View from the Small Warmbrunn Sturmhaube 1811

Caspar David Friedrich painted this landscape, View from the Small Warmbrunn Sturmhaube, on canvas sometime in the early nineteenth century. Friedrich’s landscapes typically express themes of Romantic nationalism in the wake of the Napoleonic wars. Thinkers of the period saw the natural world as an antidote to the rationality of the Enlightenment and also as a symbol of the organic unity of the Volk, the German people. Here, a church spire rises from the valley floor, and a distant mountain looms over a seemingly endless vista of peaks and hills. The image speaks to the divine in nature and the potential for national unity. To better understand the painting, we can research not only German Romanticism but also the art market and the role of national identity. Through attention to social and institutional context, the artwork can speak to us in new ways.