12 thoughts on “Caspar David Friedrich, The Abbey in the Oakwood (1809-1810)”
This painting by Casper David Friedrich depicts an eerie graveyard filled with tombstones and crosses. It is clear that the artist wants to give off the feelings of dark, gloomy and dismal by the color choice of grays, browns and blacks. These colors all signify darkness, sadness and death. Additionally, the way the artist has blended the colors gives an almost misty or foggy look. The name of the piece is The Abbey in the Oakwood, with an abbey being a building or set of buildings that monks or nuns would live and congregate in. This painted was painted in 1810, which is right around the ending of the Enlightenment period. This leads me to hypothesize that this painting reflects some of the results of the Enlightenment period. Specifically the fact that during this time people were questioning higher authorities and things of uncertainty such as the church, God and religion in general. The broken and tattered abbey signifies the deterioration and loss of followers for the church. People began questioning the church as well as religious beliefs, which tainted the churches credibility. The tombstones show death as well as lack of faith and hope in people’s lives. All the twisted and mangled trees are surrounding the abbey so horrid and bare. The trees are completely bare which means the leaves must have fell off and blown away, never to be seen again. I believe this signifies the loss of followers to the church during this period. People started losing faith in the church and shying away from its beliefs.
I treaded behind my brothers, through the snow, as we carried a dear friend of ours to his grave. It was getting dark and cold, but the setting sun was still bright enough to illuminate what was left of the great abbey. I looked up at the towering structure, now in ruins; there was no roof or any other walls but the one. The window had no glass in its frame and doors were non-existent, yet a cross stood strongly and seemingly untouched in its passageway. “Maybe a symbol of God?” I wondered. As everything else seems to fall apart or change or leave, there is always but one constant: the almighty God, watching and judging us from somewhere above. Surrounding the abbey stood large oak trees, bare, as it was the winter season. They have been there for many years before the abbey was even built and so I wondered what it all is that they have seen throughout their lifetime. “Many demises and many tears,” I answered myself quickly. These trees live a long and simple life, but one just as sad; for they witness people come and go, crying for their loved ones: for their brothers and their sisters, their friends and their parents, their husbands and their wives. They see the unfortunate souls of the dead depart from their bodies. …Or, perhaps they are happy… watching the souls rising to heaven and uniting with God? …That is… if there is such a thing as a God… For all I see up there is a crescent moon…
Life is nonexistent. The graveyard is dark with a black smog sitting below the bright glow of the heavens. The trees are broken and as dead as the bodies who reside 6 feet deep. Even the wall, that possibly was once full of life and has seen many faces, has lost its building and stands alone in the midst of death. The part of the wall and trees that stand above the dark seem to be reaching for the life within the light, wanting to one day be full of life again. All the things in the photo stand alone with death for its company, which is no company to have at all. However, one positive theme can be pulled from it all, there is always light above the darkness. The parts of the tree and the wall that are in the light seem to have more defined details. There are more branches and the walls edges are more prominent. Below the light, nothing can really be seen. The trunks of the trees are black and there are little to no branches. Even the grave tombs are dismembered as if no one has ever visited the grave, not even a groundskeeper. There is no depth in the darkness, but the light gives a more promising feeling. Looking at just the bottom half of the photo, one may feel sad, lonely, and/or depressed, but as one focuses on the upper half it gives off a lighter mood. As if to tell one that though things may seem horrible now there is always a silver lining.
Complete silence surrounds the Abbey. No wind, no birds, no life. The trees are bare but there is no layer of leaves covering the ground. These trees are dead; as dead as those humans in the ground who surround them. Those in the ground have been placed there as a religious tradition in hopes that God will welcome them to the afterlife. During these times the biggest fear was being abandoned and rejected by God which explains why monks gathered in abbeys to worship. Ironically, this abbey has been abandoned. Those in the ground whose hopes it was to never be abandoned by God were then abandoned by other humans. As enlightenment thinking grew during this time, people became more skeptical of God thus decreasing the number of abbeys and monasteries present. For thousands of years, groups of people have concretely believed that following life on earth, they will be welcomed into heaven. It was not “I think we are going to heaven.” It was “We go to heaven after we die.” It was just a commonly known “fact.” As this “fact” deteriorated in the minds of humans, there was no longer any certainty. Just like these people and the abbey, the idea of heaven was being abandoned. Now, those people buried in the ground do not rest in peace, but, rather, rest in silence.
