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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome

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Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

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Speaker 1: That was one of those times where I almost said

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Speaker 1: your name. Just sometimes we're tempted oddly to do that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a weird thing that happens sometimes. The origin for

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Speaker 1: this episode is a little bit loopy. Come with me

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Speaker 1: on the journey. Uh, it's because of the new Star

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Speaker 1: Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker. Don't worry, this is

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Speaker 1: not a Star Wars E episode. So if you're like,

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Speaker 1: I don't hear about that, you're not gonna But there

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Speaker 1: is this one particular section of that film that strongly

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Speaker 1: reminded me visually of a particular painting, and the artist

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Speaker 1: who painted that painting has been on my list for

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Speaker 1: a while because, Uh, that painting is seen all over

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Speaker 1: the place, but I would hazard a guess that few

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Speaker 1: people outside of art history circles actually know who painted it.

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Speaker 1: I checked its has actually been a little while since

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Speaker 1: we talked about a painter on a new episode. We

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Speaker 1: did have a Caravaggio classic recently, but we haven't done

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Speaker 1: a recent new painter biography. So today we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about Caspar David Friedrich, who was a painter most

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Speaker 1: closely associated with the German Romantic movement, and we will

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Speaker 1: talk about the painting that this whole Shenanigans reminded me

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Speaker 1: of to give you context later on in the story.

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Speaker 1: So Caspar David Friedrich was born September five, seventeen seven

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Speaker 1: four in grips of Ald, Pomerania. So for a quick reference,

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Speaker 1: Pomerania was a region along the Baltic Sea that went

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Speaker 1: through a lot of shifts over hundreds of years, as

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Speaker 1: is the case with a lot of that general part

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Speaker 1: of the world. But today most of what was once

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Speaker 1: Pomerania is in Poland today, and a smaller portion of

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Speaker 1: it on the western side was incorporated into Germany. Gripes

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Speaker 1: of Bald, where where Frieda was born, is part of

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Speaker 1: the area that's in modern day Germany, and Friedrich's parents,

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Speaker 1: Adolf Gottlieb Friedrich and Sophie d'hartea Bratley Friedrich, were devout

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Speaker 1: Lutherans who had moved to Greifswald in seventeen sixty one.

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Speaker 1: Their hope was at the harbor town would offer a

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Speaker 1: good supply of raw materials for soap and candle making.

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Speaker 1: That was Adolf's trade, and it did. His little company

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Speaker 1: grew over time into a much larger enterprise, which lived

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Speaker 1: on long after Adolf was dead. Friedrich's childhood was not

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Speaker 1: idyllic at all, though, because his family experienced one tragic

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Speaker 1: event after another. He had nine siblings, He was the

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Speaker 1: sixth in the birth order, and when he was just

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Speaker 1: seven years old, his mother died. After that point, the

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Speaker 1: family had a nurse named mutter Heide, and she stepped

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Speaker 1: in to help raise the children. The following year, though,

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Speaker 1: Casper's sister Elizabeth, also died from an illness, and then

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Speaker 1: on December eighth, sev seven, when Casper was thirteen, another

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Speaker 1: loss left him deeply mournful. His brother Johann Christopher drowned

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Speaker 1: when he fell through the ice in a skating accident,

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Speaker 1: and Caspar witnessed this. This is sometimes relayed as though

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Speaker 1: Johan was saving Caspar from drowning himself, but uh that

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Speaker 1: appears to be a conflation of two separate events. Casper

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Speaker 1: had nearly drowned in a similar accident prior to Johan's death,

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Speaker 1: and Johan had I think saved him. You see this

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Speaker 1: story written out so many ways, it's a little bit

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Speaker 1: hard to apply pattern recognition and and try to get

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Speaker 1: to the facts. But the accident that claimed Johan's life

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Speaker 1: appears to have been a separate incident in which Caspar

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Speaker 1: was not in any danger. Four years after Johan's death,

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Speaker 1: another of the Friedrich siblings died of an illness, this

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Speaker 1: time it was Maria. And in spite of all of

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Speaker 1: this tragedy, Casper seemed to remain pretty attached to the

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Speaker 1: family home in the town throughout his life. Although he

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Speaker 1: did settle elsewhere later, he visited home and made drawings

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Speaker 1: and paintings of the family and of Greifswald pretty often. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's one of those things where people say this early

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Speaker 1: stuff really informed his work later on. But he did

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Speaker 1: seem to really enjoy going home and being with his family.

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Speaker 1: So there's a little bit of disparity there in in

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Speaker 1: how he related to home life. Not not a situation

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Speaker 1: where he felt it too painful to go back there,

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Speaker 1: exactly a situation that colored his later work right. And

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Speaker 1: as a teenager, Casper began decorating religious texts, and this

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Speaker 1: is the earliest art we have examples of from his life.

