Sunburst in the Riesengebirge

Sunburst in the Riesengebirge, painted around 1835 and now in the Saint Louis Art Museum, depicts rays of sunlight breaking through clouds over the Silesian mountain range. The dramatic atmospheric effect — light piercing darkness — was one of Friedrich's most powerful metaphors for divine revelation in nature. This late work, created in the year of his stroke, demonstrates his maintained mastery of atmospheric effects even as his physical capacity was declining. The painting's acquisition by an American museum reflects the twentieth-century international recognition of Friedrich as one of the most important landscape painters in Western art history.

Radiating beams of light burst through a break in the clouds, illuminating the mountain landscape below. Friedrich's precise rendering of atmospheric optics—the visible light rays, the illuminated mist—demonstrates his scientific observation of natural phenomena.