Casper David Friedrich’s painting embodies what many of us consider to be the essence of despair. The entire painting’s color pallet can be encapsulated by brown, black, and the shades in between. Considering the lack of vibrancy, it’s safe to assume that Friedrich was trying to convey a gloomy message. What’s pictured is the remains of what seems to be a once eloquent church, as evidenced by the grandiose stained glass framework. Surrounding the remains on all sides are these overshadowing trees devoid of any signs of life, and shaped in an intimidating manner which forebodes those who may approach the area from a distance. Scattered throughout and around the forest are tombstones and crosses, directly symbolizing death. Additionally although not as prominent are the presence of people draped in dark clothing standing by the entrance of the ruined church. All in all this painting gives off a overall negative vibe that is reinforced heavily by the color scheme as well as the imagery.
The sun is rising above the dark, gloomy, and deserted remains of a town. Many may remember it was once as a lively town filled with joy and laughter. The townspeople would gather around the Abbey everyday to chatter. Parents would watch as their kids play soccer around the Abbey. However, one day everything changed. A sudden war left the town destroyed. Everyone who was lucky enough to be able flea fled, while those who remained tragically lost their lives. All that’s left of the previously festive town is a wall of the once grandiose and lavish building. The Abbey once stood high and tall built with beautiful stained glass windows and perfectly carved sculptures embedded into the walls. Large, ornate paintings capturing the history of the town once hung on the walls that used to stand. Now, the deserted town is left with just one of the walls of the church refusing to fall. Hovering over it are barren trees, lifeless, just like the rest of the town and defenseless against the winds. The snow from last night lay on top of everything, covering the graves spread apart around the area. A few people are making their way to the remains of the building. They reminisce to they days before the war as they wander around the forsaken town. Although everything seems dull and lifeless, the rising sunlight above the town seem to symbolize hope and a new beginning for this town. It is just waiting for the right moment.
The Abbey in the Oakwood depicts a gloomy and abandoned graveyard surrounding an abandoned abbey in the midst of a dark forest. The colors used as well as the disheveled graveyard surrounding the abbey give off themes of melancholy, death, and emptiness. This painting can represent the aftermath of the Enlightenment period; how the church had lost its power and following due to the rising popularity of science and the constant questioning of religious authority. The abbey is empty and destroyed; what was once filled with its most devoted followers is now desolate and barely able to stand on its own. This is a metaphor for how the ideas of enlightenment had affected religion and caused people to lose their faith and turn away from traditional ideas. Because of the enlightenment period, people no longer looked toward the church for guidance but rather science and the world around them. Friedrich’s painting embodies what life was like after such an age of critical thinking and can also symbolize the death of religion.
The painting The Abbey in the Oakwood by Casper David Freidrich gives off a eerie and mysterious view of what looks like a very old grave yard. One that I would definitely not want to be alone at. It looks like this would be an oil painting by the way the colors all blend together helping give off that certain color of doom. Everything in the painting is dead, the trees, the people, there are absolutely no signs of life around. The words that come to mind when I look at this are emptiness, sadness, death, loneliness… the list goes on and on, all the words are depressing. It looks the ways trees look in the winter, dead and cold. Everything is bare and sad, maybe the artist experienced a lot of loneliness or death within his life to lead him to paint something of this nature. The only “happiness” I can find within the photo are the crosses, the lightness of what seems to be the early morning sky and those people receiving a proper burial although it seems no one has visited their graves in years. The crosses can be seen as a symbol of faith that these people are now at peace whether they were in pain or not. That all those people are now in heaven where everyone hopes one day to make it.
