The Abbey in the Oak Wood (c. 1809) 1104 × 1710 mm oil on Canvas
Having departed from my comfort zone with Raphael a fortnight ago, I am returning to my favourite period with the contemplation of a thought provoking painting by the great German painter of the Romantic Period, Caspar David Friedrich – The Abbey in the Oak Wood.
But first a short bibliographical note: Friedrich (1774-1840) was born in Greifswald, Northern Germany and was renowned for the spiritual content of his paintings. He wrote – ‘Regard every pure mental impulse as holy, honour every devout presentiment as holy, for it is the art within us! In the hour of inspiration it takes on visual form, and this form is your picture…’[i]
This large picture is divided into two halves by the presence of the entrance to the ruined Abbey tower in the centre foreground with on both sides a group of four aging, bare oak trees. On the right-hand side only there is evidence of more of the ruined Abbey, with one of the oaks almost appearing to be growing out of the structure. Visible through the doorway in the tower is a simple crucifix which seems to have survived in spite of the decay which has occurred throughout the remainder of the Abbey. In the immediate foreground there are on the left groups of black clad people (mourners?) and on the right there is one conventional cross marking a grave with a number of markers with simple two-pitch roofs as well as on the extreme right a metal cross surmounted by a semi-circle, together with a small notice or marker. The cross is almost identical to the cross at the top of the window in the Abbey tower. The addition of pitched roofs to grave crosses seems to be a tradition in this part of Germany as it is shown in other Friedrich paintings, for example Graveyard under Snow (1826-7). In the middle distance through the mist there is the suggestion of many more trees sloping down the hill into the mist and away from the viewer. The ground around the Abbey is uneven, uncultivated and untended.
The upper branches of the oak trees are silhouetted against a bright sky gradually darkening to the point of being dark sepia immediately above the viewer. There is a crescent moon showing with the vague outline of the full moon. The misty horizon is shown at about one third of the way from the base of the picture.
The overall mood depicted is one of gloom and decay imbued with mystery. The dark sepia of the land around the Abbey is very similar in form to the Monk by the Sea which I wrote about in an earlier reflection (both of these large pictures were, and probably still are, exhibited together) with its dark blue foreground. The similarity is carried upwards with the light middle and dark upper part of the painting – again almost suggesting the colour field paintings of the twentieth century. Such is the similarity that these paintings could be called – study in blue and study in sepia. The picture raises many questions, the main one being the activity of the people. The use of the many spread out, black-clad figures invites the questions of the viewer: why are they there, what are they doing thus adding to the enigmatic atmosphere. If they really were a mourning party, then would they not be grouped around a grave? But then, would an Abbey in such a state of ruin still be used for funerals? Perhaps a more plausible explanation is that the mourners were attending the Abbey on a day of some significance when they were remembering the dead of the past – perhaps the dead of the fourth and fifth coalition wars. The ruined Abbey could be said to represent the Catholic Church – in decline and in Germany being replaced by the Lutheran Church with its emphasis on the word rather than on the sacramental services conducted in grand churches or cathedral buildings. The retention of the crucifix, however, suggests that in spite of the decline of the Catholic Church, the Cross is still there to be followed but within the context of the Lutheran or Moravian (Pietist) Churches.
Perspective is emphasised by the diminishing size of the oaks, beyond the eight oaks in the foreground. It is also evident from the diminishing size of the people and the grave markers. The overall effect of this is to give great depth to the picture. There is a general air of mistiness about this painting which is achieved by a combination of aerial perspective and the depiction of mist in the distance, lower down the slope. With regard to the use of mist Friedrich wrote:
When a landscape is covered in fog, it appears larger more sublime, and heightens the strength of the imagination and excites expectation, rather like a veiled woman. The eye and fantasy feel themselves more attracted to the hazy distance than to that which lies near and distinct before us.[ii]
The overall effect of this combination of mist and aerial perspective is to imbue the picture with mystery. The lower third of this picture is dark, the remainder being light, punctuated by the eight oaks and with the exception of a small triangle of dark cloud in the top left hand corner. The light sky emphasises the detail of the oaks and the cross in the window of the tower. This light contrast realises one of the characteristics that Rudolf Otto[iii] highlighted as necessary to indicate a suggestion of transcendence. The unanswered questions in this picture highlights its ambiguity which is brought out well in a sonnet by the Dresden poet Karl Theodor Körner (1791-1813) which begins:
The fountain of grace flows in death,
And those there are comrades in bliss,
Who pass through the grave into eternal life,
and ends:
Here I can boldly trust my heart;
Cold admiration I shall not have – no, I feel,
And in feeling art completes itself.[iv]
In this sonnet Körner is moving from an interpretation which sees this painting as pointing towards the Transcendent to a position where as Koerner emphasises that by elevating ‘us to the eternal, Körner argues, Friedrich’s canvas justifies our faith in the redemptive powers of art per se, and in our subjective capacity to feel those powers’.[v]
Thus, there is the suggestion in this work of art that the viewer is being invited to partake of the existential angst of the participants in the painting. Whether or not one can agree with Koerner’s suggestion that what Friedrich has created in his works can be translated into the redemptive power of art in general is open to question – I would argue that it is only true of those works which specifically include those characteristics which originated with Otto and have been refined further in respect of detailed analysis
This particular painting certainly exudes an air of mystery, of the sublime and of transcendence. There is the decaying old Abbey indicating not only that the Church of Rome has been replaced but also that the church building itself is not essential to the worship of God or the experience of the ineffable. The minute figures in this very large painting emphasise the inconsequentiality of mankind in comparison with the Creator, a characteristic common to many of the works which point towards the Transcendent. The sense of something beyond death can be inferred from the dying oaks in the foreground set against the younger vegetation in the middle distance.
Regarding the relationship of this painting to the Monk, not having seen the picture in the National Gallery in Berlin, I am at some disadvantage but I can imagine that this picture shown beside the Monk by the Sea will have an effect greater than the viewing of just one alone. Both paintings with their blocks of dark and light tones, point towards the colour field works of the twentieth century; both have an indistinct horizon encouraging the viewer to peer into the distance trying to see that which lies beyond and both emphasise the insignificance of man compared with the creative power of the God.
Dr David Greenwood September, 2020
[i] Hofmann, Werner, Caspar David Friedrich. London. Thames and Hudson. 2007 quoting Friedrich p 269
[ii] Koerner, J. Caspar David Friedrich and the subject of Landscape London. Reaktion Books 1990 p. 181.
[iii] Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) German theologian who describes three characteristics of a painting to be transcendent to be – sharp contrast between light and dark, indication of great distance and emptiness. Otto, R. The idea of the Holy. Oxford. OUP. 1958. (originally published in 1923)
[iv] Koerner, pp. 109-110. Karl Theodor Körner who was born on Sept. 23, 1791, in Dresden, Saxony and died in battle on Aug. 26, 1813, at Gadebusch, Mecklenburg, was a German patriotic poet of the war of liberation against Napoleon in 1813 whose death in Lützow’s volunteer corps made him a popular hero.
[v] Koerner, J. p. 110.
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