Cairn in Snow

Cairn in Snow
German: Hünengrab im Schnee
Artist Caspar David Friedrich
Year 1807 (1807)
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 62 cm × 80 cm (24 in × 31 in)
Location Galerie Neue Meister, Dresden

Cairn in Snow (German: Hünengrab im Schnee) is a landscape painting by Caspar David Friedrich. It was created in 1807. The painting is a Romantic allegorical landscape, showing what appears to be a Neolithic burial site among three oaks, near the town Gützkow in Germany. The painter depicts barren trees in the snow, giving the work a haunted, spectral air. With its contemplative melancholy mood, the painting transmits a Romantic view of nature.

Trees and forests were seen as symbols of life endurance, longevity, and immortality. Sacred groves, often a group of trees in ancient times, were associated with secrecy and initiation rites, and they were regarded as untouchable.[1][2] The main trees depicted in this painting by Friedrich appear to have had most of their old branches chopped off.

Today the painting is in the Galerie Neue Meister in Dresden. Originally, it was owned by the Greifswald University professor Karl Schildener. The painting is described in 1828 in the Greifswald academical journal (II, 2, pp. 40–41).[3][4] Friedrich is noted for his landscapes depicting features silhouetted against the sky, morning mists, or Gothic ruins. This work is one of his earliest oil paintings.

References

  1. ↑ "Forest and tree symbolism in folklore". www.fao.org. Retrieved October 2014. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
  2. ↑ "World tree". global.britannica.com. Retrieved October 2014. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
  3. ↑ "Hünengrab im Schnee", Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden.
  4. ↑ Chris Noir, "Caspar David Friedrich", Time Does Not Rest, 29 April 2013.

Further reading

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