Focus on this artwork and discuss the Background.
Friedrich was one of the preeminent artists of German Romanticism, a movement which emphasized subjectivity and spirituality over strict intellectualism and objectivity.  Friedrich's art often focused on the spirituality of nature through close attention to local scenery in landscape painting.Friedrich's contemporary Ludwig Tieck noted that Friedrich strived "to evoke a certain feeling, a definitive attitude with precise thoughts and concepts which merge with sadness and solemnity. Thus he tries to introduce allegory and symbolism in light and shadow, in Nature living and dead, in snow and water." Despite this allegorical conception of nature, however, Friedrich remained attentive to real moments of the natural world that he had experienced.Friedrich especially explored the awe-inspiring effect of natural landscape on the human viewer, examining how subjective experience affects perception. As he wrote, "The artist should paint not only what he sees before him, but also what he sees within him."
Ludwig Tieck German Romanticism landscape painting Romanticism