In a far away village where people never changed and where authority figures always got their ways, a certain something began to change. The people were used to keeping quiet and doing what they were told; never daring to cross the line, the people were always careful to never steer off course. However, in the midst of all of this, a new era was on the rise, and with it came great change. This era is known as the Enlightenment period, where people began to change the way in which they perceived life around them, starting from the way in which people viewed one another to the way in which they viewed God and the Earth. This village is one that is near a cemetery; where people have become used to listening to the mourning cries of those who come to visit their dead loved ones. While life here seems to be remaining the same the rest of the world is going forward; however, in this standstill a subtle change begins to emerge, and with that change comes the hope for better-ness. As the people begin to have hope, the rising sun finds its way into the dreariness of this town and begins to shed its light on the people. Even though it hasn’t gotten there fully, the change for greatness is rapidly consuming the people of the village. With little time to spare, people are getting ready for the light to shine on them, and for them to be consumed by the light, just as they once were by the darkness.
Caspar David Friedrich’s painting, “Abbey in the Oak Forest”, depicts a very dark, solemn atmosphere similar to a graveyard. In the painting, there is no sign of life but death. Even the trees show no sign of life;They are crooked and boring. Without the sun, the sky is dull as it gives a feeling of hopelessness. The dark fog adds to the mysteriousness and sadness of the painting. Overall, there is absolutely no joy or even peace in the painting. There is only despair and loneliness. Friedrich must have been expressing his grief or depression through this painting. In the painting, there is also an abbey or a church. Because of the depressing state in the picture, the abbey seems deserted. The cross on the bottom left side of the painting is crooked. This seems to display a sense of grief for a death of a loved one. The person experiencing this grief has lost hope.
In the painting “The Abbey In The Oakwood” by Casper David Friedrich, the sky is gray and dark, it is hard to tell the time in the painting. I think David did this part intentionally as it gives viewers room to imagine. There is an abbey located in the middle of the painting. The abbey gave me a sense that it has been there for a long long time such that other parts of it had been destroyed by either time or human. It looks like it is still standing because of the trees on both side supporting it. On the side of the abbey, there were many trees. The trees were looking dead, the branches of the tree were curved, it made the tree looked like a monster. I think it is winter in the painting, because trees usually look dead in winter and above ground, there are snows. The painting is brown and dark, when I first looked at the painting, my first reaction was there were some monks dressed in black robes and they were walking toward the abbey. However, when I looked closer to the painting, those monks were all looked like askew graves standing on the road. It was hard to figure out which one is a monk and which one is a grave. It makes me feel this is a place for the deads. The atmosphere of the painting is like describing the very dark side of a person. But if you look carefully on the monks, you can see some monks are holding a coffin, one of monks is holding a light. Are the monks holding a funeral in the abbey? Are they helping the person in the funeral moves towards the eternal life?
This painting can be evaluated in two different views. One is the dark is coming and it is about to erode the last light. Another one is the light is coming to drive the darkness.
The colors in this painting are the important. The color light yellow connects to the brown. These kinds of color always make people to think about dust, old stuff, and sadness. Although it is dusky, however, the part of sky is very bright and the ground (or/and the mountain behind) is dark, which makes a big contrast within this painting. The oak trees look like the evil figures. The painting looks so eerier. There is a cross stand in the ground, maybe here is the graveyard. There is a run-down abbey; few people are going through it. The abbey looks like only remain the front side wall of the whole building, and looks like it will be crushed done by the slight wind.
For the First view, I think the painter wants to express his sorrow about the world or the thing, so he made this painting so dusky. Peoples in the painting are all wearing dark clothes, which increases the view of sadness on the painting. Especially, when we describe there is darkness comes from the upper left, and seems it is going to cover the whole sky with its brown body. The bad and evil are trying to destroy people and the earth.
If we think backward, the light is coming to drive the darkness; the meaning of this painting will be changed. After a tornado, the place was destroyed and many people died, the rest people were sad. The tornado crushed the abbey and brought all the leaves from the oak trees. People believed the abbey can lead them to rebuild their home. And also people in the painting are walking from the darkness (down left side) reach toward to the lightness (up right side). In this way, the painter maybe wants to show the hope of life.
