This woodblock print is by Caspar David Friedrich (Germany, 1774-1840), a Romantic, almost Gothic landscape painter whose work has risen and fallen in popularity in inverse proportion to the popularity of modernism. Friedrich was one of the first to use landscape to convey psychological and political messages, using dark and subtle colors and dramatic light effects, so this woodcut is not exactly his usual ouevre. On the other hand, the woman turned away from the viewer, contemplating or looking for something within a lonely wilderness… that’s pure Friedrich.
By the time this piece was made Friedrich’s use of woodcut as a medium was a deliberate return to earlier German wood block printmaking, and an adaptation of those earlier styles for use as an independent art form instead of merely a method of reproduction. His use of differently angled hatch lines is an interesting way to differentiate different areas while keeping them all in shadow, but I particularly like the texture of the tree trunks, as well as the more detailed thistles and plants to the left.
What do you think the woman is thinking about? Is this actually Miss Muffet, grown older now but about to have a recurrence of her youthful surprise?
[Picture: Woman with Spider’s Web Between Bare Trees, woodcut by Caspar David Friedrich, 1803 (Image from Art Institute Chicago).]