German romanticism is one of the most influential artistic movements in history. The romantic thought, the imaginary and the aesthetic of the romantics continues to fascinate people around the world to this day and has a strong influence on the artistic world and global visual culture.
Friedrich Schlegel, a historian, critic and literary theoretician said that romantic poetry is a progressive and universal poetry and the same can be said today about romantic painting. The images of romantic artists have given birth to many works and genres that took their inspiration from the romantic vision and from the visual culture that come from this space and time in the West. Among the most important romantic painters we can think of Heinrich Reinhold, Phillip Otto Runge and Alexander Kotzebue. These artists immersed themselves in their dream worlds, looking to affirm their identity and to break classicistic canons. Romantic painters expressed themselves through specific themes and motifs, such as fantastic worlds and mysteries and sought to break the barriers between the everyday world and the universes found only in their souls.
Caspar David Friedrich was a German painter and one of the most representative artists of the romantic era in the West. In 1805, he met J.W. Goethe, who helped him reach preeminence and to obtain a lot of recognition for his paintings. Thus, his works end up being bought by very important people in society, such the king of Prussia or the prince of Saxony. Five years after his first interaction with Goethe, in 1810, Friedrich is chosen as a member of the Berlin Academy in the same year, he leaves on a trip in the mountains with one of his friends, Georg Friedrich Kersting. The year of 1818 is a very important year for his career, as he paints not less than 28 works. After 1824, Friedrich is downgraded to the role of a secondary teacher, which makes him feel less connected to the artistic society. Despite his feeling uneasy, it is during this time that he creates some of his most impressive works, including „Two Men Contemplating the Moon”. After 1835, his health begins to deteriorate. In 1840, he dies in Dresden.
The value of his works is undeniable and represents an expression of romantic thought. One of his most important works is „Zwei Männer in Betrachtung des Mondes”, „Two Men Contamplating the Moon”.
The painting shows, as the title suggests, two men, seen from behind, contemplating a scenery featuring the moon at twilight.
The painting can be admired today at the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York, USA.
It seems that this painting was done three times, in different years, as a result of the multiple orders the painter received. The motif of contemplation in general and of the contemplation of the moon in particular is often to be found in Friedrich’s works. Moreover, representing people from behind, without revealing their faces is something that comes forward in many of his works as well. The scenery is imaginary, but inspired by real studies made by Friedrich.
Through time, the painting has been subjected to many interpretations and it is generally accepted that the painting is charged with symbols and messages that can offer many ways of decoding the image. Depending on the approach we wish to take, the painting can be interpreted in a variety of keys: a religious one, a political or a psychological one.
What is it that the green tree coming out of an infertile soil wants to convey? What message is behind the fine sky? What is significance of the stones that seem to have been laid there by a non-human power before the beginning of time? This image is also an invitation to ponder on why the two men are showing us their backs – are they looking for a political escape or do they want to be in contact with their own spirituality or with nature? Or – are we the men?
When analyzing a painting that is as powerful and profound as „Two Men Contemplating the Moon”, we should always take into consideration the fact that the questions we pose are just as relevant as the answers we give. The conclusions we will reach cannot be complete or definitive and that is what makes this work such an amazing painting.
The two men, who were identified as August Heinrich and Caspar David Friedrich (even though, according to other sources they would be August Heinrich and Christian Wilhem Brommer), propose an incursion into the way we see life.
The painting can be interpreted on a very basic level, that it represents just a moment in the life of the two men and that the purpose of the painting is just purely decorative, given that more copies were made.
But we can also see it as a guide to emotions and the human spirit. Moreover, it is a formidable example of how the ineffable can be translated onto a canvas with the stroke of a brush.
We can discuss the painting’s iconography by studying the conventions of the time in which it was produced. Art historian Jens Christian Jensen attributed to this painting a highly political dimension, starting from the clothes worn by the two represented characters.
Their clothes seem to resemble the clothes worn by men during the Middle Ages in Germany. In 1815, this style of clothes was adapted by a student’s association named „Jenaer Studenten Bund”. The students who were part of this organization were opposing the ultraconservative politics of Metternich and of the Congress of Vienna. After the Karlsbad decrees of 1819, the cultural world suffered a lot of censorship in books and magazines, universities were tightly supervised and all student associations banned. As a form of protest, Caspar David Friedrich would have ignored all these decrees and continued to paint his characters dressed this way. Thus, it can be argued that Friedrich was taking a political stance with this painting, aligning himself with the nationalist and liberal ideas of the time. In a time when these clothes were perceived as the „uniforms of the demagogues”, Caspar David Friedrich used to joke, telling the visitors who came by his studio that the two men are conspiring to provoke some „demagogic unrest”.
Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings however, are more seen as being filled with religious ideas and that the world he portrays is a metaphor for his vision and spiritual experiences. Of course, it needs to be said that when it comes to symbols, we can never be 100% certain of what lies behind them. Also, it is important to note that more than one meaning can be ascribed to a certain symbol.
To discover the true meaning of a symbol, or to get as close to it as we can, one must study what the symbol meant for others in the time and what it meant for the artist.
Thus, if, as we have established, the clothes worn by the characters have a role in the establishing of a political message, there are other elements that can be intercepted rather clearly through the prism of the historical perspective. The moon is one of those elements. In Friedrich’s Germany, the moon was symbol for the idea of „pious contemplation”, which gives more meaning to the painting than a political one. In romantic Germany, the moon also had other symbolic significances, as it was associated with magic and emotions, but also with the darker side of the things. The moon was also very frequently used in painting as a symbol of a guiding light in the darkness.
Analyzing the composition of this painting also gives us some insight into what it is really about. The two men, who have stopped in their evening walk, find themselves in a landscape lit by the moon in a way that it seems that they have entered into another world. They do not look towards the sky like two curious astronomers, but look down to the moon, thus deepening the message that this painting is an invitation to introspection. They are looking inside, not outside.
Their clothes can even have a new meaning, besides the political one. Given that the two men are wearing city clothes in a natural landscape, we can again bounce back to the idea that this work is about the escape from everyday life in lesser explored environments, which hide mysteries that, once unraveled, can speak many truths about human existence. Thus, the two men are a real expression of the „romantic man”.
If in other paintings by Friedrich, the „contemplators” seem to be random (it can be argued that in some paintings, if we were to remove the characters, their whole message would not change by a lot), in „Two Men Contemplating the Moon”, the characters are the key to the „reading” of the painting. Besides the symbolism proposed so far, we can add a layer of the interpersonal. Friendship, a value that was strongly cultivated romanticism seems to be one of the messages of the image. The men in this picture as just as important as the nature surrounding them. They are part of it, yet visitors.
This is a very important factor, as it can be then said that this painting is both a depiction of a landscape and a portrait.
Coming back to the composition of the painting and of the way the elements that compose it are distributed, we need to point out that, while in general, Friedrich’s compositions are symmetrical (for example in Die Lebensstufen”, „Frau am Fenster” or „Gebirgslandschaft mit Regenbogen”), in this painting the composition is rather asymmetrical. The landscape is more charged than other landscapes by Caspar David Friedrich.
We can also see as symbols the fir tree, which is green – in contrast to the dead oak tree; the broken tree or even the rock, which can be interpreted in various ways. For example, we can consider these elements as part of a discourse on survival. The key to this approach are the green leaves of the tree, which still „bloom” despite the fact that the tree is dry for the most part and limited by the rock.
The diagonals on which this composition is based can indicate an interior dynamism, given that the scene is predominantly static.
The moon can also be read in another key, namely a Christian key. Thus, the moon would represent Christ.
The presence of the planet Venus is quite mysterious – is it a symbol of the feminine, of fertility or of love?
We can’t really know how Friedrich wanted us to decode his messages, but one thing is certain and that is that there are hidden messages in the painting. Even Friedrich once claimed that if you cannot see anything „inside”, you should stop painting only what is on the „outside”.
Caspar David Friedrich’s „Two Men Contemplating the Moon” can be viewed as an „ars poetica”, a discourse on the purpose of art and the artist’s vision of the world. The everyday world is for him thus just a point of departure, in which one can find many details, charged with meaning. The meaning of these symbols, however, can be found either consciously or unconsciously. This painting contains messages about different aspects of life, which is why it is so relevant and complex, as it addressed not only a small part of existence, but many parts, which makes is a great reflection of life, where all fields of living are connected and intertwined.
In a world where the elements that compose the very idea of living are connected and, more than that, interdependent, man finds himself between nature and culture. Human beings are the meeting point between the two and the ways in which nature and culture collide are, for now at least, maybe too mysterious to unravel completely. For Caspar David Friedrich, it’s hard to dissociate the „imaginary” from the „real”, since the „imaginary” is part of the „real” and vice versa.
Starting with the idea in mind that the truth lies in the details, „Zwei Männer in Betrachtung des Mondes” is a journey to Reality itself.
In a context filled with a multitude of symbols and meaning, the best way to go about decoding the world is through contemplation.
Thus, we become the second man, who, together with Caspar David Friedrich looks at the universe and makes sense of it.
More:
Considerations on Caspar David Friedrich’s “The Stages of Life”
Consideration’s on Caspar David Friedrich’s “Mountain Landscape with Rainbow”