Caspar David Friedrich and Sustainability

(22.5.2023) Two authors have contributed much to a history of sustainability: the German author and journalist Ulrich Grober, and the American historian Jeremy L. Caradonna (who is based in Canada), neither of which, however, have yet shown a deeper interest in the imagery of sustainability. In two books by Ulrich Grober we see a painting by Caspar David Friedrich being reproduced on the cover, which may inspire us to ask for the role of Caspar David Friedrich in the history of sustainability, and for an iconography of sustainability. And it may also inspire us to ask for the role cultural references may have for a history of sustainabiliy, since, obviously, Ulrich Grober and Jeremy L. Caradonna are not only roughly one generation apart, but come from very different cultural backgrounds – which may shape the way the history of sustainability is handled, in each of these two writers.

(Picture: oecom.de)

1) Possibly a Forestry Official

If in the iconic Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer indeed we see a senior forestry official of Saxony, we don’t know for certain. Helmut Börsch-Supan, the doyen of Caspar David Friedrich scholarship, at least names a tradition (which he designates as ›inaccurate‹), according to which we would see a Mr. Brincken, who allegedly was a senior forestry official of Saxony.
While Börsch-Supan does not opt for an actual naming of the wanderer, he gives precise information as to the trees depicted in Der Abend (above): evergreen pines, with young pines in the foreground, and an actual pine forest (acting a sort of grid here, against which the evening sky is set, and with the two wanderers appearing in the place of two pines, being representative, as Börsch-Supan says, of two pines).

An understanding of sustainability that goes back to British and German forestry in the 17th and 18th century has also shaped the modern, the contemporary discourse of sustainability, a discourse which yet has expanded the scope of the classical notion, which still serves as a reference, as a model, ideal, formula (or paradigm), according to which natural resources are not to be overused, with overusing meaning: beyond the regenerative forces of natural resources. This classical understanding, thus, did already exist at the time Caspar David Friedrich was active, and the classic understanding of sustainability, the understanding for which Ulrich Grober certainly might be named as an advocate, seems to see the classic understanding of sustainability – not only but also – through the prism of German romanticism. In Jeremy L. Caradonna German romanticism is only named briefly, and while the author certainly accepts Grober as the specialist for Hans Carl von Carlowitz (who developed the notion of Nachhaltigkeit), the focus of Caradonna is somewhat more on the history of the economy, and less on a vision or ideal of sustainability, which we may find in the past, or we may find being represented in Caspar David Friedrich. Since Caspar David Friedrich, in his paintings, indeed sought to construct an ideal.

2) Caspar David Friedrich On Sustainability

In Caspar David Friedrich we don’t find depictions of reality. We find an ideal being represented and constructed, because the artist was making choices as to what to depict, and as to what not to depict. And this according to his basic views, as to what landscape painting was meant to do, and what it was not meant to do. Which means for an iconography of sustainbility to stay aware that we are seeing idealizations, based on choices, and: to ask for what we are not meant to see. And in c. 1830, in his notes on the paintings by other painters, Friedrich was quite frank as to what he thought landscape painting should do, and of painting by other painters which was based on principles that were not his own. On the painting by another painter XX (whom he did not name), but whose painting indeed showed a very beautiful subject Friedrich wrote:

»Nur ängstlich, peinlich treu die schönen Formen der Natur wie das Unschöne, so Menschen, durch Hunger und Not getrieben, nach und nach daran und darin verhunzt durch Anbau von Wohnungen und widrig sich durchkreuzende Felderabteilungen und Hinweghauungen der Wälder nachgeschrieben. Sollte wohl XX nicht besser getan haben (und überhaupt den Landschaftsmalern anzuempfehlen sein), bei so ausgezeichneten Gegenständen in der Natur sich dieselbe rein in ihrer ursprünglichen oder Urgestalt zurückzudenken.[?]« (quoted here after Gertrud Fiege, Caspar David Friedrich, p. 68f.)

If Friedrich meant the last sentence as a question or not – it is clear that he did not like an actual representation of people who, in their misery, were ruining what he saw as beautiful in nature, recommending that all landscape painters should represent an ideal by reconstructing an original state, by ›thinking back to‹ that state, and by, as one may add, imagining or envisioning that state.

