Romantic Painters on Art

Bychkov Victor Doctor of Philosophy Chief Scientific Associate at Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences 109240, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Goncharnaya, 12, str. 1, Institut filosofii RAN vbychkov48@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Not only philosophers, writers, and art theorists of romantic orientation thought about the meaning and main principles of art, but also artists tried to express their theoretical ideas that worried them. Of particular interest in this regard are the judgments about the art of the painters Philip Otto Runge (1777-1810) and Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) ^[1-3], who created truly romantic works and tried, each to the best of his ability, to comprehend on their basis the essence of fine art, and art in general.

Runge ^[4-6], who lived only 33 years, is characterized by an acute sense of God, primarily in nature. In one of the letters to his brother, with whom he was particularly frank, he figuratively describes his pantheistic and aesthetic experiences at sunrise. When countless stars are still sparkling in the sky, the wind is roaring in the vast expanses, waves are crashing on the shore, and the sky begins to turn pink over the forest and "The Sun illuminates the world"; when steam rises from the meadows, "I throw myself into the grass sparkling with dew droplets, and life boils on every leaf, on every stem, and that's it it merges into one friendly chord, – then my soul loudly rejoices and rushes in the immeasurable space surrounding me, and there is no longer any top or bottom for me, no time, no beginning, no end, I feel and hear the living breath of God, holding the world in his hand, in everything that is alive What is active… This is the greatest thing that we can foresee – God!" ^{[7, p. 451]}.

Runge feels well the periodic, God-given glimmers of life in nature. He experiences them as the emergence of life taking place in himself, its development and disappearance. He sees the whole world in these rebirths and deaths of life, in which souls do not die, but return to God, where their immortality is realized. In the world, the German romantic sees the "fierce" struggle of two principles: one is "the eternal beginning, inexorably harsh and terrifying," the other is "the beginning of sweet, eternal, boundless love." They confront each other "like hard and soft, like stone and water" ^{[7, p. 451]}, and Runge discovers them everywhere as two tendencies coming from God and forming the basis of the world, nature and man. The rougher their clash in any thing, the further it is from perfection; if they unite with each other, then the thing is closer to perfection. When a thing or the world as a whole reaches the highest perfection, the spirit leaves the world and returns to God; substances left without life (spirit is life), like the world as a whole, are destroyed. The world begins to take shape from the ruins again, and the opposite principles that drive them arise again. This is, in essence, a rather primitive dialectic of being according to Runge, but it is precisely this that he puts at the basis of art. "These two primordial substances, each of which exists as such, in its purity, must be combined – until the work of art reaches the greatest perfection or until art reaches the greatest perfection." If these two principles mix, rather than combine, then the whole structure of art collapses. "These two forces in art are feeling and reason" ^{[7, p. 452, footnote]}. In the art of Raphael and Michelangelo, art rose to the highest point of perfection when reason and feeling reached the maximum degree of unification. After them, the "true spirit of art" left it, and it began to "sink" ^{[7, p. 460]}, i.e. the quality of art deteriorated significantly. According to Runge, it is at this level of "omission" in his time.

The essence of art, the German artist is convinced, is the spirit of art, without which art cannot take place and which consists of several components. One of the prominent places in it is occupied by the "highest points" of our being, to which Runge refers the "delight and exultation of the spirit" living in our soul, the feeling of "the interconnection of the entire universe with us", a single chord touching all the strings of our heart, love for the "sweet being" living with us. All this encourages us to communicate our experiences and thoughts to others – this is how the arts, verbal, musical, and pictorial, arise. Another important component of the spirit of art is the "premonition of God" and our own immortality that lives in us. "A work of art that has reached the greatest perfection is always an image of the deepest foreboding of God in the artist who created the work. That's what it means: in every perfect artistic creation, we constantly feel our connection with the universe"; this is a deep sense of our connection "with the whole" ^{[7, p. 458]}. Runge correlates art with religion, seeing in them a common thing – the worship of God or gods. Only art implements this in its special symbols – in the symbols of our ideas "about God or gods"; "symbols of divine powers" ^{[7, p. 453]}. Ideally, these symbols in a work of art can achieve high concentration, then an "image of the Infinite" is obtained ^{[7, p. 454]}. Runge is convinced that we use symbols of art when we strive to make our experiences of certain feelings or events clear to others; when we try to convey thoughts about the beautiful in nature, various sensations of our soul. At the same time, we try to find an event whose image will correspond to our feelings, which we strive to express. When we find such an event, it becomes the subject of this work of art.

