Friedrich Johann Overbeck 1789-1869
German The Cross in the Mountains 1812 Oil on canvas, 45 x 37 cm Museum Kunst Palast, Desseldorf Visions of Gothic architecture appear regularly in the artist's work from Winter Landscape with Church (1811, Dortmund), rising like a man-made enigma in a mysterious landscape scenario. An example is provided by The Cross in the Mountains, which can be dated fairly confidently to 1812, and which has long been viewed as a further development of the Tetschen Altar. The rough and rocky terrain of the foreground surrounds a spring, behind which, within an indeterminate space, rise a dark wall of fir trees and the gabled faeade of a Gothic church, reduced to a shadowy silhouette. A wayside calvary marks the border between foreground and back- ground. The logic of space and time seems to have been abandoned in this painting in favour of the unreality of a dream. Artist: FRIEDRICH, Caspar David Title: The Cross in the Mountains , painting Date: 1801-1850 German : landscape