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Speaker 1: At sixteen, he started taking painting lessons formerly from Johann

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Speaker 1: Gottfried Quisdorp at the University of Greifswald. Quisdorp was an

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Speaker 1: architect who also painted, and he taught both of these

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Speaker 1: subjects as well as mathematics and engineering. And prior to

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Speaker 1: studying with Quisdorp, most of the art that Casper had

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Speaker 1: been exposed to was religious imagery that he had seen

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Speaker 1: at church. But with this new teacher, his knowledge of

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Speaker 1: art history expanded considerably because he was shown work by

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Speaker 1: many masters, which Quisdorp had in his private collection, including

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Speaker 1: paintings by Flemish Baroque painter Antony van Dyke. Quistorp was

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Speaker 1: not his only teacher during this time. He was also

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Speaker 1: studying literature and esthetics with Thomas Tild, who was the

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Speaker 1: university's librarian as well as a professor. He was Swedish

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Speaker 1: and had made a name for himself as a poet,

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Speaker 1: but also had started writing about social reform and was

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Speaker 1: part of the s German drawing movement which preceded Romanticism.

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Speaker 1: It becomes pretty easy to trace a line from Casper

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Speaker 1: Friedrich's mentors and his work. Yeah, if you kind of

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Speaker 1: look at the roots of what he was getting educated

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Speaker 1: in and how he evolved. He's almost like the story

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Speaker 1: of Romanticism in Germany at four. At the age of twenty,

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Speaker 1: Friedrick enrolled at Copenhagen's Danish Royal Academy to study art,

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Speaker 1: and this program was based on the French model of

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Speaker 1: teaching artists. So students would start with drawing, mostly copying

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Speaker 1: existing work, and then they would learn how to cast

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Speaker 1: copies of famous sculptures, which sounds like a very fun

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Speaker 1: thing to learn, and then life drawing and composition were studied,

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Speaker 1: and throughout the program the more mathematical concepts that are

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Speaker 1: vital to art, such as perspective in geometry, were also included.

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Speaker 1: You might have noticed that we haven't mentioned any painting

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Speaker 1: classes in that curriculum. There weren't any offered formally as

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Speaker 1: part of the program, and that wasn't an uncommon scenario

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Speaker 1: for art schools at the time. Casper Friedrich never actually

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Speaker 1: studied painting at the Royal Academy. He took classes from painters,

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Speaker 1: but they were teaching things like art theory rather than

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Speaker 1: hands on painting technique. While other students were able to

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Speaker 1: pay for private painting classes from the faculty. That was

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Speaker 1: not an option for Casper due to the financial limitations

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Speaker 1: that he had, but he was painting on his own

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Speaker 1: and applying the lessons that he had learned from other media.

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Speaker 1: While Fredrich was in art school in Copenhagen, landscape painting

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Speaker 1: was growing in popularity throughout Europe, and some of Copenhagen's

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Speaker 1: established artists were producing landscapes for money, even if they

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Speaker 1: were known for other styles. Portraitist Yen's Yuel, for example,

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Speaker 1: adapted the style that he normally used when capturing people

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Speaker 1: on canvas and he applied it to capturing the mood

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Speaker 1: or place of a scene, and his work was a

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Speaker 1: major influence on Fredrich. In sev Fredrick left art school

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Speaker 1: and went home. He didn't graduate from the Danish Royal Academy.

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Speaker 1: The exact reason that he left in the middle of

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Speaker 1: his studies is not known. There has been some speculation

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Speaker 1: that he just couldn't afford to stay there any longer.

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Speaker 1: But through a connection Fredrick made through his teacher, Johann Quistorp,

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Speaker 1: Casper was able to set himself up in Dresden with

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Speaker 1: the hopes of establishing an art career. Dresden had developed

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Speaker 1: a reputation as a haven for the arts, and Fredrick

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Speaker 1: found it so to his liking that he called it

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Speaker 1: home for the rest of his life. But though he

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Speaker 1: was still pursuing art, he was also doing all kinds

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Speaker 1: of work to make a living in Dresden. Initially, he

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Speaker 1: worked as a tutor, an engraver, and a tour guide. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: One of the biographies that I read kind of speculated

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Speaker 1: that he might not have been a great tour guide

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Speaker 1: because he was not from Dresden, and he started doing

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Speaker 1: this work almost immediately after having arrived, So he may

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Speaker 1: have been completely just faking his way through it just

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Speaker 1: he could make ends meet. Uh. And luckily he did

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Speaker 1: not stick with any of those jobs that he may

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Speaker 1: or may not have been great at for long. We're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about what he did end up doing

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Speaker 1: after we first pause for a quick sponsor break. The

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Speaker 1: Dresden Academy of Art had been established in seventeen sixty four,

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Speaker 1: and Casper enrolled after he relocated to the city. Incidentally,

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Speaker 1: that institution continues today under the name Dresden Academy of

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Speaker 1: Fine Arts, and while he was there, Casper continued developing

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Speaker 1: his skills copying the works of other artists as studies

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Speaker 1: as well as evolving his own style. One of the

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Speaker 1: prominent teachers at the Academy of Art was Swiss painter

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Speaker 1: Adrian Zing, whose landscapes hang today in museums around the world,

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Speaker 1: and he too became undoubtedly an influence on young Friedrich.

