With these thoughts in mind, Anne and I availed ourselves of the opportunity to do some urban landscape photography. The date was March 3, 2025 and the weather was perfect for our afternoon photo safari to the neighborhood surrounding the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) 

 The east entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the

 "Rocky Steps" as seen from Eakins Oval

Late winter sunlight is particularly effective in casting shadows from trees (still without leaves) and public monuments. The magnificent equestrian statue of General George Washington, created by the German sculptor Rudolf Siemering, never looks more “alive” than when it is seen in silhouette against the backdrop of a crisp, azure sky of March.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) 

 Statue of George Washington, created by Rudolf Siemering in 1897, located on Eakins Oval, in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art 

There are plenty of locations in Philadelphia favoring such a photo “op”. We chose the Rodin Museum, located a couple of blocks from the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) 

 Exterior view of the Rodin Museum, Philadelphia 

The Rodin Museum is a text book example of classical architecture in a modern urban setting. It was designed by Paul Cret (1876-1945), the architect of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C., to house an impressive collection of sculptures by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917).

The early movie theater mogul, Jules Mastbaum (1872-1926), had amassed these Rodin masterpieces and funded the construction of the museum and its surrounding gardens which he intended to bequeath to the city of Philadelphia. Sadly, Mastbaum died before the museum was built, but his wife, Etta, saw the project to completion.

The Rodin Museum opened in 1929 and is administered by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The collection of Rodin bronzes, marble statues and plaster models is one of the largest outside of France. When we visited on March 3^rd, we were more interested in recording the effect of light and shadow on the exterior of the museum rather than the works of art on display in the interior.

Little did we know what “crafty” March had planned for us.

There certainly are outstanding sculptures adorning the exterior walls of the museum or positioned around it, in the open air. One of the most poignant and provocative works in the canon of Western art, The Burgers of Calais, is prominently displayed in the garden adjacent to the Rodin Museum. Since I discussed the Burgers in an earlier Art Eyewitness essay, I will  forgo making additional commentary in this post.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025)

 Auguste Rodin's The Burgers of Calais, 

modeled 1884-1895, cast 1919-1921

Instead let's begin with Rodin’s most familiar work. The Thinker, sits in thoughtful meditation at the entrance to the Rodin Museum campus. Originally conceived, in a much reduce scale, to crown the vast ensemble known as The Gates of Hell (about which more later), The Thinker has suffered from over-exposure. Kenneth Clark commented that when "seen in isolation, (it) is a tiresome generalization."

When viewed in the sharp, piercing light of a sunlit March afternoon, The Thinker is able to defy even Clark's otherwise astute judgement.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025)

 Auguste Rodin's The Thinker, modeled 1880-81,

 enlarged 1902-04, cast 1919

In one of the alcoves on the front of the museum building stands The Age of Bronze. This superb work, one of Rodin's finest in my estimation, pivots on his feet with arms stretching upward, as if breaking free from the metallic grip which has confined his spirit. Perhaps it would be better to think of this statue not as a man of bronze, but as a new incarnation of "The Thinker." Finished with brooding reflection, he stands, springing into life. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025)

Views of Auguste Rodin's The Age of Bronze,

displayed on the facade of the Rodin Museum

That we can read or imply thoughts, emotions, muscular movements into inert bronze statues testifies to the power and insight of Rodin as a maker of public art. 

Rodin's bronzes were made to be seen out-of-doors. Exposed to, enveloped by and brought to "life" by sunlight, a Rodin bronze exudes a sense of energy than corresponds to Henri Bergson's concept of Élan vitale. However impressive a gallery setting may be for a Rodin bronze, artificial light does not have the same "conjuring" effect.

Great works of public art are creatures of shadow, as well as light. The interplay of constantly shifting light, transitory shadow and solid, enduring bronze and stone was present everywhere we looked during our visit to the Rodin Museum.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) 

 Sunlight and shadow on the Rodin Museum entrance

In the case of the Rodin Museum, a major factor in the interaction of light and shadow is the parallel row of tall trees which extend along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in front of the museum.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) 

 Tree-lined sidwalk in front of the Rodin Museum

When the afternoon light strikes these trees, it casts their shadow upon the facade of the Rodin Museum. The effect is unsettling. The stone walls and columns now bear the ghostly imprint of stately trees which appear to be growing-up from below the payment to embrace the building, clinging to it like ivy.

