CIRCA 111 review

Dublin: A German Dream at the National Gallery

Eduard Gaertner: Rear view of the houses on Schloßfreiheit, 1855, oil on canvas 73 x 101.5 cm; courtesy Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / National Gallery of Ireland

The writer E T A Hoffman once remarked that the essence of Romanticism is “infinite longing” - which sounds about as bad a fate to befall a man as any. Whilst the Age of Enlightenment, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had placed the emphasis on reason, Romanticism, emerging in reaction to what had gone before, favoured the imagination and feeling over logic. A German Dream, spanning the decades between 1800 and 1860, brings together a diversity of examples of German Romantic painting, from the piously religious imagery of the Nazarenes to the naturalistic, social commentary of Eduard Gaertner.

The main draw of the show is undoubtedly six works by Casper David Friedrich, whose moody, introspective landscapes capture the essence of German Romanticism. The best of Friedrich’s paintings combine a sense of the mystical with introspection and emotional intensity. His paintings were often a composite of several drawings, merged to create beautiful, virtual landscapes shrouded in mist or lit by moonlight. In The Riesen­gebirge, a lone figure sits on a rock contemplating an unfolding dusky landscape. Friedrich wrote of such scenes, “you are filled with silent devotion…your ego-self vanishes, you are nothing, God is all.”1 This is a painting that holds the gaze for a long time, its lack of central focus allowing the eye to wander endlessly amongst the folds of hills. It is a painting that is quietly but profoundly spiritual, much more so than the overtly religious imagery of Nazarene painter Friedrich Overbeck.

Karl Friedrich Schinkel: Gothic cathedral by the water, 1813 (copy by Ahlborn, 1823), oil on canvas, 100.5 x 127 cm; courtesy Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / National Gallery of Ireland

Architect and artist Karl Friedrich’s Schinkel’s paintings have a touch of the ludicrous about them. You can’t help but admire the gusto and imagination employed to create such pompous images. Gothic churches rise majestically from idealised cityscapes, rainbows and dramatic skies conspire to create a patriotic vision of a German utopia. In contrast, the later paintings of Eduard Gaertner take a more naturalistic and realist approach. Rear view of the houses on Schloßfreiheit captures the daily life of a German street. Full of closely observed details, Gaertner’s streets are populated with people walking their dogs and washing hanging from windows.

A thoroughly researched and well represented exhibition, A German Dream successfully explains this vibrant moment in German art history. There may be little here to match the genius of a Delacroix, Turner or Constable; nevertheless there is something unique about this collection, that sets the German Romantics apart from their French and English counterparts.

Jacqui McIntosh is a writer based in Dublin.

A German Dream; Masterpieces of Romanticism from the Nationalgalerie Berlin, National Gallery, Dublin, October 2004 - February 2005

1Casper David Friedrich quote take from Norbert Wolf, Freidrich, p. 57

Article reproduced from CIRCA 111, Spring 2005, p.87

Back to top of page

Do you have an opinion on this article? If so, please click here for our comments form.

No reader feedback so far - awaiting your input!