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Speaker 1: And it was thanks to the exhibitions staged by the

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Speaker 1: Academy of Art that Fredrick started to gain a reputation

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Speaker 1: as a painter. Dresden at this point was known for

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Speaker 1: its art collection, so to show there and get decent reviews,

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Speaker 1: occasionally being singled out when showing with other young artists,

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Speaker 1: that really bolstered Fredrick's germinating career. And while some of

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Speaker 1: these pieces were landscapes, that was a style for which

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Speaker 1: he would eventually become famous, others were sepia and watercolor

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Speaker 1: figure tableau that represented moments of human drama, often grief.

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Speaker 1: He was still experimenting with his work at this point,

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Speaker 1: and in that spirit of experimentation in the early eighteen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: Casper Frederick explored a number of avenues to make a

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Speaker 1: living solely as an artist without taking non art supplemental jobs.

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Speaker 1: So he did a number of landscape etchings, which were

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Speaker 1: popular enough that prominent rulers purchased them. And he also

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Speaker 1: ventured into woodcut prints of some of his figure studies,

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Speaker 1: and those woodcut prints were made by Casper's brother, Christians.

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Speaker 1: So he would make the make the woodcut, send it

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Speaker 1: to his brother, and then his brother would do the printing.

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Speaker 1: But neither of those efforts seemed to keep Frederick's attension

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Speaker 1: as an artist, and he turned to portraits, includ eating

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Speaker 1: self portraits, which he often did in chalk and pencil.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen o one, Casper Friedrich returned to Greifswald for

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Speaker 1: an extended visit. He didn't go back to Dresden until

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Speaker 1: eighteen o two, more than a year after he had left.

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Speaker 1: During this trip he started really establishing some of the

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Speaker 1: hallmarks of his landscape style. He was working in Sepia,

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Speaker 1: and to make the most of the simplicity of the

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Speaker 1: color palette, he played up the contrast of light and

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Speaker 1: dark to conjure a sense of atmosphere. The coast around Greifswald,

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Speaker 1: particularly Cape Arcona, was the primary subject of these works,

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Speaker 1: and he would recreate images of that cape over and

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Speaker 1: over throughout his career. Back in Dresden, Friedrich continued his

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Speaker 1: work in Cpia landscapes. He also had a sort of

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Speaker 1: evolution of his work that derived from his previous style.

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Speaker 1: So he once again created a number of landscapes, and

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Speaker 1: this time they included human figures in them, but in

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Speaker 1: these early eighteen hundreds pieces, the figures were much smaller

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Speaker 1: than in his previous works. Those figures were still often

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Speaker 1: in dramatic situation, but the landscape was really the dominant

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Speaker 1: element of the composition. In eighteen o three, Casper Fredrick

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Speaker 1: exhibited a number of his Sepia landscapes at the Dresden

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Speaker 1: Academy of Art, and this exhibit was really successful. It

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Speaker 1: was also that year that fellow painter Philip Otto Runge

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Speaker 1: introduced Fredrick to the Dresden Romantics. This was a circle

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Speaker 1: of influential writers in the city. Also in that social

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Speaker 1: circle was Ludwig Tique, who was a poet and novelist

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Speaker 1: whose work had really cemented the idea of Romanticism in

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Speaker 1: Germany in the late eighteenth century. While Casper Fredrick was

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Speaker 1: never in the inner circle of this crowd, and some

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Speaker 1: of its most influential members had died or moved into

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Speaker 1: other pursuits by the time Fredrick was introduced to them.

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Speaker 1: Their presence in the Dresden creative scene and his socializing

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Speaker 1: with them informed his efforts going forward. Also as an aside,

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Speaker 1: just to uh make sure disinformation is not part of

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Speaker 1: this picture. If you look at some sources, they may

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Speaker 1: mention the writer Novellis as a member of this social circle,

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Speaker 1: and the way it's phrased, I saw this in several places,

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Speaker 1: so I'm not dogging anyone one person or one um outlet.

