From Saturday, Feb. 8, through Sunday, May 11, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature, the first comprehensive exhibition in the United States dedicated to Caspar David Friedrich (17741840). Friedrichs 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 European Romanticism, a cultural revolution that championed conceptions of individual perception and feeling that are still vital today. The exhibition is made possible by Marina Kellen French. Additional support is provided by the Janice H. Levin Fund, Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne, Barbara A. Wolfe, an Anonymous Foundation, The International Council of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Trevor and Alexis Traina. Corporate sponsorship is provided by Allianz X. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. 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 Mets Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. This very first major retrospective in the United States of Germanys most beloved painter follows the celebrations of Friedrichs work in Europe on the occasion of the artists 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 Friedrichs portrayals of nature and the human condition. The exhibition is organized in cooperation with the Alte Nationalgalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, and the Hamburger Kunsthalle, which house the most substantial collections of Friedrichs work in the world. In 202324, these museums presented hugely popular exhibitions of Friedrichs art as part of the artists jubilee celebrations in Germany. As a capstone to this series of shows, The Mets exhibition will feature unprecedented loans from all three institutions and from more than 30 other public and private lenders in Europe and North America, many never before seen in the United States. Despite Friedrichs celebrated reputation, there have been only two exhibitions dedicated to his work in the United States: The Romantic Vision of Caspar David Friedrich: Paintings and Drawings from the U.S.S.R. held at The Met and the Art Institute of Chicago in 1990-91 and featuring nine paintings and 11 works on paper by Friedrich, and Caspar David Friedrich: Moonwatchers held at The Met in 2001, which included seven paintings and two works on paper by the artist. Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature will present oil paintings, finished drawings, and working sketches from every phase of the artists career, along with select examples by his contemporaries. The selection will illuminate Friedrichs development of a symbolic vocabulary of landscape motifs to convey the personal and existential meanings that he discovered in nature. Among the loans that will be exhibited for the first time in the United States are Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (Hamburger Kunsthalle) and Monk by the Sea (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie), two of Friedrichs most famous paintings and icons of Romantic art. Many other signature works, such as Dolmen in Autumn (Albertinum, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden), have not been seen in the United States for decades. The exhibition will also bring together for the first time all five of the Friedrich paintings owned by museums in the United States (The Met, the Kimbell Art Museum, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the National Gallery of Art, and the Saint Louis Art Museum), placing these rare American holdings in the broader context of Friedrichs art. A rich selection of works on paper from domestic and international collections will showcase Friedrichs talents as a draftsman and the centrality of drawing to his creative practice. As a joint project between specialists in paintings and drawings, the exhibition will also consider the ways that the artist worked across media and how different materials and techniques shaped his style. The exhibition will unfold chronologically and thematically, tracing Friedrichs portrayal of the landscape of northern and central Europe over his four-decade career, which coincided with pronounced symbolic and physical changes to the land, prompted by the rise of Romantic thought, scientific discoveries about the earth, nascent industrialization, and political upheaval, most notably the Napoleonic Wars of 18031815. Each section of the exhibition will examine specific landscape motifs and pictorial strategies that defined Friedrichs art, while highlighting the themes that he explored, among them spirituality and religion; the experience of the infinite and unknowable; the passage of time and mortality; solitude and companionship in nature; the juxtaposition of the familiar and the unknown; and the mixture of beauty and danger that the Romantics called the sublime. As a whole, the exhibition will distill Friedrichs vision of nature and situate his art within the tumultuous politics and vibrant culture of 19th-century German society, illuminating the role of German Romanticism in shaping modern perceptions of the natural world. To learn more, visit www.metmuseum.org.