Of course, the image of shadow upon stone can be accounted for by the laws of optics. The precisely articulated landscape design of the Rodin gardens and the classical architecture of the museum stand four-square against descriptions such as "the effect is magical" or "mystical nature has asserted itself over the hand of man."

Yet, there is a dramatic clash of ideals which is integral to the structure and mission of the Rodin Museum. Paul Cret, a French-born architect schooled in the principles of Beaux-Arts design, created a building which is emblematic of the Age of Reason. Auguste Rodin's oeuvre proclaims what Kenneth Clark called the Romantic Rebellion which overturned the classicism which Cret's design evoked. 

This creative conflict or dissonance is staring one in the face when you behold the monumentally huge doors of the Rodin Museum, The Gates of Hell.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) 

 Auguste Rodin's The Gates of Hell, modeled 1880–1917, cast 1926–28

Rodin's The Gates of Hell are completely at odds with classicism and reason, even with Dante's poem which it is supposed to illustrate. It is hard tell who among the writhing, contorted figures emerging from its surface is damned and who is saved. The Gates of Hell  offers so few concessions to our human sensibilities that a lot of times when I visit the Rodin Museum, I give it a quick glance - and a shudder - and walk inside through less intimidating doors.  

 However, with the luminous March sunlight at work, in tandem with the corresponding shadows, Rodin's Gates of Hell arrest one's attention with irresistible force. I had to look, had to ponder the meaning of the disturbing drama which Rodin modeled on it surface. A glimpse in passing just would not do.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) 

 Details of Auguste Rodin's The Gates of Hell 

When I did manage to wrench my eyes away from the "continuous swirling and floating in Art Nouveau rhythms"  which characterize The Gates of Hell, "tricky and unpredictable" March had a surprise planned for us, once we were inside.

The interior of the Rodin Museum is a beautifully proportioned space with abundant room to take the measure of the works of art by the great French master. Since paintings and works on paper are seldom displayed at the Rodin, there are several windows which open the main-floor area to natural light.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) 

 Interior view of the Rodin Museum,

 showing the museum's central display gallery

The Rodin Museum is an almost idyllic spot, year-round, and during Philadelphia's hot, humid summers it is an oasis for the body, as well as the mind. The month of March, as I hinted earlier, had something else in store for us, in one of the side galleries of the museum: a light show which would dramatize Rodin's most controversial work, his 1898 monument to the French literary lion, Honoré de Balzac.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) 

 Auguste Rodin's Balzac. Modeled 1898; cast 1925.

Upon entering this gallery, on the northwest corner of the museum, we were amazed to behold the room and the statue of Balzac bathed in fiery light. It was the kind of blood-orange hue which J.M.W. Turner would have used to paint burning Parliament buildings. But there were no nearby buildings afire and it was still almost two hours until sunset.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) 

 Gallery view of the Rodin Museum, showing Balzac, background,

 and Colossal Head of Balzac, foreground 

By some "trick" effect of late winter sunlight, a setting was created worthy of Balzac, one of the titans of 19th century Romanticism. The blazing orange light also recalled the violent reception of Rodin's Monument to Balzac by the literary society which had commissioned it in 1891. It was not until 1939 that a bronze cast of the Balzac statue was finally put on display in Paris. 

By contrast, the smaller version in the Rodiin Museum collection was cast in 1925. It shares the gallery with the Colossal Head of Balzac, which is a 1925 cast of one of the final studies for the controversial plaster model which was rejected in 1898.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) 

 Rodin's Colossal Head of Balzac

There is also an actual plaster model of a naked Balzac, without his famous dressing gown which he habitually wore while writing. This was one of the many studies made by Rodin during the seven year project. By another uncanny act of illumination, a piecing beam of light streaked across the gallery floor, aimed directly at the plaster model. We could not have planned all of these "fireworks" even if we had tried.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) 

 Late afternoon light effects at the Rodin Museum,

 as described in the text above.