"Then pairing this object with our sensation, we arrange the symbols of natural forces, or our sensations, so that they appear as characteristically corresponding to themselves, the object and our sensation; this is the composition" ^{[7, p. 454]}. The Runge composition consists of artistic symbols, collectively expressing certain spiritual movements of the soul based on the found object of this work. Ideally, the composition is organized as a symbolic phenomenon in which the image of God is expressed. Runge, and he repeatedly repeats this idea in letters to various people, is based on the desire to organize a work of art in such a way that in it, in its essential foundations, the image of God is expressed, i.e. some kind of the highest spiritual value. But as a result, the creative spirit leaves the artist and the art collapses to start over. In this romantic dialectic of the German artist, his views are expressed not so much on a single work of art, although, say, in this case we are talking about the composition of a particular work, as on the artistic process as a whole. All this is not very clearly articulated by Runge, but the meaning is close to the fact that when art manages to express the image of God, it collapses and returns to its infancy, from where the same process of searching for means to express God begins, but on new grounds corresponding to a new era.

The next element of the expressive means of painting, according to Runge, is drawing. It is formed on the basis of the artist's study of the outlines of the objects from which the composition is created, in accordance with the nature of each object, the laws of composition, perspective, moments of the plot and the plot as a whole. Color in painting arises from observations of the coloring of natural objects, its perception by man and the affects and experiences that arise in this case; from the natural harmony of colors and even their symbolic meaning. Based on the consideration of the effect that greater or lesser illumination, shadow, and nearby illuminated objects have on the color of an object, a color arises. The distance of the object from the front edge of the picture is obtained as a result of its greater or lesser clouding; this phenomenon is called aerial perspective. When, taking into account all the effects of one subject of the painting on another and on the whole, the influence of aerial perspective on all the colors of objects, the general illumination, we achieve a certain integrity of the canvas, this is the "tone of the whole" ^{[7, p. 455]}.

Stressing that "art is the aspiration of the most beautiful," Runge lists "in order all the requirements that are imposed on a work of art":

"1) our premonition of God;

  2) the feeling of our relationship with the whole, from which (the first and second) arise

 3) religion and art, i.e. the desire to express higher feelings through words, sounds and images, and then visual art has first of all

4) the item, and then

5) composition,

6) drawing,

7) Color,

8) aerial perspective,

9) color,

10) the tone of the whole" ^{[7, p. 456]}.

At the same time, Runge emphasizes that a work of art cannot take place without the first, i.e. exclusively spiritual moments; without them, it cannot become eternal, "because the immortality of an artistic creation is only its relationship with the artist's soul, thanks to this relationship, the painting becomes an image of the eternal source of his soul" [Ibid.]. Being a painter and well aware of the technique of his craft, the German artist raises questions about the spiritual foundations of art, without which it cannot take place as art proper. Such ideas were typical of all romanticism. Another characteristic of art and its theory among Romantics was the idea of the musical basis of any art – Runge also focuses on it. "Music is always what is called harmony and peace in the other three arts" ^{[7, p. 469]}. It exists in painting, and the German artist also calls it symbolism and poetry, which permeates all the arts. Music is a kind of artistically significant plastic organization of a work. Describing one of his paintings to his brother ("The Lesson of the Nightingale"), Runge emphasizes that it is organized according to the fugue principle, when in different versions "the same thing is repeated three times in the painting and as it leaves the painting, it acquires an increasingly abstract symbolism" ^{[7, p. 461]}. According to the same principle, Runge's cycle of engravings "The Times of the Day" was built, from which, as he himself believed, and as his romantic friends were convinced, he began a new, I would say, romantic-symbolic, period in his work. This, however, is still to be discussed. Regarding art in general, Runge, having shown how music participates in the organization of various arts, states: "Therefore, I think that symbolism, or, in other words, poetry, or, in other words, the musical or mystical view of the three arts (meaning verbal arts, music and painting. – V.B.) is the key to preserving the spirit of love is Paradise" ^{[7, p. 471]}. Runge appreciates so highly, if we express his thought in the language of modern aesthetics, the aesthetic quality of art, which he designates elsewhere with the term "beauty" and argues that beauty should always be present in art, but in each epoch it should be expressed in its own way: "it must be so that the former – beauty – always remains but so that beauty is eternally renewed, eternally changing in its images, words and color" ^{[7, p. 471]}.