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Speaker 1: It sort of makes it seem like Novalis and Fredrick

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Speaker 1: were contemporaries. But Novalis, which was a pseudonym for Friedrich Leopold,

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Speaker 1: the Baron of Haddenburg, actually died in eighteen o one,

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Speaker 1: and that would have been two years before Casper made

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Speaker 1: the acquaintance of the group, So those two men did

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Speaker 1: not know each other at all. So if you see

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Speaker 1: a list where it's like he knew the Dresden Romantics

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Speaker 1: that included these people, Novalis was not really there at

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Speaker 1: that point. In eighteen o four, Friedrick created a CPIL

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Speaker 1: landscape titled My Burial, which featured the artist's coffin being

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Speaker 1: interred in a churchyard. That churchyard was adjacent to a

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Speaker 1: falling down abbey. This particular work no longer exists. We

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Speaker 1: only have descriptions and reviews of it, and those are

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Speaker 1: reviews clearly recognized that Friedrich's work had a spiritual and

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Speaker 1: melancholic tone to it, which put it right in stride

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Speaker 1: with the growing Romantic movement. When Fredrick entered two of

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Speaker 1: his seat landscapes into competition at the Weimar Friends of

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Speaker 1: Art Society in eighteen o five, it proved to be

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Speaker 1: a significant moment that established him in his chosen field

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Speaker 1: as an artist. That competition was established and judged by

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Speaker 1: Johann Wischgang von Geta, who praised Fredrick's work and granted

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Speaker 1: him half the prize. The other half went to a

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Speaker 1: painting on Hercules cleaning the Augean Stables. One of the

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Speaker 1: mysteries of Casper David Friedrick's career is why exactly he

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Speaker 1: hadn't started working in oils in earnest until his thirties.

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Speaker 1: He had favored drawing and watercolor early in his career,

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Speaker 1: but then around eighteen oh seven or eighteen o eight,

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Speaker 1: when he was about thirty four, Casper Fredrick painted the

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Speaker 1: cross in the Mountains, which is now known as the

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Speaker 1: Techen Altar. This was his first work that gained really

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Speaker 1: wide recognition when it's set the stage for his reputation

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Speaker 1: of representing religious themes and landscape imagery. This painting was

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Speaker 1: created as an altarpiece, and it stands out in that

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Speaker 1: regard precisely because it's a land escape rather than an

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Speaker 1: image that centralizes the religious iconography. The initial showing of

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Speaker 1: this painting was at Christmas time, and Friedrich tried to

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Speaker 1: light his studio in conditions similar to that of a chapel,

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Speaker 1: and while accounts from this initial viewing suggests that everyone

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Speaker 1: on hand was awed by the work and the presentation,

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00:14:19,080 --> 00:14:22,600
Speaker 1: this painting was not appreciated unanimously when it was introduced.

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Speaker 1: In it, Christ's crucifixion is depicted on a cross that

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Speaker 1: sits alone atop a mountain, no humans visible, and only

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Speaker 1: the trees that grow on the slope are also present,

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Speaker 1: and the use of landscape painting to represent the religious

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Speaker 1: in this way was considered inappropriate and irreverent by many.

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Speaker 1: This painting got a lot of attention in publicity, but

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Speaker 1: that publicity was because its merit was debated, rather than

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Speaker 1: because of the artistry. In eighteen o nine, Friedrich published

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Speaker 1: his own notes on the painting and the periodical Journal

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Speaker 1: of Luxury and Fashion. He explained that the mountain is faith,

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Speaker 1: the trees are the endure hope of humankind, and the

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Speaker 1: three rays of light that shine from behind the mountain

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Speaker 1: as the sun sets, are the light of God. The

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Speaker 1: setting sun indicates that human kind's relationship with God has shifted.

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Speaker 1: Friedrich wrote, quote, Jesus Christ, nailed to the tree, is

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Speaker 1: turned here towards the sinking son. The image of the

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Speaker 1: eternal life giving Father. With Jesus's teaching an old world

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Speaker 1: dies that time, when God the Father moved directly on

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Speaker 1: the earth, this son sank, and the earth was not

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Speaker 1: able to grasp the departing light any longer. Frederick never

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Speaker 1: published any other commentary about this work or any of

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Speaker 1: his others. Yeah, he kind of got so frustrated with

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Speaker 1: the interpretations of his work that we're being circulated in

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Speaker 1: the press that he wrote this one thing, And we

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Speaker 1: don't know if he just after that point was like,

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Speaker 1: I'm never explaining myself again, or if he just kind

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Speaker 1: of stepped away from the idea of paying attention to

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Speaker 1: his critics are not. The year after his explanation of

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Speaker 1: the symbolism and meaning of the cross in the Mountains,

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Speaker 1: Fredrick was made a member of the Berlin Academy. He

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Speaker 1: had exhibited two works there in Berlin, the Monk by

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Speaker 1: the Sea, which is a large painting which features a

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00:16:10,840 --> 00:16:13,520
Speaker 1: very small figure of a monk standing on a beach

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Speaker 1: before a vast expanse of dark sea and sky, and

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00:16:16,760 --> 00:16:19,240
Speaker 1: the other pieces the Abbey in the Oak Forest, which

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Speaker 1: is also a very large piece and it features a