And then the sunlight shifted. The light in the gallery faded.  The show was over.

The results of our photo safari had far exceeded our expectations. We were truly gratified, even a bit mystified. Had these remarkable images and the thoughts and reflections they engendered merely been an accident of timing and good luck?

I could not help but think of the famous lines from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern."

Did the doors of perception open for us, even if but a narrow chink? If so, I can hardly think of a better place for that to happen than the Rodin Museum on a sunny, late-winter afternoon during the month of March.

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved

Original photography, copyright of Anne Lloyd

Introductory Image: Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025)  Detail of Auguste Rodin's Balzac. Details and credits below.

 All photos illustrating this essay were taken by Anne Lloyd on March 3, 2025.

Significant works of art discussed in this essay include:

The Gates of Hell, modeled 1880–1917, cast 1926–28. Created by Auguste Rodin (French, 1840–1917), bronze, 20 feet 10 3/4 inches × 13 feet 2 inches × 33 3/8 inches (636.9 × 401.3 × 84.8 cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rodin Museum Collection.  Bequest of Jules E. Mastbaum, 1929

The Age of Bronze. Modeled 1875-1877; cast 1925.  Created by Auguste Rodin  (French, 1840 – 1917). Cast by the founder Alexis Rudier, Paris (1874–1952) Bronze:  67 x 23 5/8 × 23 5/8 inches (170.2 × 60 × 60 cm) Weight: 314 lb. (142429.47g) Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rodin Museum Collection.  Bequest of Jules E. Mastbaum, 1929

Balzac. Modeled 1898; cast 1925. Created by Auguste Rodin  (French, 1840 – 1917). Cast by the founder Alexis Rudier, Paris (1874–1952) Bronze:  41 3/4 x 15 3/4 x 13 3/4 inches (106 x 40 x 34.9 cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rodin Museum Collection.  Bequest of Jules E. Mastbaum, 1929

Colossal Head of Balzac. Modeled 1898; cast 1925. Created by Auguste Rodin  (French, 1840 – 1917). Cast by the founder Alexis Rudier, Paris (1874 – 1952) Bronze: 20 x 16 1/2 x 15 1/4 inches (50.8 x 41.9 x 38.7 cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rodin Museum collection, Bequest of Jules E. Mastbaum, 1929.

Art Eyewitness Review: Celebrating Caspar David Friedrich, 250th Anniversary

 

Caspar David Friedrich: the Soul of Nature

                           Metropolitan Museum of Art                               

 February 8 - May 11, 2025

Caspar David Friedrich: Art for a New Age

Thames & Hudson/496 pages/$65

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Fate is unfair. Good intentions and noble aspirations seem to count for little in the march of time and the unfolding of events. The life of the great German painter, Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) is a prime example of this undeniable fact.

For much of his life, and nearly a century afterward, Caspar David Friedrich's reputation languished in undeserved obscurity. This was true even in his native land. In the world beyond Germany, he was virtually unknown. Recently, Friedrich has gained some visual recognition in the English-speaking nations, based on one, frequently reproduced, painting.

                                                         

Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above a Sea of Fog, 1818

A major retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and an equally impressive book published by Thames & Hudson, Caspar David Friedrich: Art for a New Age, may finally succeed in establishing the German "mystic with a paintbrush" where he belongs - in the first rank of great 19^th century artists.

The phrase "may finally succeed" needs to be emphasized. As the Thames & Hudson book relates, Friedrich and his Wanderer above a Sea of Fog are currently being used to promote awareness of humanity's domination over the natural environment. Wanderer above a Sea of Fog has become the "poster boy" for concern over the Anthropocene.

Elina Brotherus, Der Wanderer 2, 2004

Some of the contemporary uses of Wanderer testify to sincere concern over our man-made environment, like the image above. Others are notably derivative and self-righteous. None really expresses the core beliefs of Friedrich, who was the last great Christian artist of Europe before secularism drove religion to the margins of cultural discourse.

