Caspar David Friedrich Quotes

• The painter should paint not only what he has in front of him, but also what he sees inside himself. If he sees nothing within, then he should stop painting what is in front of him.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Perception, Painting, Should

  Charles Sala, Caspar David Friedrich (1994). “Caspar David Friedrich and Romantic Painting”, Vilo International

  78 Copy quote

• I must stay alone and know that I am alone to contemplate and feel nature in full; I have to surrender myself to what encircles me, I have to merge with my clouds and rocks in order to be what I am.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Clouds, Rocks, Order

  "Authenticity and Fiction in the Russian Literary Journey, 1790-1840". Book by Andreas Schönle, p. 108, 2000.

  62 Copy quote

• Every true work of art must express a distinct feeling.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Art, Feelings, Very True

  Quoted in William Vaughn Romantic Art (1978).

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• You call me a misanthrope because I avoid society. You err; I love society. Yet in order not to hate people, I must avoid their company.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Hate, Order, People

  "Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape". Book by Joseph Koerner, 1990.

  102 Copy quote

• All authentic art is conceived at a sacred moment and nourished in a blessed hour; an inner impulse creates it, often without the artist being aware of it.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Art, Blessed, Sacred

  "Culture: Caspar D. Friedrich and the Wasteland", by Gjermund E. Jansen in "Bits of News", March 3, 2005.

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• Close your bodily eye, that you may see your picture first with the eye of the spirit. Then bring to light what you have seen in the darkness, that its effect may work back, from without to within.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Eye, Light, Darkness Within

  "The Romantic Imagination: Literature and Art in England and Germany". Book by Fredrick Berwick, 1996.

  58 Copy quote

• The eye and fantasy feel more attracted by nebulous distance than by that which is close and distinct in front of us.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Distance, Eye, Fantasy

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• The pure, frank sentiments we hold in our hearts are the only truthful sources of art.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Art, Inspiration, Truthful

  "Culture: Caspar D. Friedrich and the Wasteland" by Gjermund E. Jansen in Bits of News, March 3, 2005.

  41 Copy quote

• When a scene is shrouded in mist, it seems greater, nobler, and heightens the viewers' imaginative powers, increasing expectation -
  like a veiled girl. Generally the eye and the imagination are more readily drawn by nebulous distance than by what is perfectly plain for all to see

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Girl, Distance, Eye

  44 Copy quote

• A painting which does not take its inspiration from the heart is nothing more than futile juggling.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Art, Inspiration, Doe

  "Culture: Caspar D. Friedrich and the Wasteland" by Gjermund E. Jansen in Bits of News, March 3, 2005.

  37 Copy quote

• I must stay alone and know that I am alone to contemplate and feel nature in full.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Stay Strong, Order, Stay Positive

  "Authenticity and Fiction in the Russian Literary Journey, 1790-1840". Book by Andreas Schönle, p. 108, 2000.

  32 Copy quote

• The divine is everywhere, even in a grain of sand; there I represented it in the reeds.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Reeds, Sand, Divine

  "Absent Presences in Liminal Places: Murnau's Nosferatu and the Otherworld of Stoker's Dracula" by Saviour Catania in Literature Film Quarterly, 2004.

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• I am not so weak as to submit to the demands of the age when they go against my convictions. I spin a cocoon around myself; let others do the same. I shall leave it to time to show what will come of it: a brilliant butterfly or maggot.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Butterfly, Age, Cocoons

  36 Copy quote

• The feelings of another person should never be imposed upon us as a law.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Law, Feelings, Authority

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• God is everywhere, in the smallest grain of sand.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Sand, Grains Of Sand, Grain

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• The artist should paint not only what he sees before him, but also what he sees within him. If, however, he sees nothing within him, then he should also refrain from painting that which he sees before him. Otherwise, his pictures will be like those folding screens behind which one expects to find only the sick or the dead.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Artist, Sick, Painting

  25 Copy quote

• Just as the pious man prays without speaking a word and the Almighty hearkens unto him, so the artist with true feelings paints and the sensitive man understands and recognizes it.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Artist, Men, Sensitive Man

  Quoted in S Hinz Caspar David Friedrich in Briefen und Bekenntnissen (1968).

  24 Copy quote

• What the newer landscape artists see in a circle of a hundred degrees in Nature they press together unmercifully into an angle of vision of only forty-five degrees. And furthermore, what is in Nature separated by large spaces, is compressed into a cramped space and overfills and oversatiates the eye, creating an unfavorable and disquieting effect on the viewer.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Eye, Artist, Circles

  "Caspar David Friedrich's Der Watzmann: German Romantic Landscape Painting and Historical Geology". Timothy Mitchell, "The Art Bulletin", Volume 66, No. 3 (pp. 452-464), September 1984.

  13 Copy quote

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