Paysage dans le massif des Géants

Friedrich's Riesengebirge (Giant Mountains, now the Krkonoše range on the Czech-Polish border) landscapes were among his most important mountain subjects, replacing the spiritualized Harz or Saxon mountain views of his earlier career with a more panoramic, geologically specific engagement with a major Central European range. He visited the Riesengebirge in 1810 and made numerous studies that fed into paintings through the following decade. In this canvas, the mountain mists and atmospheric gradients that characterize the range — which sits at the intersection of multiple air masses — are treated with scientific precision as well as Romantic feeling.

Friedrich builds the mountain landscape in receding planes of decreasing atmospheric density — the foreground in warm, earthy tones, the middle distance in cooler greens and greys, the peaks dissolving into a misty sky. His precise linear drawing underlies the soft atmospheric finish, maintaining geological accuracy within the Romantic atmospheric haze.