“The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature, the first comprehensive exhibition in the United States dedicated to Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840); it will be on view through May 11, 2025. Friedrich’s art presents nature as a site of personal and philosophical discovery. Marshalling the expressive power of perspective, light, color, and atmosphere, the artist created landscapes that articulate a profound connection between the natural world and the inner self, or soul. This imagery encapsulated the newly emerging ideals of Romanticism, a cultural revolution that championed conceptions of individual perception and feeling that are still vital today.” — The Met

“The most significant German Romantic painter, Caspar David Friedrich brilliantly illuminates our understanding of the natural world as a spiritual and emotional landscape,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “This very first major retrospective in the United States of Germany’s most beloved painter follows the celebrations of Friedrich’s work in Europe on the occasion of the artist’s 250th birthday in 2024. We are thrilled to collaborate with our German museum colleagues and many other generous lenders on this rare opportunity to reflect on Friedrich’s portrayals of nature and the human condition.”

“Friedrich’s art evokes a watershed moment in the development of human understanding of the natural world,” said Alison Hokanson, Curator, Department of European Paintings, The Met, and co-curator of the exhibition. “His landscapes mark the rise of the Romantic entwinement of nature and the self—a sensibility that intersected with the start of the industrial revolution and the growth of what we now call ecological awareness. Looking at his work, we can discern the beginnings of an experience of nature that is still with us.”

“The pictorial language that Friedrich and his fellow Romantics developed to express a connection with nature is deeply ingrained in how we see and represent the world, both in art and in popular visual culture,” says Joanna Sheers Seidenstein, Assistant Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, The Met, and co-curator of the exhibition. “We invite audiences to explore Friedrich’s landscapes as they would have been understood in the artist’s own time and to consider their resonance today, when the environment is at the forefront of cultural and political discourse.”

Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature is co-curated by Alison Hokanson (Curator, Department of European Paintings, The Met) and Joanna Sheers Seidenstein (Assistant Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, The Met).

Images courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art.