Caspar David Friedrich

No artist before Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) had so poignantly posed the question of man's place in nature and in the universe. A major player in 19th-century German Romantic painting, he discovered the "tragedy of the landscape", as the sculptor David d'Angers put it, and made an essential contribution to the once minor genre, which he revolutionised. While faithfully observing the empirical world, he gave it a religious aura, crossing the categories of space and time.

This monograph by the art historian Werner Hofmann (1928-2013), which includes a historical-philosophical essay and a meticulous analysis of the paintings, as well as documents, letters and writings by the painter, has become a reference.