Caspar David Friedrich a man who loved trees
A short tale of a very long awaited survey show on Caspar David Friedrich. An exhibition who advertised "infinite landscapes" but ended up hosting more finite landscapes and sobering me up.
Some time ago, I went to the preview of the Caspar David Friedrich exhibition at the Alte Nationalgalerie, accompanied by some of the finest women working in art in Berlin. A friend of ours who worked on the exhibition handed us tickets for the preview and it felt like going to see Dua Lipa and being invited to the backstage party afterwards.
This excitement can only be shared by art historian nerds like myself and the ladies whom I was with: the PowerPuffs of the arts.
Sadly the drape didn't match the carpet and what felt like a really exclusive event ended up being extremely dry and sobering, mostly because drinks were not for free.
A flat Crémant 0,1cl cost 6.50€ (without Deposit). As snacks, there were bretzels (my son's favourite) and also a German all time classic when it comes to events. Why dry bread can elevate a cultural experience, one still has to explain to me. I do though like bretzels and therefore salute to this choice.
Back to what this piece started to be all about: The exhibition. This was a much anticipated one, as it was already hosted in Hamburg before traveling to Berlin with a totally different set of works and curatorial approach which became the topic of the evening: Hamburg vs Berlin. Tickets were sold out before the opening and it was the talk of the town in the spring.
It was also the first time in ages that I went to see not contemporary art, and I have to admit, I did struggle with the semantics of the opening / preview: The art was in the center, it was why everybody gathered and there was no time for networking and glancing over your interlocutor’s shoulder to see if that collector or curator is around. This was quite pleasant and refreshing, although off putting for an old gallerina like myself who didn’t really know if I was on duty or off duty, after all it was a preview.
If you have ever been to the Alte Nationalgalerie you will be already quite impressed by the building's architecture and its great collection of impressionist and modern art, you might have seen some Caspar David Friedrich there before, and you probably wished to see more (like myself), but unfortunately whatever you wished for, it is maybe better to keep the Caspar David Friedrichs to a minimum, as the show resulted in being quite monotonous.
First of all, good to know the man was so thorough when he studied trees and made millions of sketches of them (all on view by the way) before doing his paintings, but was this necessary to know and to see? It might have killed all the mystery his works conceal.
After seeing all the hits on the first floor, the second floor tried to catch up but it didn’t manage to meet the wow effect of the first, which had a Mona Lisa in the Louvre kind of vibe. After the 6th room of dried sketches of twigs and some minor paintings, I couldn't believe how one thought this might be interesting to see and I felt sorry for the guy who probably wouldn't have exposed all of this if he were still around.
I had to move quickly through the rooms, as I was getting more impatient and bored by the minute and the next thing I learned is that he only traveled from Dresden to the Ostsee and then to Berlin. His life view and the view of nature was therefore quite limited.
I somehow had held the view that Caspar David Friedrich was a man of the world. He surely managed to give this impression with his works and the nature depicted in it, but when you know that the sea he saw was only the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, you start to wonder where the genius is. What’s more, in a political world like ours, you start to ask yourself whether celebrating German nature and a German genius in a public museum is a good idea?
After some time in the show, I felt a sense of boredom overcoming me. I started to wander around the museum and ended up looking at impressionist paintings, enjoying the peace and quiet in those rooms, and whilst everybody was studying twigs, I was leaning into french landscapes, and realised that the myth about Caspar David Friedrich's legendary paintings would have been better concealed if this show had never happened. What was advertised ended being a quite thin stretched show on a subject matter: the infinite landscape that resulted rather finite and revealed a very closed off world view.
I felt disillusioned and wondered if a museum should just sample single works of great artists in the past, and leave the monographic exhibitions aside - because no contemporary artist would want to have all his works on view and not have a say in it.
The girls and I ended up getting some Thai food afterwards, maybe it wasn't the best show and it surely challenged my love for his art, but it was a great evening, where I learned how to look at art and to be at a preview off duty, with some good laughs and a delicious affordable Pad Thai served with a cold beer to quench the thirst of the salty bretzel.