Let’s hope that The Met exhibition and the Thames & Hudson book will open people's eyes to the true Caspar David Friedrich. It won't be an easy task. Every time that Friedrich seems to be gaining the recognition he deserves, Fate is waiting in ambush.

The first turning point in reviving Friedrich’s fortunes was a well-received exhibition in 1906. Later, in the aftermath of World War I, Friedrich’s haunting landscapes and brooding Rückenfiguren (human figures seen from behind) struck an emotional chord. After decades in the shadows, Friedrich began to attract widespread popularity in Germany.

Then the malevolent hand of Fate struck again. A catastrophic museum fire in Munich in 1931 destroyed a number of Friedrich’s greatest paintings.Two years later, a change in Germany’s government brought an admirer of Friedrich’s work to a position of unparalleled power. And that was the cruelest misfortune of all.

“I am an artist and not a politician,” Adolf Hitler told a British diplomat. Der Fuhrer felt that Caspar David Friedrich was a kindred soul.

Hitler and his Nazi henchmen placed Friedrich high in the pantheon of noble Germanic heroes. One of Friedrich’s signature works, Two Men Contemplating the Moon, of which he painted three versions, was embraced by the Nazis as emblematic of the Nordic “culture” of the Third Reich. 

Caspar David Friedrich, Two Men Contemplating the Moon, 1825-30

In 2001,The Met purchased the last of these three paintings made notorious by Nazi adulation. The Met's Two Men Contemplating the Moon is one of the very few paintings by Friedrich in a collection outside Germany.

Though he had died nearly a century before Hitler came to power, Caspar David Friedrich was tarred by the brush of Nazi propaganda. It took a long time for Friedrich's Nazi "past" to be forgiven. Germany's leading post-war artist, Anselm Kiefer, underscored Friedrich's guilt by association, posing as the "wanderer above a sea of fog" with his arm raised in the Sieg Heil salute.

As we said, Fate is unfair.

Last year marked the 250^th anniversary of Friedrich’s birth. Museums in Germany  honored the now-rehabilitated artist with a number of special exhibitions over the course of 2024. The Metropolitan Museum of Art took advantage of the closing of these German tributes to mount a celebratory exhibit of its own, February 8 through May 11. The Met curators brought an impressive selection of Friedrich's works to New York, the greatest ever exhibition to be mounted in the U.S.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025)

 Alison Hokanson and Joanna Sheers Seidenstein,

Curators of Caspar David Friedrich: the Soul of Nature 

Caspar David Friedrich: the Soul of Nature is vast and thorough-going. Over 75 paintings, finished drawings, preparatory sketches by Friedrich and prints made from his works are featured. Several paintings by Romantic-era artists like Carl Gustav Carus and Johan Christian Dahl, both of whom were much influenced by Friedrich, are also on view. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2025)

 Gallery view of the Caspar David Friedrich exhibit at The Met 

The Met's Caspar David Friedrich: the Soul of Nature places the great German painter directly in the culture of his time. The two key, motivating ideals of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were "romanticism" and the "sublime." The popular understanding of both terms has shifted over time, with the loss of important elements of meaning as comprehended by Friedrich.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025)

 Caspar David Friedrich's Ruins at Oybin,1812

It is vital to our understanding of Friedrich's work to let him explain his own approach to visual expression. The most famous of his quotes on art takes on the character of a manifesto.

Georg Friedrich Kersting,

Caspar David Friedrich in His Studio, 1811

 "The painter shall not paint what he sees in front of him", Friedrich declared, "but what he sees inside himself … The artist’s emotion is his law."

This intuitive grasp of the world around - and within - him was not an exclusive hallmark of Friedrich's art. Other artists in his era, the age of revolutions, French and Industrial, were also aiming to create spiritual and emotional foundations for their work.

The greatest cultural figure of Friedrich's age was certainly interested in addressing the ways that Stimmung or mood affects human creativity. Johan Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), the Sage of Weimar, made much of human emotions in his renowned literary works, the Sorrows of Young Werther and Faust. 

