Giant Mountains (View of the Small Sturmhaube from Warmbrunn)

1808–1809

The quarrel with Ramdohr: can a landscape stand on an altar?

The altarpiece is generally coldly received but becomes Friedrich’s first painting to win wide publicity: friends defend it publicly, while the critic Basilius von Ramdohr publishes a long article challenging the use of landscape in a religious context. In 1809 Friedrich answers with a programme comparing the rays of the evening sun to the light of the Holy Father — the only time he recorded a detailed interpretation of his own work.

1810

The Prussian Crown Prince buys two paintings

The Prussian Crown Prince buys two of Friedrich’s paintings, and in 1810 the artist is elected a member of the Berlin Academy.

1810

Meets Goethe

In 1810 Friedrich meets Goethe, who rightly appreciates his work and introduces him to the artistic circles of Germany.

21 January 1818

Marries Caroline Bommer

Friedrich marries Caroline Bommer, the twenty-five-year-old daughter of a Dresden dyer. According to Carl Gustav Carus the marriage did not significantly change his life or personality, yet the canvases of this period, including “Chalk Cliffs on Rügen”, painted after his honeymoon, show a new levity and a brighter palette, and human figures appear ever more often.

1820

Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich in his studio

At the behest of his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich visits Friedrich’s studio and returns to Saint Petersburg with a number of paintings, beginning a patronage that continues for many years.

1821

Meets Zhukovsky

In 1821 the Romantic poet Vasily Zhukovsky, an admirer of his work, visits Friedrich’s studio: he buys several paintings and keeps them all his life. The friendship that begins lasts until the artist’s death, and thanks to Zhukovsky Friedrich becomes popular in Russia — today Russian museums hold 17 of his paintings, 15 of them in the Hermitage.