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Speaker 1: crumbling abbey surrounded by leafless twisted trees and a procession

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Speaker 1: of monks carrying a coffin into the ruins by the

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Speaker 1: light of two candles. Both of these paintings were purchased

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Speaker 1: at the Berlin exhibition by Friedrich Vilhelm, the third of Prussia.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen sixteen, Friedrich was also made a member of

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Speaker 1: the Dresden Academy. This appointment meant that he had a

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Speaker 1: small annual stipend and that regular income came in handy

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Speaker 1: when he decided to get married in eighteen eighteen. His

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Speaker 1: new wife, Caroline, was twenty five, so she was nineteen

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Speaker 1: years younger than he was. Her father was a tradesman

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Speaker 1: in Dresden, who specialized in dying textiles, and marriage changed

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Speaker 1: Fredrick's work, and we're going to talk about how after

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Speaker 1: we first pause for a word from one of the

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00:17:03,680 --> 00:17:06,440
Speaker 1: sponsors that keep stuff he missed in history class, going

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00:17:13,359 --> 00:17:17,080
Speaker 1: this moment of getting married in Casper. David Friedrich's life

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Speaker 1: is one that precipitated a change. As we said before,

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Speaker 1: the break in his work. He painted chalk Cliffs on

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Speaker 1: Reugen after his honeymoon, and it offers up imagery that

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Speaker 1: seems to shift away from his work up to that point.

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Speaker 1: For one, there is a woman in the painting in

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Speaker 1: a red dress, seated with her back to the viewer.

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Speaker 1: She's on the left side of the painting, and two

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00:17:36,760 --> 00:17:38,960
Speaker 1: men are also in the painting, one kind of in

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Speaker 1: the middle and one on the right, and the trio

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00:17:41,560 --> 00:17:44,399
Speaker 1: looks out over these cliffs, and two sailboats can be

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00:17:44,440 --> 00:17:47,760
Speaker 1: seen on the water beyond them. The color palette of

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00:17:47,800 --> 00:17:51,080
Speaker 1: this painting is much brighter and softer than Fredric's usual

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00:17:51,119 --> 00:17:54,479
Speaker 1: oil paintings, and the three figures are often interpreted as

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Speaker 1: representing love, faith, and hope. The more literal interpretation of

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Speaker 1: the figures is that they are in fact Caroline Casper

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Speaker 1: and Casper's brother Heinrich. This painting seems to indicate that

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Speaker 1: Friedrich's state of mind changed somewhat with what appeared to

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Speaker 1: be a happy marriage, Although it's contemporary, Carl Gustav carustrode

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Speaker 1: an account that said that Friedrich remained the same person

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Speaker 1: even after he and Caroline got married and started their family.

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Speaker 1: They had three children together, two daughters and a son

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Speaker 1: over the years between eighteen nineteen and eighteen twenty three,

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Speaker 1: and this also brings up the point of Friedrich's disposition. Generally,

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Speaker 1: because his work is often dark in tone and centered

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Speaker 1: around themes of death and the rituals associated with it,

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Speaker 1: there is often this presumption that we mentioned earlier, that

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Speaker 1: the losses of his childhood stayed with him and cast

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Speaker 1: a gloom on his life, But there are accounts from

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Speaker 1: friends of his that he was also a very funny

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Speaker 1: and joyous person. Philosopher gott Heinrich von Schubert described Casper

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Speaker 1: as a man who had an odd mixture of moods,

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Speaker 1: but if people only saw the melancholy they quote only

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00:18:58,520 --> 00:19:02,000
Speaker 1: knew half the man. Once he had gotten married to Caroline,

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00:19:02,200 --> 00:19:06,160
Speaker 1: women started appearing with a lot more frequency, in Frederick's works,

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Speaker 1: including the Beautiful Woman before the Rising Sun that depicts

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Speaker 1: a woman with arms extended from her side slightly and

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Speaker 1: her back facing the viewer looking at what's either the

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00:19:16,359 --> 00:19:19,480
Speaker 1: rising or the setting sun and golden and orange hues.

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Speaker 1: It's been named as both the rising and the setting

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Speaker 1: at different times. Yeah, it is a very very striking painting.

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Speaker 1: And if you look at a lot of his work,

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Speaker 1: which is a little bit more on the gloomy side,

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00:19:29,080 --> 00:19:30,719
Speaker 1: and then you look at that, you almost have this

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Speaker 1: moment where if the figure style weren't so similar, you'd

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Speaker 1: be like, I don't think this is the same painter. Um,

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Speaker 1: I really really love that painting because it is so

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00:19:41,400 --> 00:19:46,840
Speaker 1: uh warm and beautiful. Not long after he started his

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Speaker 1: family in eighteen eighteen eighteen twenty, Casper painted Two Men

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Speaker 1: Contemplating the Moon, which features exactly what the title suggests.

