The beauty, the spirit of Germany, its sun, moon, stars, rocks, seas and rivers can never be expressed this way.. - Caspar David Friedrich

..the great white blanket of snow [in one of his painting of Cemetery / Church in the Snow, mid-1820's].. ..the essence of the utmost purity, beneath which nature prepares herself for a new life..

People are always talking about 'incidentals'; but nothing is incidental in a picture, everything is indispensable to the whole effect, so nothing must be neglected. If a man can give value to the main part of his composition only by negligent treatment of the subordinate portions, his work is in a bad way. Everything must and can be carefully executed, without the different parts obtruding themselves on the eye. The proper subordination of the parts to the whole is not achieved by neglecting incidental features, but by correct grouping and by the distribution of light and shadow.

Why, the question is often asked of me