Goethe was also a man dedicated to rigorous scientific study. He had earlier addressed Friedrich's "the artist’s emotion is his law" by formulating the concept of Manner. In Goethe's view, "manner" in art was the creation of a visual language based on a connection between the human soul and the painted or printed image.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025)

 Caspar David Friedrich's Cross in the Forest, 1812

Friedrich was certainly capable of painting works which exemplified the connection of soul and image. His Cross in the Forest (1812) is an appealing, beautifully composed  painting which unites symbolism and naturalism. An icon of radiant spirituality invites and awaits our response, which, when given, will hopefully contribute to a shared purpose of life and faith.

A careful study of the respective pronouncements of Friedrich and Goethe is less reassuring. Instead of mutual convictions, a lurking chasm exists between the undiluted subjectivity of Friedrich and the more focused integration of spirit and form espoused by Goethe.

This difference in interpretation would eventually lead to misunderstanding and recrimination between Goethe and Friedrich - and tragic consequences for the latter.

Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, portrait by Joseph Karl Steiler (1828);

 Caspar David Friedrich, portrait by Gerhard von Kugelgen (1808)

Initially, Friedrich seemed destined to be a Goethe protege, on the fast track to success as one of the principal painters of Germany. Goethe, whom Thomas Carlyle would later call "the greatest genius that has lived for a century, and the greatest man that has lived for three", was a patron worth cultivating. 

In 1805, Goethe sponsored an art festival at which Friedrich won a major award. Following this heady start to their relationship, Goethe began recommending Friedrich's paintings to the court of the Duchy of Weimar for inclusion in the ducal art collection. Friedrich regularly sent new works to Goethe for his comments and approval.

In 1810, Goethe visited Friedrich's studio in Dresden, a magnificent tribute to a rising artist. Goethe praised the works in progress in his diary. "Wondrous landscapes," he wrote.

A few years later, Goethe's regard for Friedrich had radically changed. He could barely look at a Friedrich landscape. In a fit of rage, Goethe declared “one ought to break Friedrich’s pictures over the edge of a table. Such things must be prevented.”

What had occurred to trigger this outburst?

An incident in 1816 illustrates the growing rancor between Goethe and Friedrich. It is unlikely that this dispute was the sole or primary cause of estrangement between the two men. But it certainly points to fundamental differences in the world views of the Sage of Weimar and the "mystic with a paintbrush."

To complement his research in meteorology, Goethe asked Friedrich to create several cloud studies. This was a subject of much importance to scholars and artists of the day, including John Constable in England.

Incredibly, Friedrich refused Goethe's request. To him the heavens were a celestial realm where one should seek manifestations of divine purpose rather than scientific data.

Friedrich certainly could have accurately depicted the various types of clouds. He proved that, later, in a stunning 1824 oil sketch. Entitled Evening, this oil study is, in the words of the German art scholar, Markus Bertsch, "full of characteristic cloud formations that seem pink due to the blaze of the red sunset. These are cirrus clouds, which consist of fine ice crystals and are only found at great heights."

Caspar David Friedrich, Evening, 1824

Friedrich may have decided to reject Goethe's commission to do cloud studies because he had been criticized early in his career for using a secular medium, landscape painting, to express religious convictions. In fact, he had been condemned for sacrilege! Yet, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Friedrich made a huge error in not honoring Goethe's request. 

This mistake was much more serious than failing to keep his patron happy. In asking Friedrich to make cloud studies, Goethe was paying him an exceptional compliment for his skill in drawing. This is one of the revelations of The Met's exhibition, which presents an impressive array of Friedrich's drawings and prints. 

 Caspar David Friedrich's

 Rock Archway in the Utterwalder Grund (1803)

Friedrich was a draughtsman of the first rank. Not only did he make superb finished drawings of "sublime" geological landmarks like the Rock Archway in the Utterwalder Grund, but his meticulous nature studies were the most accomplished by a German artist since Albrecht Dürer. 

Many of Friedrich's sketches in The Met exhibit do not reproduce well in a blog like Art Eyewitness. But I found one, dating to 1806, on the website of the Dresden art musuem  which proves that a comparison with Dürer is not exaggerated praise.