This painting by Casper David Friedrich depicts an eerie graveyard filled with tombstones and crosses. It is clear that the artist wants to give off the feelings of dark, gloomy and dismal by the color choice of grays, browns and blacks. These colors all signify darkness, sadness and death. Additionally, the way the artist has blended the colors gives an almost misty or foggy look. The name of the piece is The Abbey in the Oakwood, with an abbey being a building or set of buildings that monks or nuns would live and congregate in. This painted was painted in 1810, which is right around the ending of the Enlightenment period. This leads me to hypothesize that this painting reflects some of the results of the Enlightenment period. Specifically the fact that during this time people were questioning higher authorities and things of uncertainty such as the church, God and religion in general. The broken and tattered abbey signifies the deterioration and loss of followers for the church. People began questioning the church as well as religious beliefs, which tainted the churches credibility. The tombstones show death as well as lack of faith and hope in people’s lives. All the twisted and mangled trees are surrounding the abbey so horrid and bare. The trees are completely bare which means the leaves must have fell off and blown away, never to be seen again. I believe this signifies the loss of followers to the church during this period. People started losing faith in the church and shying away from its beliefs.
I treaded behind my brothers, through the snow, as we carried a dear friend of ours to his grave. It was getting dark and cold, but the setting sun was still bright enough to illuminate what was left of the great abbey. I looked up at the towering structure, now in ruins; there was no roof or any other walls but the one. The window had no glass in its frame and doors were non-existent, yet a cross stood strongly and seemingly untouched in its passageway. “Maybe a symbol of God?” I wondered. As everything else seems to fall apart or change or leave, there is always but one constant: the almighty God, watching and judging us from somewhere above. Surrounding the abbey stood large oak trees, bare, as it was the winter season. They have been there for many years before the abbey was even built and so I wondered what it all is that they have seen throughout their lifetime. “Many demises and many tears,” I answered myself quickly. These trees live a long and simple life, but one just as sad; for they witness people come and go, crying for their loved ones: for their brothers and their sisters, their friends and their parents, their husbands and their wives. They see the unfortunate souls of the dead depart from their bodies. …Or, perhaps they are happy… watching the souls rising to heaven and uniting with God? …That is… if there is such a thing as a God… For all I see up there is a crescent moon…
Life is nonexistent. The graveyard is dark with a black smog sitting below the bright glow of the heavens. The trees are broken and as dead as the bodies who reside 6 feet deep. Even the wall, that possibly was once full of life and has seen many faces, has lost its building and stands alone in the midst of death. The part of the wall and trees that stand above the dark seem to be reaching for the life within the light, wanting to one day be full of life again. All the things in the photo stand alone with death for its company, which is no company to have at all. However, one positive theme can be pulled from it all, there is always light above the darkness. The parts of the tree and the wall that are in the light seem to have more defined details. There are more branches and the walls edges are more prominent. Below the light, nothing can really be seen. The trunks of the trees are black and there are little to no branches. Even the grave tombs are dismembered as if no one has ever visited the grave, not even a groundskeeper. There is no depth in the darkness, but the light gives a more promising feeling. Looking at just the bottom half of the photo, one may feel sad, lonely, and/or depressed, but as one focuses on the upper half it gives off a lighter mood. As if to tell one that though things may seem horrible now there is always a silver lining.
Complete silence surrounds the Abbey. No wind, no birds, no life. The trees are bare but there is no layer of leaves covering the ground. These trees are dead; as dead as those humans in the ground who surround them. Those in the ground have been placed there as a religious tradition in hopes that God will welcome them to the afterlife. During these times the biggest fear was being abandoned and rejected by God which explains why monks gathered in abbeys to worship. Ironically, this abbey has been abandoned. Those in the ground whose hopes it was to never be abandoned by God were then abandoned by other humans. As enlightenment thinking grew during this time, people became more skeptical of God thus decreasing the number of abbeys and monasteries present. For thousands of years, groups of people have concretely believed that following life on earth, they will be welcomed into heaven. It was not “I think we are going to heaven.” It was “We go to heaven after we die.” It was just a commonly known “fact.” As this “fact” deteriorated in the minds of humans, there was no longer any certainty. Just like these people and the abbey, the idea of heaven was being abandoned. Now, those people buried in the ground do not rest in peace, but, rather, rest in silence.
