Winter Landscape
Caspar David Friedrich, c. 1811
A crippled man prays in the snow toward a cross and a church he may never reach.
About this work
Winter Landscape is a small oil, probably painted in 1811, by Caspar David Friedrich, the leading German Romantic landscape painter. A man who has cast aside his crutches lies against a boulder in the snow and prays before a shining crucifix sheltered by three fir trees. Behind them, the silhouette of a Gothic cathedral rises out of the mist, its spires echoing the shapes of the trees. The National Gallery in London, which owns it, reads the picture as a companion to another Winter Landscape of the same date in Schwerin, where a similar figure on a crutch wanders among dead oaks under a dark sky. If that one is about despair, this one offers hope: grass shoots through the snow, the trees are evergreen, and a faint pink dawn is coming. Friedrich's visionary cathedrals were usually imaginary, though often based on studies of real buildings. Friedrich built the misty effect by stippling with the point of a brush in smalt, a transparent blue glass pigment. The painting was exhibited in Weimar in 1811, then dropped from view until 1982, when it was rediscovered in Paris among the estate of a private collector. The National Gallery bought it in 1987, and it was the first painting by Friedrich to enter a British public collection. It measures 32.5 by 45 cm.
Sources: The National Gallery: Winter Landscape (NG6517) · Wikipedia: Caspar David Friedrich
Print facts
- Native resolution
- 12,672 × 9,112 px
- Sharp at 150 ppi up to
- 84 × 60 in
- Sizes
- Small (20 × 14 in) · $100 · 634 ppi
Medium (24 × 17 in) · $150 · 528 ppi
Large (36 × 26 in) · $300 · 350 ppi - Price includes
- Frame and US shipping · 14–21 days · 30-day returns
FAQ
Where can I buy a framed print of Winter Landscape?
Here. Winter Landscape is available as a framed print in three sizes: Small (20 × 14 in) for $100, Medium (24 × 17 in) for $150 and Large (36 × 26 in) for $300. Prices include the frame and US shipping; delivery takes 14–21 days, with 30-day returns.
What size works best for Winter Landscape?
The file is 12,672 × 9,112 px, so every size is sharp: even Large (36 × 26 in) prints at 350 ppi. Choose Large (36 × 26 in) for a large wall; Small (20 × 14 in) suits a narrower space.
Is it legal to print Winter Landscape?
Yes. Winter Landscape is in the public domain: its copyright, if it ever had one, expired long ago. In the United States a faithful photograph of a public-domain painting does not create a new copyright (Bridgeman v. Corel, 1999), so the image can be printed and sold freely.
