Man should not be held as an absolute standard for mankind, but the Godly, the infinite is his goal.. .Follow without hesitation the voice of your in… - Caspar David Friedrich

Just as the reverent man prays without uttering words, and the Lord hears him, the sensitive painter paints, and the sensitive man understands and recognizes him, but even the more obtuse carry away something from his work.

The picture [Friedrich's painting: 'The Cross on the Baltic Sea' ] for your friend has already been sketched out, but there is no church in it, not a single tree or plant, not a blade of grass. On a bare and rocky seashore there stands, high up, the cross - for those who see it that way, a consolation, and for those who don't see it that way, just a cross.

Close your bodily eye, so that you may see your picture first with the spiritual eye. Then bring to the light of day that which you have seen in the darkness so that it may react upon others from the outside inwards. A picture must not be invented but felt. Observe the form exactly, both the smallest and the large and do not separate the small from the large, but rather the trivial from the important.