Casper David Friedrich’s painting embodies what many of us consider to be the essence of despair. The entire painting’s color pallet can be encapsulated by brown, black, and the shades in between. Considering the lack of vibrancy, it’s safe to assume that Friedrich was trying to convey a gloomy message. What’s pictured is the remains of what seems to be a once eloquent church, as evidenced by the grandiose stained glass framework. Surrounding the remains on all sides are these overshadowing trees devoid of any signs of life, and shaped in an intimidating manner which forebodes those who may approach the area from a distance. Scattered throughout and around the forest are tombstones and crosses, directly symbolizing death. Additionally although not as prominent are the presence of people draped in dark clothing standing by the entrance of the ruined church. All in all this painting gives off a overall negative vibe that is reinforced heavily by the color scheme as well as the imagery.
The sun is rising above the dark, gloomy, and deserted remains of a town. Many may remember it was once as a lively town filled with joy and laughter. The townspeople would gather around the Abbey everyday to chatter. Parents would watch as their kids play soccer around the Abbey. However, one day everything changed. A sudden war left the town destroyed. Everyone who was lucky enough to be able flea fled, while those who remained tragically lost their lives. All that’s left of the previously festive town is a wall of the once grandiose and lavish building. The Abbey once stood high and tall built with beautiful stained glass windows and perfectly carved sculptures embedded into the walls. Large, ornate paintings capturing the history of the town once hung on the walls that used to stand. Now, the deserted town is left with just one of the walls of the church refusing to fall. Hovering over it are barren trees, lifeless, just like the rest of the town and defenseless against the winds. The snow from last night lay on top of everything, covering the graves spread apart around the area. A few people are making their way to the remains of the building. They reminisce to they days before the war as they wander around the forsaken town. Although everything seems dull and lifeless, the rising sunlight above the town seem to symbolize hope and a new beginning for this town. It is just waiting for the right moment.
The Abbey in the Oakwood depicts a gloomy and abandoned graveyard surrounding an abandoned abbey in the midst of a dark forest. The colors used as well as the disheveled graveyard surrounding the abbey give off themes of melancholy, death, and emptiness. This painting can represent the aftermath of the Enlightenment period; how the church had lost its power and following due to the rising popularity of science and the constant questioning of religious authority. The abbey is empty and destroyed; what was once filled with its most devoted followers is now desolate and barely able to stand on its own. This is a metaphor for how the ideas of enlightenment had affected religion and caused people to lose their faith and turn away from traditional ideas. Because of the enlightenment period, people no longer looked toward the church for guidance but rather science and the world around them. Friedrich’s painting embodies what life was like after such an age of critical thinking and can also symbolize the death of religion.
The painting The Abbey in the Oakwood by Casper David Freidrich gives off a eerie and mysterious view of what looks like a very old grave yard. One that I would definitely not want to be alone at. It looks like this would be an oil painting by the way the colors all blend together helping give off that certain color of doom. Everything in the painting is dead, the trees, the people, there are absolutely no signs of life around. The words that come to mind when I look at this are emptiness, sadness, death, loneliness… the list goes on and on, all the words are depressing. It looks the ways trees look in the winter, dead and cold. Everything is bare and sad, maybe the artist experienced a lot of loneliness or death within his life to lead him to paint something of this nature. The only “happiness” I can find within the photo are the crosses, the lightness of what seems to be the early morning sky and those people receiving a proper burial although it seems no one has visited their graves in years. The crosses can be seen as a symbol of faith that these people are now at peace whether they were in pain or not. That all those people are now in heaven where everyone hopes one day to make it.
