3-050-304 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Greifswald in Moonlight, 1817. Additional Info: From a shoreline in the foreground, dotted with rocks and a series of fishing nets slung over upright stakes, the viewer’s gaze is led over a body of water to a moonlit city on the horizon. The full moon, which may be glimpsed through a layer of clouds, casts its reflected light on the objects in the foreground. We can also discern a rowboat approaching, and two skiffs lying atilt on the beach. The fishing nets act as a fence between the viewer and the city, which lies as a dreamscape on the horizon. The silhouette of the steeples reveals that the city is Greifswald, the artist’s birthplace, depicted in reverse. A sister painting in the possession of the Hamburg Kunsthalle depicts the city in daylight, though seen from a different angle and with correctly placed steeples. Despite the intricate details of his paintings, Caspar David Friedrich’s concern was thus not with depicting the scene realistically, but rather with conjuring up a certain mood, with the mediaeval city of Greifswald portrayed as an allegory of the yearning for Paradise.