Being an adherent of high ("pure") art, Runge is convinced that only a virtuous artist can achieve it ^[8]. In a letter to his father, he argues that "only virtue leads to genuine art, because only with a pure soul can one feel and express the purity of art"^{[9, p. 391]}. To do this, the artist must become a child again – only with a child's consciousness can something higher be achieved. At the same time, the artist must be a wise contemplator, comprehending the whole world around him as something integral and related to him. Addressing the artist, he urges him: "So, contemplate the motley world around you, in which all images greet you like brothers; where the same innermost aspiration lives around you in everything (in the greatest and in the smallest), and observe the beginnings of all beginnings, from which all diversity flows life" ^{[9, p. 400]} . Runge is deeply convinced that art is not a simple craft, but something related to the divine sphere, an object of deep faith, and not everyone who considers themselves artists is given to comprehend this. "Art is a pure heavenly realm, and only a few have been given the chance to ascend to it. Only by firmly believing in him can one fully comprehend and reveal him" ^{[9, p. 398]}. This understanding was formed by Runge in the last period of his short life, when, working on the cycle "The Times of the Day", he became convinced that he himself had risen to a genuine understanding of art, so he could assert on the basis of his own self-awareness: "But only to those who dwell in the pure spheres of art, the secrets of existence are revealed. And the divine breath that touches him will protect him from everything low" ^{[9, p. 399]}. Runge recognized Raphael as a similar artist after first meeting his "Sistine Madonna" in the Dresden Art Gallery. At the same time, he felt his inner kinship with him – "I had the feeling that I had met my most beloved friend again" ^{[9, p. 399]}. If in spiritual terms Runge considered Raphael a divine artist, then in terms of artistic technique he saw in him the heir to the achievements of Leonardo and Michelangelo. It is difficult for an artist to start everything from scratch, – the German painter is convinced, – he must rely on the experience of his brilliant predecessors.

Runge also has a peculiar understanding of the landscape associated with the Sistine Madonna. Raphael's painting, like Guido Reni's Aurora, as well as his own "Times of Day", Runge considered approaching a new genre of future art – landscape, understanding by this term a certain highly artistic solution of the painting. The German romantic calls the art of the future "landscape painting", completely different from the traditional genre of landscape, for example, Friedrich's landscape, and asks: is it not possible in this art "to achieve the highest perfection, even more beautiful than in previous periods?" ^{[9, p. 393]}. In this painting, the artist will be able to embody "his significant designs, allegories, ideas" ^{[9, p. 392]}. Images that appeared in the clouds at sunset, evoking certain thoughts, images generated by the artist's sense of merging with the universe, images awakened by the floating moon and many other natural phenomena will be appropriate here. The ideas born in the process of such contemplations can be embodied in that new painting, which Runge calls a landscape and which he aspired to in his paintings of the cycle "The Seasons of the Day". A landscape in Runge's understanding is a kind of symbolic and allegorical painting with a deep spiritual content expressed exclusively by pictorial means.

At the same time, Runge believes that there is a "certain spiritual connection" between all the elements of the painting, and color harmonizes them all, to which the German artist paid special attention, even developing an entire theory of color, which he repeatedly consulted with Goethe. "Color,– wrote Runge, "is such a charming phenomenon that every time I enjoy it in a new way; I observe how, with all the variety of its tones, it envelops everything material like rays of light and, penetrating it, brings it closer to the heavenly. And the more transparent the substance of the body, the deeper and more directly it merges with color and is permeated by light. And I, also delving into this phenomenon, must devote myself with all my strength and all my thoughts to this sweet destruction by light, in order finally to perceive with firm faith all the fervor of the spiritual content" ^{[9, p. 400]}. Color, according to Runge, has a certain almost mystical power to impart spirituality to everything it touches. It was with this property of color that he linked his concept of landscape as a new spiritual type of art of the future. Realizing this, the romantic painter tried, as we will see, to create fundamentally new art.

Reflecting on painting, Runge resorts to a kind of romantic semiotics. If, he argues, we are going to understand a phenomenon and convey the impression of it to others, so that they comprehend it precisely as an integral phenomenon, we must certainly turn to "characteristic signs" that will help us to understand the essence of the contemplated phenomenon. The meaning of characteristic signs lies in the fact that they "require that their special character be analogous to what, strictly speaking, must be produced through them in their entirety, otherwise they will not be characteristic signs."… The sculptor and the draughtsman compare the figures in shape, position and expression so that the parts of the whole, being characteristic, produce a holistic effect" ^{[7, pp. 477-478]}. Characteristic signs, according to Runge, should express certain features of the object in such a way that together they form a significant integrity, a "living organic whole".

Of particular interest in Runge's epistolary legacy is his appeal to the ancient genre of ecphrasis of his own works or their designs. This is especially significant for us because he described in detail the works of a new stage in his art, regarding which he was sure that he was opening a new page in painting. And to some extent he was right. In the last years of his life, the artist began to create romantic works. Having conceived the painting "The Source" (it was not executed), Runge wrote that it should become a "source" in the broadest sense of the word – "the source of all the paintings that I will ever paint, a source of new art, as well as a source as such" ^{[7, p. 462]}. The reason for writing this painting was the experience of romantic immersion in nature by the artist himself, who, resting by the stream, listening to its murmur, imagined an almost finished painting. In a letter to his brother (1802), he first describes his imaginative ideas from being in nature, and then almost similarly transfers them to his idea of the painting. And gives a detailed description of it. "My picture is as follows: a nymph sits near a spring and, plunging her fingers into the water, plays with jets of water, and the air bubbles in the water grow and grow, cheerful children sit in them and, as soon as the bubbles burst, smartly climb flowers and trees; the character of the kids is the same as that of flowers to which each of them belongs; these babies are like the embodied concepts of every flower. The lily stands illuminated by the bright light of the Sun, and, like a hero, an oak tree stretches its branches over it; but the devil summons spirits from a dirty puddle, and they fly up into the shade and settle on poisonous plants" ^{[7, p. 463]}. Many German romantics of that time insisted on depicting the spirit world in the works of new art, and Runge in the conceived painting and in the subsequent cycle "The Times of the Day" gives his pictorial understanding of such a world. He has it symbolized by naked babies as the spirits of flowers and other plants. He is convinced that with the help of flowers, one can later "designate" (recall the "characteristic signs") "the most wonderful thoughts, but only by always drawing babies next to the flower, because I do not think that otherwise it will be possible to accurately understand flowers" [Ibid.]. Having actually found an allegorical image of flowers in the form of babies, Runge thinks about such a picture, in which it would be possible to give "shape and meaning" to other natural phenomena: air, stone, water, fire. The German romantic is fascinated by the idea of finding pictorial symbolic and allegorical analogues to many phenomena and elements of nature. On this basis, he is convinced, a new landscape painting could arise, which would retain its artistic significance for a long time. Man is not given to depict God, but he can, nevertheless, achieve in painting the expression of the spiritual worlds and our relationship with them, so that art "will be in its place worthy of all respect" ^{[7, p. 464]}.

Runge had already dreamed of such art in 1802-1803, and his first sketches appeared in the form of four drawings (duplicated in engravings) on the theme of "The Times of the Day". Runge himself thought of creating a painting cycle based on them and, describing these drawings in letters to his brother, sees them already in color. He managed to paint one painting "Morning" (1808, Kunsthalle, Hamburg) before his untimely death. I will give an example of the Runge graphic sketch for this picture. "... a light mist, and a large lily grows right out of it. Four buds descend in arcs on both sides, four babies playing music are sitting on them, the buds open, and roses and bright, variegated flowers fall down into the fog, giving their color to the haze. In the middle part of the painting, a straight, clear, blooming lily rises up, like a ray of light, and in its cup on each petal sits a baby; two people sitting on the left look inside the cup, and two people sitting on the right look at what hangs above them, namely the stamens, on which they stand and also hug three of the same babies supporting the pistil of the lily – Venus– the Morning Star, rests on it; it will be filled with gold. The sky above is blue, completely dark, but it is getting lighter downwards, closer to the mists, so that the lily, along with the babies, is perceived as one big source of light. Clouds are falling on both sides, the edges of which are brightly illuminated. The brightness of the light comes down, so that the sunrise is transmitted in color, which will be very difficult not to notice. The light is a lily, and the three groups in their arrangement are again correlated with the trinity. Venus is a pistil, or, to put it another way, a center of light, I deliberately did not give it any other appearance than that of a star" ^{[7, pp. 465-466]}.

In a similar way, Runge described in this letter two more drawings from the cycle "Times of the Day" – "Evening" and "Night", promising to outline the "Day" later. From these descriptions and the surviving later versions of the cycle, it can be seen that Runge paid the main attention to flowers, their spirits ("geniuses") in the form of babies and a symbolic figure in the form of a woman as an allegory of the depicted state of the day. Especially carefully, already in the plan, he worked out the color scheme of future paintings, because color played a particularly significant, including a spiritual and symbolic role in his painting of a new stage. He also studied color on a scientific and philosophical basis, consulting Goethe on this topic; he wrote a theoretical study "The Color Sphere" (1810) [see: 6].

Already while working on letters to his brother about the "Times of the Day" (1803), Runge had a good idea of the idea of a grandiose pictorial and synthetic cycle, which was to be located in a separate specially created building and accompanied by the performance of symphonic music and poetry reading. And the German romantic himself wrote the painting cycle as a symphonic work: "I worked on it as on a symphony" ^{[7, p. 467]}. In this he anticipated the symbolists and representatives of modernism at the turn of the XIX – XX centuries. (in particular, the Vienna "Secession").  Starting from 1802-1803. Runge constantly turned to the theme of the "Times of the Day", developing it both graphically and painterly. The entire series of four engravings from 1807 (Dresden; Hamburg) and two versions of the painting on the theme "Morning" have come down to us. All of them differ in some details from the description that Runge gave in 1803, but in general they retain the spirit and most of the iconography of the first works.

In a letter to his brother dated 03/23/1803, Runge describes the impression his drawings made on the famous romantic Ludwig Tieck, who studied them for a long time, was silent for more than an hour, and then stated that Runge expressed in his cycle exactly what he, Tieck, meant when thinking about the "new art", but could not imagine that it will appear now, during his lifetime. In a letter to Tick dated 03/29/1805, Runge gave a poetic interpretation of his cycle in the mode of light – dark, white – black, seeing the development of a certain light mysticism from picture to picture. The originality of Runge's ecphrasies lies in the fact that for several years he has been describing the color and light features of paintings that have only been conceived, but not realized. He already sees in his inner world what should appear sometime in the future. So it is with light mysticism: "If in the first of my paintings clarity, lightness ("Morning") is spread all over, which, if it only continued to blossom, would be resolved into light, then in the second painting ("Day") earthly fruits and earthly fulfillment appear instead of heavenly fruits and perfections and nature is exhausted in whiteness, instead of passing into the perfection of light. So longing arises in the fruits, resolved by a dark flame, then the Sun sinks amid the dark anxiety of the world ("Evening"), and at the moment of delight nature rejoices – it seems that everything bodily is ready to dissolve into the sound of immeasurable spaces, in heaven lethargy takes hold of hope, and on earth the core (grain) closes the gates of life. Until finally, in the last painting ("Night"), everything that can only bear light becomes apparent, and the grain that died with faith does not perish; here geniuses part with their colors, and light and sound contemplate themselves in each other, united and inseparable in their being" ^{[7, p. 473]}. The ekphrasis of the designs of Runge's paintings shows us an extremely interesting aspect of the aesthetic consciousness of Romanticism in general – it is a description of the life and semantic content of paintings in the artist's mind before they were revealed on canvas; and in the specific case of Runge, and for the most part were not painted. It is only on the basis of graphic sketches that he imagines and describes as real-life pictorial images of his consciousness. Creative imagination is an essential component of aesthetic experience here.

It cannot be excluded that Runge was not in a hurry to complete the pictorial options, seeing in his grandiose work something similar to the boundless divine creation and fearing that such boundlessness was hardly on his shoulder. In August 1807, he wrote about his cycle as a kind of cosmogony: "Morning is the boundless illumination of the universe. The day is an infinite form of creation that fills the universe. Evening is the boundless annihilation of existence returning to the source of the universe. The night is the boundless depth of awareness and incorruptibility of existence in God. These are the four dimensions of the created spirit. God creates everything in everything; who will undertake to sculpt a form like him, touching the created?" ^{[7, pp. 476-477]}.

As we remember, Tick imagined something like Runge's engravings as the beginning of a new art, but did not see the possibility of its realization in the near future. His good friend Henrik Steffens wrote something similar after Runge's death, knowing the sketches of the German romantic and even having one personal drawing, close in iconography to the master's only painting "Morning". Steffens also saw in Runge's sketches the "germ of a new art", which is already being thought and anticipated, but due to its grandiosity can hardly be fully realized: "such an embryo contains a powerful impulse to form, a diverse but uncertain future – it can be remotely indicated, it can be prophesied, but it is impossible to sensually embody it" ^{[7, p. 487]}. Perhaps feeling this, Runge was in no hurry to implement his project in oil, although the only painting in the cycle shows that the German artist really stood at the origins of the new romantic-symbolist art, which began to be realized to some extent only almost a century after Runge by symbolist artists (especially in the work of Denis, Redon, Churlenis, etc.) ^{[10, pp. 497-560]}.

 Let's turn to the most picturesque work "Morning". She is a picture within a picture. The main composition is placed in the middle with its own painted frame. Symbolic images are placed outside this frame. Along the edges are blooming flowers with their geniuses in the form of babies; under the frame there is a dark disk almost completely covering the sun, the upper edge of which only slightly peeks out from under the dark disk, but the sunlight bursts out and brightly illuminates the entire lower space. On the sides of the dark disk there are two babies floating in the air, trampling it with their feet, as if trying to move it from the sun. Above the frame, the blue sky is depicted framed by golden clouds, entirely consisting of faintly drawn heads of babies (angels? heavenly ranks?). White rays of light shoot up from under the upper edge of the frame, illuminating the sky and clouds. At the upper corners of the frame space, against the background of clouds, winged babies emerging from white lily flowers with their arms crossed on their chests, leaning towards the central painting.

The lower part of the centerpiece is occupied by an image of a meadow, in its center is placed a newborn baby shining with golden light, lying on its back framed by two flowering bushes. To the right and to the left, two babies are stretching their arms towards him from the clouds, almost touching the ground, as if guarding him. A strip of earth with a child occupies a small part of the painting, in the central part of it there is a sky shining with a golden sunrise, against its background in the center of the entire composition hovers the figure of a half-naked Aurora, radiating a golden radiance, the ray of which illuminates the child lying below. On both sides of Aurora are babies holding out their hands to her. Above the goddess of the Dawn hovers a huge flower of a blooming lily, on the petals of which sit six babies described in the early ecphrasis Runge, and on both sides of the flower soar four babies with wings. Above the lily there is still a pre-morning blue sky with three air spirits around the Morning Star. The whole picture is permeated with a golden glow emanating from Aurora.

Even from the verbal description it is clear that this is a symbolic and allegorical picture in which pictorial symbols play an important role. The central compositional places are now occupied not by flowers with their perfumes, but by a brightly lit newborn child playing and Aurora, illuminating everything with her morning golden light. They symbolize the birth of not only a new day, but also a new man, a new world that had just lain in pitch darkness, had actually been destroyed, according to Runge's cosmogonic theory, and was now beginning a new birth. With its golden luminosity, the painting evokes a joyful mood in the viewer; the joy of life and being. The colors in this painting, Steffens notes, "appear in their mystical meaning" ^{[7, p. 488]}. Everything in it indicates the approaching day, but it has not yet come, says an acquaintance of Runge, because the painting "Day" has not been painted. So the day of art is coming – asserts all of Runge's work and his theoretical judgments in letters – but it has not yet come.

