Meadows near Greifswald

Meadows in Greifswald is one of Friedrich's most charming landscape paintings although it is not as famous as his career highlights, such as Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, The Monk by the Sea, The Abbey in the Oakwood.

The artist chose to paint this town with a large expanse of open grassland in the foreground. He could have tackled it from a different angle but found this position provided a particularly calming atmosphere. In the foreground is a group of horses who relax in this pasture land, and behind that we see several windmills which help to date this scene. The nearest foreground contains a row of bushes and trees, deliberately darkened in order to help the rest of the scene attract your eye. In terms of detail, it is perhaps one of his simplest compositions but this is actually a strength here, with a calming landscape scene where the small town appears beautiful and complentary to the countryside that surrounds it.

The artist was born in the town of Greifswald, Germany on the 5th of September, 1774. This region would always be precious to Friedrich and it would come to represent happiness and comfort to him, as he continued to travel around the country to support his career. A pleasing aspect to this painting is that the view today from the same spot is still relatively much the same, and fans of his work can go to enjoy the very same scene that inspired him so many years ago. Whilst new buildings and trees have been added since then, the three churches still exist and enough of the content from the original painting still exists. In fact, there is even a trail now which traces key spots from his career and this location has been added onto that.

The original painting from 1822 can now be found at the Kunsthalle, Hamburg. Friedrich's reputation is entirely international but his strongest following remains in his native Germany. Additionally, those interested in the European Romanticist movement will inevitably be exposed to Friedrich's career as he was one of the major players in this influential period of art. The venue also holds several other painting by this artist as well as other original paintings from related artists such as The Gallery of 19th-century art shows work by Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, Jean-Léon Gerome, Max Liebermann, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Auguste Rodin and Philipp Otto Runge, Francis Bacon, Max Beckmann, Max Ernst, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Edvard Munch, Emil Nolde and Pablo Picasso.