Caspar David Friedrich, Pflanzenstudie, 1806

Nature studies like Pflanzenstudie showed that Friedrich could paint what was in front of him. To Goethe this was an important ability for which there was pressing need. Goethe sought to revive European civilization after the horror of the Napoleonic wars. He aimed  to encourage both the arts and scientific inquiry, thereby promoting a consensus to bridge the growing split between what we now call the "two cultures" from the title of C.P. Snow's celebrated 1959 essay.

Friedrich's skill set marked him as the perfect comrade for Goethe in nurturing a new Renaissance. Instead, he withdrew into an interior world of his own until he was dubbed "the most solitary of the solitary."

Friedrich's "wanderer above a sea of fog" is an exalted figure. This most famous of Friedrich's images is also among his most unusual. Rather than standing transcendent on a mountain peak, the characteristic Friedrich protagonist is a lonely, searching figure, staggering under burdens of doubt, fear and loneliness. 

The Monk Beside the Sea (1808-10), The Chasseur in the Forest (1813-14) and A Walk at Dusk (1830-35): these are signature Friedrich figures.

Caspar David Friedrich, Monk by the Sea, 1808-10

Caspar David Friedrich, The Chasseur in the Forest (detail), 1813-14

Caspar David Friedrich, A Walk at Dusk, ca. 1830-35

These images of solitary searchers are each, in their way, alter egos for Friedrich.  What motivated Friedrich the "soul searcher" to paint the haunted, mystical masterpieces which we are finally - hopefully - appreciating as such?

To be brief, Friedrich's life was shadowed by the death of his mother while he was a very young child and the especially traumatic death of one of his brothers. These early confrontations with death were later replicated in the experience of Edvard Munch, whose life and art closely resembled that of Friedrich.

Additionally, Friedrich lived throughout the long, bloody ordeal of the Napoleonic Wars and the political repression which followed. The same was true of Francisco Goya in Spain.

Friedrich, Munch and Goya all painted disturbing, symbolical works of art which reflected the turmoil of their lives and times. But of the three, only Friedrich can be said to have been a religious painter. 

Spirituality, mysticism, the divine presence in nature, these were Friedrich's prevailing themes. And it is upon his handling of them that he needs to be judged. 

Following his break with Goethe, Friedrich continued to paint masterful landscapes with religious overtones. These paintings, survivors of the 1931 fire and Allied bombing raids during World War II, are now treasures of Germany's art museums. During the 1820's and early 1830's, however, public taste in art experienced a major shift in Germany. Potential buyers became increasingly unresponsive to Friedrich's works. His sales plummeted and he and his family experienced dire hardship.

In 1835, Friedrich suffered a stroke which left him partially debilitated, unable to paint except with water color and sepia. Fortunately, the year before he had painted what amounts to a valedictory work. Though it reprises elements from earlier works, The Stages of Life is, by my reckoning, Friedrich's supreme masterpiece and one of the great, life-affirming works of art of all time.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025)

 Caspar David Friedrich's The Stages of Life, ca. 1834

Five figures occupy the foreground. They are interpreted (from left) as Friedrich as a sage or elder figure, Friedrich's nephew, Karl Heinrich, Friedrich's two young children, Gustav and Agnes, and his wife or his older daughter, Emma.

The five sailing ships or schooners in the distances are at various points of their voyages. Some are outward bound; others, having completed their journeys, approach the coastline. The five vessels symbolically represent the five people in their respective "ages."

 

 Caspar David Friedrich's The Stages of Life (detail), ca. 1834

Stages of Life is open to interpretation - and has been viewed and analyzed in different ways. For one thing, the title was added much later, after Friedrich's death, and may not reflect his actual choice for a name.

Could the little Swedish flag held by the young children allude to the fact that the part Pomerania where Friedrich was born had remained under Swedish control from the 1600's until 1815? If so, this might give a nostalgic air to the painting. 

There is more reason to see a universal meaning to this wondrous dreamscape. 