In a far away village where people never changed and where authority figures always got their ways, a certain something began to change. The people were used to keeping quiet and doing what they were told; never daring to cross the line, the people were always careful to never steer off course. However, in the midst of all of this, a new era was on the rise, and with it came great change. This era is known as the Enlightenment period, where people began to change the way in which they perceived life around them, starting from the way in which people viewed one another to the way in which they viewed God and the Earth. This village is one that is near a cemetery; where people have become used to listening to the mourning cries of those who come to visit their dead loved ones. While life here seems to be remaining the same the rest of the world is going forward; however, in this standstill a subtle change begins to emerge, and with that change comes the hope for better-ness. As the people begin to have hope, the rising sun finds its way into the dreariness of this town and begins to shed its light on the people. Even though it hasn’t gotten there fully, the change for greatness is rapidly consuming the people of the village. With little time to spare, people are getting ready for the light to shine on them, and for them to be consumed by the light, just as they once were by the darkness.
Caspar David Friedrich’s painting, “Abbey in the Oak Forest”, depicts a very dark, solemn atmosphere similar to a graveyard. In the painting, there is no sign of life but death. Even the trees show no sign of life;They are crooked and boring. Without the sun, the sky is dull as it gives a feeling of hopelessness. The dark fog adds to the mysteriousness and sadness of the painting. Overall, there is absolutely no joy or even peace in the painting. There is only despair and loneliness. Friedrich must have been expressing his grief or depression through this painting. In the painting, there is also an abbey or a church. Because of the depressing state in the picture, the abbey seems deserted. The cross on the bottom left side of the painting is crooked. This seems to display a sense of grief for a death of a loved one. The person experiencing this grief has lost hope.
In the painting “The Abbey In The Oakwood” by Casper David Friedrich, the sky is gray and dark, it is hard to tell the time in the painting. I think David did this part intentionally as it gives viewers room to imagine. There is an abbey located in the middle of the painting. The abbey gave me a sense that it has been there for a long long time such that other parts of it had been destroyed by either time or human. It looks like it is still standing because of the trees on both side supporting it. On the side of the abbey, there were many trees. The trees were looking dead, the branches of the tree were curved, it made the tree looked like a monster. I think it is winter in the painting, because trees usually look dead in winter and above ground, there are snows. The painting is brown and dark, when I first looked at the painting, my first reaction was there were some monks dressed in black robes and they were walking toward the abbey. However, when I looked closer to the painting, those monks were all looked like askew graves standing on the road. It was hard to figure out which one is a monk and which one is a grave. It makes me feel this is a place for the deads. The atmosphere of the painting is like describing the very dark side of a person. But if you look carefully on the monks, you can see some monks are holding a coffin, one of monks is holding a light. Are the monks holding a funeral in the abbey? Are they helping the person in the funeral moves towards the eternal life?
This painting can be evaluated in two different views. One is the dark is coming and it is about to erode the last light. Another one is the light is coming to drive the darkness.
The colors in this painting are the important. The color light yellow connects to the brown. These kinds of color always make people to think about dust, old stuff, and sadness. Although it is dusky, however, the part of sky is very bright and the ground (or/and the mountain behind) is dark, which makes a big contrast within this painting. The oak trees look like the evil figures. The painting looks so eerier. There is a cross stand in the ground, maybe here is the graveyard. There is a run-down abbey; few people are going through it. The abbey looks like only remain the front side wall of the whole building, and looks like it will be crushed done by the slight wind.
For the First view, I think the painter wants to express his sorrow about the world or the thing, so he made this painting so dusky. Peoples in the painting are all wearing dark clothes, which increases the view of sadness on the painting. Especially, when we describe there is darkness comes from the upper left, and seems it is going to cover the whole sky with its brown body. The bad and evil are trying to destroy people and the earth.
If we think backward, the light is coming to drive the darkness; the meaning of this painting will be changed. After a tornado, the place was destroyed and many people died, the rest people were sad. The tornado crushed the abbey and brought all the leaves from the oak trees. People believed the abbey can lead them to rebuild their home. And also people in the painting are walking from the darkness (down left side) reach toward to the lightness (up right side). In this way, the painter maybe wants to show the hope of life.