The Abbey In Oakwood

The Abbey In Oakwood by Caspar David Friedrich, renowned German Romantic landscape painter, was painted in 1810 – the period during which Friedrich’s work was most admired and appreciated. This painting, depicting a funeral procession in the ruins of an abbey, particularly contributed to his rise to prominence (Johnson).

In this painting, Friedrich’s use of contrast and incongruity to establish an ominous landscape exemplifies his unique style of depicting nature from an emotional perspective. First, the stark contrast of light and dark in the painting inspires a sense of apprehension. The bottom half of the painting is in shadows while the top half is in cold light, creating the appearance of a darkness descending upon the land. To add to that, distorted silhouettes of the bare oak trees stand out menacingly from the baleful, colorless sky, almost like dark lightning from heaven. The peculiar incongruity between features of the painting further contributes to its ominous atmosphere. Friedrich portrays a funeral procession at dusk while funerals normally end in the afternoon; the image of a burial at dusk with a few lone figures arouses a sense of unease. The notion of a funeral at a ruined abbey is also absurd and the queer site of burial casts the painting under an unsettling light.

The Abbey In Oakwood displays key ideas of the Romantic Era – a time when society’s discontentment with its political and social condition led to a pursuit of perceiving the world in a dream-like fashion through the emotions of the inner self (Losevsky). The painting illustrates a landscape that is altered by the feelings of the artist. The start of the nineteenth century was a time of French influence in German states and Friedrich conveys his lamentation for the contemporary state of Germany by portraying the resurrection of its ruined architecture in a dismal manner(Johnson).

This artwork relates to the theme of “Dark Dreams: Painful Memories” because it portrays a scene from a dream – or a reminiscence – of the painter. The peculiarity of a funeral at an abbey suggests that the painting does not depict a real event and the blurred edges of the painting may be implying that it is indeed a dream or hallucination. The dream, with its baleful atmosphere, is evidently a dark dream of painful memories. First, many believe the abbey depicted to be a resurrection of the ruined Cistercian Abbey of Eldene (The Abbey in the Oak Wood).  Additionally, since Friedrich had suffered many times from the death of a loved one, the funeral procession may be one of a family memberor friend. It is as if Friedrich recorded one of his nightmares about the sorrowful state of Germany, its past glory, and the deaths of his loved ones.