How does Two Men Contemplating the Moon elucidate its Image description and composition?
The paintings depicts a foreground scene of two people on a mountain path, which leads up from the centre bottom of the picture to the left. The man on the right is wearing a grey-green cape and the black beret of the altdeutsche Tracht and has a stick in his right hand. The man on the left is somewhat higher on the path and is leaning on his companion's shoulder; he is slimmer and is wearing a grey-green frock-coat, from which a white collar protrudes, and the black cap of an early Burschenschaft, its ribbon tied under his chin. They are both looking at the sickle of the waxing moon and the evening star. The Moon's night side is lit by earthshine. The scene is framed by an uprooted and moss-grown oak on their right, whose branches reach out to those of a spruce on their left; a boulder prevents the oak from falling, and there is another boulder on the left. In the background the landscape falls away; the tops of pine trees suggest a forest. In the immediate foreground are a tree stump and a large dry branch lying on the ground. The painting is almost monochromatic in shades of brown and grey, depicting nightfall.
The Dresden version is generally held to be the original. It exemplifies the golden section in the ratios between the central vertical axis, the perpendicular axis between it and the star, and the other axis running through the older man's eye. The German art historian Werner Busch, in line with older readings of the artist that insist on spiritual messages behind natural forms, sees the geometric layout as signalling the transcendent message of the two figures' experience of nature. As in many paintings by Friedrich, there is no middle ground; the foreground earthly scene is contrasted with the lighted sky and the abyss at the two men's feet made perceptible through this contrast, which exemplifies the antithetical relationship of rational, palpable earthly space and irrational and sublime infinity explored by the Romantic painters. The composition places these in a harmonious relationship. It has been described as a defining image of German Romanticism.The two men depicted may be Friedrich himself, on the right, and his pupil August Heinrich (1794–1822) on the left; Friedrich's friend Wilhelm Wegener gave this interpretation. Dahl agreed that the younger man was Heinrich but identified the older as Christian Wilhelm Bommer, the brother of Friedrich's wife Caroline; however, in 1819, Heinrich was 25 but Bommer only 18. In the variant with a man and a woman, Caroline Friedrich would then be the woman. Two art historians of the early twentieth century also proposed locations. Max Semrau located Friedrich and his friend Benjamin Friedrich Gotthelf Kummer on a cliff on the island of Rügen; Max Sauerlandt, the same two men in the Harz Mountains.
Werner Busch Romantic painters altdeutsche Tracht Rügen German Romanticism Harz golden section evening star Burschenschaft Romanticism earthshine Harz Mountains German Romantic