L – LAST GENERATION

»Here is a man who has discovered the tragedy of the landscape,«* the French sculptor David d’Angers is said to have exclaimed when he visited Caspar David Friedrich’s studio in November 1834. This much-quoted phrase can be understood to mean that Friedrich’s landscapes evoked feelings such as fear and pity in his audience at the time. At the same time, it suggests that his paintings are not naturalistic reproductions of real landscapes, but artfully composed stagings. Today, the view of real landscapes often concerns very concrete tragedies – the dying ice of the Antarctic, destructive floods, or devastating forest fires. [...] In March 2023, two activists from Last Generation chose [the Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog] in the Hamburger Kunsthalle as the backdrop for a previously announced action. For this, they created a “realistic version” (L. G.) of the motif, in which this wanderer does not look out onto a misty mountain landscape of Saxon Switzerland, but onto a flaming inferno full of smoke – the “Wanderer in the Sea of Fire.”

An excerpt from Barbara Hess’ Caspar David Friedrich A–Z

*Cited in: Johannes Grave: Caspar David Friedrich. Munich et al., new edition 2022 (1st ed. 2012), p. 21.
Image credit: Caspar David Friedrich: Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, circa 1817, oil on canvas, 94.8 x 74.8 cm, SHK/ Hamburger Kunsthalle

Veröffentlicht am: 04.12.2023

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