But to which deep, abiding aspect of human life and destiny does Friedrich allude? Is this a painting about the transcience of life and the passing of control from one generation to the next? Or is it a deliberately unfathomable work of art, challenging us to consider the mystery of existence from what we see inside ourselves? 

 

Ed Voves, Photo (2025)

 Gallery view of the Caspar David Friedrich exhibit at The Met 

The correct explanation to these questions can best be found in Friedrich's "manifesto", quoted several times already. If the answer for the artist is what he or she sees "inside" themselves, so too for the art lover.

To search within is not a case of moral relevance where everything we decide is always and effortlessly correct. Reflection, soul-searching, listening for the voice of divinity in nature is a hard road, not an easy one.

This is the road which Caspar David Friedrich took in his art and in his life. And that is why we celebrate and honor his life and his art two and a half centuries after he was born.

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved 

Introductory Image: Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Gallery view of the Caspar David Friedrich exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, showing Friedrich’s Wanderer above a Sea of Fog (1818)

Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above a Sea of Fog, 1818. Oil on canvas: 37 5/16 × 29 7/16 in. (94.8 × 74.8 cm). Hamburger Kunsthalle; Permanent loan from the Stiftung Hamburger Kunstsammlungen, acquired 1970. © SHK/ Hamburger Kunsthalle / bpk. Photo Elke Walford

Elina Brotherus, Der Wanderer 2, from the series “The New Painting”, 2004. Pigment ink from a digitized color negative: 105 x 128 cm (Artists Proof) Miettinen Collection, Berlin-Helsinki © Elina Brotherus / VG Bild Kunst, Bonn 2023

Caspar David Friedrich, Two Men Contemplating the Moon, 1824-30. Oil on canvas: 13 ¾ x 17 ¼ in. ( 34.0 x 43.8 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Alison Hokanson and Joanna Sheers-Seidenstein, Curators of the Caspar David Friedrich: the Soul of Nature exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Gallery view of the Caspar David Friedrich exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Caspar David Friedrich’s Ruins of Oybin, 1812. Oil on canvas: 25 9/16 × 18 1/2 in. (65 × 47 cm) Hamburger Kunsthalle; permanent loan from Manfred Brockhaus

Georg Friedrich Kersting, Caspar David Friedrich in His Studio, 1811. Oil on canvas: 21 ¼ × 16 9/16 in. (54 × 42 cm) Hamburger Kunsthalle

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Caspar David Friedrich’s Cross in the Forest, 1812. Oil on canvas: 16 5/8 × 12 13/16 in. (42.2 × 32.6 cm) Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, portrait by Joseph Karl Steiler (1828) Neue Pinkothek collection; Caspar David Friedrich, portrait by Gerhard von Kugelgen (1808) Hamburger Kunsthalle collection. Photo files from Internet Creative Commons.

Caspar David Friedrich, Evening, 1824. Oil sketch on cardboard: 20 x 27.5 cm. Kunsthalle Mannheim. © Foto / Kunsthalle Mannheim / Cem Yucetas

 Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Caspar David Friedrich’s Rock Archway in the Utterwalder Grund, 1803. Brown ink and wash over pencil on wove paper: 27 13/16 × 19 11/16 in. (70.6 × 50 cm) Museum Folkwang, Essen

Caspar David Friedrich, Pflanzenstudie, 1806. Lead pencil drawing: 158 x 135 mm. Kupferstich-Kabinett. Staatliche Kuntsammlungen Dresden

Caspar David Friedrich, Monk by the Sea, 1808-10. Oil on canvas: 43 5/16 × 67 1/2 in. (110 × 171.5 cm) Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Caspar David Friedrich’s The Chasseur in the Forest (detail), 1813-14.Oil on canvas: 25 13/16 × 18 3/16 in. (65.5 × 46.2 cm) Private collection

Caspar David Friedrich, A Walk at Dusk, ca. 1830-35.  Oil on canvas: 13 1/4 × 17 in. (33.7 × 43.2 cm) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Caspar David Friedrich's The Stages of Life, ca. 1834. Oil on canvas: 28 3/4 × 37 in. (73 × 94 cm) Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig