“I have to stay alone in order to fully contemplate and feel nature.”- -Caspar David Friedrich
Wanderer Overlooking the Sea of Fog (1818) by Caspar David Friedrich- Collection of Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
2013年是德國歌劇作曲家華格納 (Richard Wagner, 1813-1883) 誕辰200週年，全球各大歌劇院都紛紛推出他的作品，並舉辦一連串的活動來紀念這位偉大的作曲家，漢堡歌劇院當然也不例外，三周內演出十齣華格納，我們躬逢其盛，衝著全本指環來到漢堡。
在白天等待演出的空擋，在漢堡隨處逛逛，甚是愜意。一天，來到Hamburger Kunsthalle，在沒有特別做功課的情況下，只好請美術館導覽員導覽。猶記得她二話不說，一股腦兒的帶到展示著14幅Caspar David Friedrich畫作的Room 120。老實說，當時並不認識Caspar David Friedrich，只能隱隱從畫中感覺一份孤寂，並沒有太深的悸動，反倒是導覽員臉上驕傲、篤定的解說神情，至今難忘。
The Arctic Sea (1823/24) by Caspar David Friedrich – Collection of Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
Caspar David Friedrich was a landscape painter of the 19th Century German Romantic movement, of which he is now considered the most important painter. A painter and draughtsman, Friedrich is best known for his later allegorical landscapes, which feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees, and Gothic ruins. His primary interest as an artist was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic and anti-classical work seeks to convey the spiritual experiences of life.
During the 1920s his work was appreciated by the Expressionists, and in the 1930s and 1940s, the Surrealists and Existentialists frequently drew on his work.
Paintings such as Wanderer Overlooking the Sea of Fog (1818) and The Arctic Sea (1823/24) represent the loneliness of the modern subject placed in a majestic landscape, as well as the failure of man in a hostile natural environment. In Friedrich’s oeuvre landscape is imbued with an existential meaning, it becomes a metaphor for human fate.
在弗里德里希的畫作裡，人物大多都是向著遠方，留給欣賞者的只有背影。
The solitary figure turned towards and in communion with the landscape, known as “Rückenfigur,” is one of the key ways German Romanticism differentiates itself from French and British Romanticism. Although internationally, Romanticism was occupied with the connection between man and nature, British painters tended to emphasize more nostalgic or bucolic landscapes, while the French painters often suggested man’s desire to conquer nature; the German approach depicts man’s attempt to understand nature and, by extension, the divine. This preference for an emotional connection between the viewer and the image replaced more literal or illustrative approaches, exemplified by Friedrich’s moody landscapes, which often thrust the viewer into the wilds of nature.
p.s. https://flashmoment.wordpress.com/2013/06/26/漢堡：hamburger-kunsthalle-20130528/
Flashmoment... III 