And in view of a contemporary discourse of sustainability, which has expanded the scope of the notion enormously, it is the question, if it is much of help to envision an ideal of the past, which may also be an alleged ideal natural state, since it might be a construction, according to what a painter thought may have been the result, if he or she imagined an original state of nature. And with no questions asked, if such state ever did exist (or which state exactly might have been ideal – in the history of evolution), and with no distinction made (or information given as to the fact) that we are looking at a mere ideal, constructed by an artist.

This said, it should be stressed that this is not necessarily a criticism as to how Ulrich Grober views the history of the notion, since the text of his history offers nuances, which, if we take the cover of his history (with Der Abend by Friedrich) as an example, the visual equivalent, the imagery of sustainability, to which the choice of Friedrich does contribute, is lacking. Since there is no discussion on Friedrich in the book, and no discussion of how Friedrich may have contributed to idealizing the German Wald, and this, perhaps, not to the benefit of a sober discussion of the concept of sustainability, in view of the challenges of contemporary crises in our day.

Hence it is to be recommended to read (and to appreciate) Grober with Caradonna (and vice versa), and to think about what a more reflected imagery of sustainability might encompass. Perhaps also pictures of the kind Caspar David Friedrich did criticize in c. 1830, with scenarios in the history of economy that forced people to use the natural resources in ways the pre-modern advocates of sustainability did not agree with? And it may be possible to identify the picture Friedrich spoke about in c. 1830 or not (attempts have been made) – the more general question is: do we have an actual iconography of sustainability at all, a history of sustainability in pictures, perhaps in term of a pictorial atlas of sustainability, or not? And if not, why not, and how may it look like? Perhaps encompassing idealizations as well as realistic depictions of how nature really looked like at the time of Caspar David Friedrich? And perhaps including a discussion on the benefits and risks of idealization?

3) The Advocats of Sustainable Forestry and the Coming of the Fossil-Fueled Economy

The use of history for certain things is always a risky undertaking, since history is never one-dimensional, without conflict or without contradictions. And one such contradiction might be the fact that the ›founding fathers‹ of sustainable forestry in the 18th and the 19th century are partly also advocates of a fossil-fueled economy, because they partly recommended the use of peat or coal, instead of (overusing) wood. The ideal of sustainability came with, its history went along with the use of peat and coal, heralding the coming of a fossil-fueled economy. And to state that does not mean that the principle itself would be compromised in any way. No, it is not, but one has to realize the unintended effects of the actions of people in the past, which might also result in a certain amount of scepticism as to all-too ambitious ideals in our day, ideals that not necessary inspire us to think of unintended effects of our well-meant acting, while the study of the history of sustainability might; at least if we acknowledge that this history can be written from various angles, angles that, as in the case of Ulrich Grober and Jeremy L. Caradonna, may slightly differ (also due to a more or less intense interest in the actual history of economy). It is about the nuances. And these nuances might have something to do with cultural references, traditions, which also may find their expression in pictures (and in the choice of pictures).

Selected Literature:
Ulrich Grober, Die Entdeckung der Nachhaltigkeit. Kulturgeschichte eines Begriffs, Munich 2010 [with Der Abend on its cover]
Ulrich Grober, Vom Wandern. Neue Wege zu einer alten Kunst, Frankfurt a.M. 2006
Jeremy L. Caradonna, Sustainability. A History, Oxford/New York 2014
Jeremy L. Caradonna (ed.), Routledge Handbook of the History of Sustainability, New York 2018 [also with a contribution by Ulrich Grober]

The Art Museum of Sustainability


Monet on Sustainability

Velázquez on Sustainability

Van Gogh on Sustainability

Picasso and Sustainability

Hopper and Sustainability

Rubens on Sustainability

Iconography of Sustainability


Iconography of Sustainability

Iconography of Sustainability 2

From Bruegel to Solarpunk (Iconography of Sustainability 3)

Concepts, Labels and Varia


Solarpunk

Renaturalization

Tipping Points

The Blue Hour in Ecotopia

Reforestation

Emergency Supply

Sustainability and Luxury

Eyes of Tomorrow

MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM
HOME

Top of the page

Microstory of Art Main Index

Dietrich Seybold Homepage

© DS