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Speaker 1: Two men stand in the left one third of the

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Speaker 1: landscape looking at the moon which sits just left of

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Speaker 1: sin during the composition, and the surrounding ground and there's

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00:20:03,560 --> 00:20:06,119
Speaker 1: a big tree and they're all painted in warm tones.

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00:20:06,680 --> 00:20:09,119
Speaker 1: And this painting was very popular, so much so that

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Speaker 1: the artist made several variational copies of it, some with

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Speaker 1: a man and a woman and in varying color palettes.

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Speaker 1: This is also the period when Frederick painted the piece

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Speaker 1: that Holly referenced at the very top of the episode,

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Speaker 1: which is Wanderer above the Sea Fog. You've almost certainly

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Speaker 1: seen this painting. It gets used a lot because it's

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00:20:26,640 --> 00:20:29,879
Speaker 1: really evocative. It features a man in the foreground with

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Speaker 1: back to the viewer, looking out over cliffs and rocks

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00:20:32,840 --> 00:20:35,840
Speaker 1: on a coast that are coated in a really dense mist.

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Speaker 1: It was used as the cover for a paperback edition

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00:20:39,400 --> 00:20:43,480
Speaker 1: of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein that was popular for years. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was one of those If you studied Mary Jelie

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Speaker 1: Frankenstein in high school in the eighties, you saw this

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00:20:48,560 --> 00:20:51,640
Speaker 1: painting because it was used as a cover. It's also

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00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:55,720
Speaker 1: been used in an innumerable other places, and despite his

377
00:20:55,760 --> 00:21:00,280
Speaker 1: seeming happiness with family life, Frederick did slowly become kind

378
00:21:00,280 --> 00:21:03,840
Speaker 1: of withdrawn from the outside world. Some of this, too,

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00:21:03,920 --> 00:21:07,800
Speaker 1: was political. During the Napoleonic Wars, the French used Dresden

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00:21:07,880 --> 00:21:11,399
Speaker 1: as their rallying point, and the French occupation during that time,

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Speaker 1: to which Casper Friedrich was in opposition, seemed to catalyze

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Speaker 1: depressive episodes which would recur throughout the remainder of his life,

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Speaker 1: So the introduction of Caroline into his world may have

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Speaker 1: simply been a temporary reprieve from a larger cycle of

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00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:29,840
Speaker 1: depressive periods. In eighteen twenty four, Fredrick started a job

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Speaker 1: as a professor at the Royal Dresden Art Academy. This

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00:21:33,280 --> 00:21:35,800
Speaker 1: was only a part time position, which was much to

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Speaker 1: his dismay. He wanted to teach full time because his

389
00:21:38,720 --> 00:21:40,840
Speaker 1: art was not in demand the way it had been,

390
00:21:41,400 --> 00:21:44,520
Speaker 1: but the same problem carried over to teaching. The school's

391
00:21:44,600 --> 00:21:47,800
Speaker 1: leadership feared that his style was so singular that he'd

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00:21:47,800 --> 00:21:52,159
Speaker 1: have a hard time teaching students a more generalized curriculum.

393
00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:56,520
Speaker 1: Over the next decade, his income dwindled significantly as Romanticism

394
00:21:56,560 --> 00:21:59,960
Speaker 1: fell out of favor, and only his most devoted patriot

395
00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:03,480
Speaker 1: continued buying his work just the same. Some of his

396
00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:07,400
Speaker 1: most impressive work was done during this period of economic downturn.

397
00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:11,480
Speaker 1: The gross Getje near Dresden, painted in eighteen thirty two,

398
00:22:11,880 --> 00:22:16,240
Speaker 1: features a vast, expansive pasture interrupted by elements of standing water.

399
00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:19,639
Speaker 1: It's rendered as though the viewer is slightly above the

400
00:22:19,680 --> 00:22:22,240
Speaker 1: ground and it's at once really breathtaking and a little

401
00:22:22,280 --> 00:22:26,680
Speaker 1: bit unsettling. Fives Wreck in the Moonlight is a dark

402
00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:30,280
Speaker 1: nighttime scene of a shipwreck, the vessel lying broken and

403
00:22:30,359 --> 00:22:33,400
Speaker 1: sideways in the water, having rammed into a rock formation

404
00:22:33,480 --> 00:22:36,560
Speaker 1: just off the coast. Also in eighteen thirty five, Friederich

405
00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:39,600
Speaker 1: painted The Stages of Life, and that features what appears

406
00:22:39,640 --> 00:22:42,840
Speaker 1: to be a family at the seaside, with two young children,

407
00:22:43,119 --> 00:22:46,520
Speaker 1: their parents, and an older gentleman. I'm not familiar with

408
00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:49,199
Speaker 1: this artwork, but Holly has noted that she would have

409
00:22:49,240 --> 00:22:51,960
Speaker 1: thought that it was a woman in the other figure

410
00:22:52,080 --> 00:22:56,560
Speaker 1: without um having more knowledge about the scene. Yeah. I

411
00:22:56,560 --> 00:22:58,359
Speaker 1: I have for years have thought that was a woman,

412
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:02,200
Speaker 1: and because I had not read any any art criticism

413
00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:03,879
Speaker 1: or art analysis of it. And then I did and

414
00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:06,480
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, okay, it's a man. Uh yeah,

415
00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:08,040
Speaker 1: just def y I if you look at it, know

416
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:11,919
Speaker 1: that I too suffered the same confusion correlated to this. Uh.

