Caspar David Friedrich. Where it all started.

From 24 August 2024, two exhibitions at the Albertinum and the the Kupferstich-Kabinett focus on the figure of Caspar David Friedrich.

Source: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden · Image: Caspar David Friedrich, “The Great Enclosure” or “The Ostra Enclosure”, 1831. Galerie Neue Meister, Dresden.

Dresden was Caspar David Friedrich’s home for 40 years. He took a keen interest in the works in the city’s famous Gemäldegalerie and contributed to contemporary art debates. This is where he created his major works, now internationally renowned as some of the most significant examples of German Romanticism.

In his artworks, Friedrich juxtaposes academic traditions with the private sources of inspiration he discovered on countryside walks through Dresden’s close and more distant surroundings.

The exhibition in the Albertinum (24 August 2024–5 January 2025) presents Friedrich’s paintings. His landscapes explore the realms of the emotions in a manner unlike any other artist before him. Seeing the full range of his artistic works will offer insights into the topics that preoccupied him: nature, religion and politics. Presenting them alongside paintings by his role models – the great landscape artist Jakob Ruisdael, Salvatore Rosa and Claude Lorrain – and by his contemporaries offers a unique means of exploring various facets of Romanticism.The exhibition in the Kupferstich-Kabinett (24 August–17 November 2024) will centre upon the artistic process behind his drawings, which display great sensitivity accompanied by a high level of precision. For Friedrich, walking and drawing were closely linked. His intense focus on the countryside and devotion to depicting it in his drawings remain palpable to this day. The exhibition will show the paths he walked and inspire viewers to follow in his steps.