Artist of the Week : I'm in the Mood for Caspar David Friedrich

As spring approaches here in Missouri, my better half and I get the urge to frequently travel around the backwoods roads in search of wildlife, new scenery, old buildings, aliens, and new valleys to explore.  South of here, the landscape is rugged and marked with crags, bald hills, and other typical Ozarky type minutiae that always reminds me (to some degree) of Friedrich's work.

Friedrich was a German painter active back in the early 19th century and although his paintings certainly can be evaluated and analyzed via a critical eye with regard to pantheism, the divine element within nature, man's place and struggle with nature, blah, blah, blah, I am going to post them simply with regard to a purely subliminal consideration of their intrinsic beauty.  This post shall be a tribute to the visceral response--"It's pretty!"--which normally sets me on edge for reasons that nobody cares to hear (trust me, I've tried to tell plenty of people). 

"Genießen," in the words of the Germans, although I'm not sure which ones exactly,

The Wanderer Above the Mists

The Abbey in the Oakwood

Evening

The Lone Tree

Largeness

Landscape with Oak Trees and a Hunter

Two Men Contemplating the Moon

Monk on the Seashore

All of these images were obtained from http://www.caspardavidfriedrich.org/ on March 28, 2010.  There are plenty more at this great site if you are interested to see more of Friedrich's work.