417
00:23:12,040 --> 00:23:14,880
Speaker 1: To the people and in the port are five boats

418
00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:17,639
Speaker 1: in the water. They're all at varying distances from the shore.

419
00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:20,919
Speaker 1: This painting has been analyzed and interpreted a lot of

420
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:23,960
Speaker 1: times since its creation, and it's believed that the figures

421
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:27,520
Speaker 1: are Freedrick himself as the elderly man, as well as

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00:23:27,560 --> 00:23:30,040
Speaker 1: the other members of his family. Yeah, and those are

423
00:23:30,119 --> 00:23:33,119
Speaker 1: kind of like extended they're not just his immediate family um,

424
00:23:33,280 --> 00:23:39,000
Speaker 1: but also like sibling nieces, etcetera. On June thirty five,

425
00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:43,199
Speaker 1: Friedrich had a severe stroke. He never recovered fully, and

426
00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:45,960
Speaker 1: while he still painted, his abilities were pretty limited and

427
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:49,560
Speaker 1: he never worked in oil again. In eighteen thirty seven,

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00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:51,760
Speaker 1: there was a second stroke that left him with much

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Speaker 1: more paralysis. Casper David Fredrick died on May seven, forty.

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Speaker 1: Although he and his work were considered outmoded by the

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00:23:59,800 --> 00:24:02,320
Speaker 1: time he died, his work gained some new interest in

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00:24:02,359 --> 00:24:05,520
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. In nineteen o six, thirty two of

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00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:09,120
Speaker 1: his paintings were exhibited in Berlin, and that exhibit sparked

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00:24:09,160 --> 00:24:12,080
Speaker 1: new interest in his work. Some of that interest in

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00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:15,720
Speaker 1: his work was less than flattering, though The Nazi Party

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00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:18,479
Speaker 1: was very fond of Friedrich's art, believing that the themes

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00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:21,800
Speaker 1: in his work aligned with the party ideology as Nazi

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00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:25,280
Speaker 1: blut and Bowden blood and soil propaganda often depicted a

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00:24:25,359 --> 00:24:30,000
Speaker 1: rural life uh the natural landscapes of Germany. Freedric's nature

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00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:34,199
Speaker 1: landscapes were really easy to appropriate as reverent representations of

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Speaker 1: German Land. After World War Two, it took decades for

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00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 1: Friedrich's work to once again attain its own identity separate

443
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:45,760
Speaker 1: from the Nazis, but his work, which was simultaneously dramatic

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00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:49,679
Speaker 1: and minimal, has also continued to influence visual artists in

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00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:53,240
Speaker 1: the modern movement, as well as creators and other disciplines.

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00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:57,400
Speaker 1: Irish playwrights Samuel Beckett was really taken with Friedrich's art,

447
00:24:57,480 --> 00:24:59,760
Speaker 1: and he's first saw it when traveling through Germany and

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00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:04,000
Speaker 1: then I team thirties. Fredrick's painting two Men contemplating the

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00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:07,200
Speaker 1: Moon was a direct influence on the development of Beckett's

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00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:10,879
Speaker 1: most famous play, Waiting for gott Oh. Friedrick's themes of

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00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:13,880
Speaker 1: nature as awesome in the literal sense, not the casual

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00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:17,679
Speaker 1: usage meaning still resonate. He was able to turn his

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00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:20,520
Speaker 1: talent to rendering landscapes in ways that were new and

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00:25:20,640 --> 00:25:23,679
Speaker 1: unsettling for his time, but also left viewers with a

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00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:27,200
Speaker 1: sense of nature being something deeply spiritual. We're going to

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Speaker 1: close out with two quotes. One of them is about

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Speaker 1: Friedrick and one is by him. The first is written

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00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 1: by art historian William Vaughn, who wrote in his biography

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00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:40,119
Speaker 1: of Friedrich, quote Friedrich is essentially an observer who works

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00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:43,960
Speaker 1: from direct experience towards the intimation of an idea that

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00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:47,920
Speaker 1: is never fully expressed, never reaches the point of dogma

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00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:51,240
Speaker 1: or theory. And the second, as Tracy mentioned, is a

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00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:54,159
Speaker 1: quote from the artist himself, and it carries pretty clearly

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00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:59,199
Speaker 1: his entire ethos regarding painting landscapes with meaning an allegory quote,

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00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:01,960
Speaker 1: the art is should paint not only what he sees

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00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:06,240
Speaker 1: before him, but also what he sees within him. If, however,

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00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:09,159
Speaker 1: he sees nothing within him, then he should also refrain

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00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:12,639
Speaker 1: from painting that which he sees before him. Otherwise his

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00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:15,480
Speaker 1: pictures will be like those folding screens behind which one

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00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:19,840
Speaker 1: expects to find only the sick or the dead. I

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00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:24,879
Speaker 1: really like that quote, basically like, if your art doesn't

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00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:28,880
Speaker 1: have any feeling or emotion from you in it, dead art,

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00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:32,280
Speaker 1: it counts for nothing. Um. This is one of those

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00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:36,600
Speaker 1: artists who I did not recognize the name, as you've

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00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:39,359
Speaker 1: predicted Um at the beginning of the show that folks

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00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 1: might not be able to bring his name immediately to mind.

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00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 1: But as soon as I started looking for artwork. Um

478
00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:50,120
Speaker 1: as examples, I was like, oh, yeah, that guy. He,

479
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:52,320
Speaker 1: like I said, everybody has seen his work, whether they

480
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:56,359
Speaker 1: know it or not. Um, I really enjoy that. I

481
00:26:56,400 --> 00:26:58,639
Speaker 1: mean obviously, like I like gloomy stuff. So some of

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00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:01,359
Speaker 1: his gloomier paintings I was really into when I was

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00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:05,159
Speaker 1: a teenager. UM. But even as I've gotten older and

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00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:07,240
Speaker 1: you kind of see the bigger expanse of his work.

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00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:10,200
Speaker 1: Like I said, I love his his lighter paintings now

486
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 1: in a way that I did not appreciate when I

487
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 1: was younger. UM. So hopefully other people will find his

488
00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:17,560
Speaker 1: work and love it as well. Do you have some

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00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:20,600
Speaker 1: listener mail for us? I do I have some listener

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00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:23,280
Speaker 1: mail that's a little bit elderly. It's from summer of

491
00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:26,480
Speaker 1: last year. We're constantly sort of trying to pluck through

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00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 1: and make sure we're reviewing our our email and our

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00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:32,919
Speaker 1: physical mail, trying to get a good swath because we

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00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:35,440
Speaker 1: can't keep up with everybody's in terms of reading them

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00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:37,439
Speaker 1: on the air. But this would just made me chuckle.

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00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 1: And because we've been talking about kind of a gloomy

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00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:42,320
Speaker 1: assortment of images today, I thought it might be a

498
00:27:42,359 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 1: fun one. It's actually just a suggestion, but it kind

499
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:47,760
Speaker 1: of delighted me, so I thought I would read it.

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00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 1: This is from our listener Ashley, who writes, Dear Holly

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00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:52,879
Speaker 1: and Tracy, I absolutely love your show. Today I found

502
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 1: some interesting tidbits from of all places, the Pioneer Woman

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00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:59,680
Speaker 1: magazine about the history of various lawn games. The magazine

504
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:02,119
Speaker 1: just had snippets, and so I started researching more and

505
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 1: discovered there is way more to them than I ever

506
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 1: would have guessed, such as boci ball dates back to

507
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:08,920
Speaker 1: the Egyptians and that croquet was one of the first

508
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:13,720
Speaker 1: Olympic events competed in by a woman in the Paris Games. Recently,

509
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:15,480
Speaker 1: I've been catching up on episodes and hit a whole

510
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 1: bunch of heavy topics all at once and thought maybe

511
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:20,560
Speaker 1: a lighthearted topic might be neat. Anyways, keep up the

512
00:28:20,600 --> 00:28:23,040
Speaker 1: amazing work. You two are great. I agree we're about

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00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 1: do for a fun gaming episode, so I'm putting it

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00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 1: on the list. I can't promise when it will happen, um,

515
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: but long game sound really it's fun to me as well. Uh.

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00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:33,239
Speaker 1: And when this one first came in, I thought, oh,

517
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 1: that does sound fun, and then I filed it and

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00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 1: here we are in February January wherever we are in

519
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 1: the winter talking about dark artists. If you would like

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00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:46,959
Speaker 1: to write to us, you can do so at History

521
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 1: Podcast at i heeart radio dot com. You can also

522
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: find us on social media as Missed in History. If

523
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:54,960
Speaker 1: you would like to subscribe to the podcast, we would

524
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 1: like you to as well, you could do that on

525
00:28:56,960 --> 00:29:00,200
Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, at Apple podcasts, or wherever is

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00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:07,360
Speaker 1: you listen. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a

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00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more

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00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 1: podcasts for my heart Radio, visit i heart radio app,

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00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 1: H