We find a lot of judgments about art that have a clearly romantic connotation in the largest romantic landscape painter of that time, Caspar David Friedrich ^[11-15]. Having created highly spiritual canvases (mainly in the genre of traditional landscape), Friedrich understood the essence and meaning of art in general well. He was convinced that "art is, in fact, the center of the world, the center of the highest spiritual aspiration" ^{[7, p. 493]}. Genuine artists are always aware of this and move, although seemingly in different directions, but always towards the spiritual center of being ^[16]. In this regard, Friedrich divides the craft, which can and should be learned, and the "spiritual", which cannot be learned. The artist must already have it in himself, as something given by nature. "The spiritual in art," says the German romantic, "is above the narrow confines of craft. <...> If you want to learn how to express your feelings, your sensations through form and color, then you cannot master this simply as a practical skill, you cannot learn this" ^{[7, p. 510]}. The spiritual lives in the artist as an essential creative principle: "A spiritual personality is what is given to the artist" ^{[7, p. 517]}. Therefore, it must be understood that painting is in close connection with both the depicted object and the master depicting it, his inner world. Friedrich sees the main task of landscape painting, in particular, in the "spiritual comprehension of the subject", coupled with the intention to faithfully reproduce nature ^{[7, p. 517]}. That is, the painting should not be an exact copy of a natural phenomenon, but its appearance must be processed in the inner world of the artist, under the influence of his inherent spiritual principle ^[17-18].

So," writes Friedrich, "a certain artist claims that another artist XXX saw in the depicted object much of what is not in it. "And I appreciate what you condemn, because everything that I have seen in the subject of XXX perfectly and faithfully conveys the character of the subject and nature, emphasizes and preserves this character." And all this turned out to be possible because he is not spiritually blind, as soulless copyists of the appearance of a natural object are blind. At the same time, having spiritual vision, seeing in the subject what others do not see, the artist often cannot express in words what he wants to create, because it does not lend itself to verbal expression. Friedrich is convinced that there are many things in nature that are significant, sublime, and beautiful, but all this to a greater or lesser extent, therefore, is not always suitable for painting. And the artist in front of the easel should "feel what is beautiful" ^{[7, p. 510]}. Therefore, "the task of a true painter, obviously, is to depict the most beautiful, the most sublime and the most exciting" ^{[7, p. 511]}. Hence, in art, Friedrich is convinced, it is not so much "how" as "what" that is important, i.e. the spiritual content of art.

Friedrich's own work shows that he was able to combine both to the utmost, perfectly mastering the technique, expressing with its help a highly spiritual content through the landscape ^[17]. Therefore, he was categorically against soulless illusionism in painting, i.e. a purely artisan approach to the image, without expressing spirituality. "An illusion, like any deception, makes an unpleasant impression. This is how wax figures repel us – the stronger the illusion of similarity is. A painting should declare itself as a painting, the work of human hands, and not try to replace nature with itself" ^{[7, p. 516]}. The accurately depicted details, of course, attract attention, but behind this we must not forget about the holistic meaning of the picture. Copying reality, Friedrich repeatedly repeats, is not the purpose of art. It is a special man–made "mediator between nature and man", helps him to see the beautiful essence of nature ^{[7, p. 507]}.

Being convinced of the high role of art, Friedrich, like Runge, argued that an artist should be worthy of this role, i.e. he should be a highly spiritual, moral, noble person, and not just a skilled craftsman. He complains that his contemporaries do not understand this. "How many people call themselves artists, unaware that one skill is not enough for this. For many, the absurdity is that art should come from the depths of a person, that it depends on the moral and religious value of his soul. For only a pure, unclouded mirror can give a pure reflection, and in the same way a genuine work of art comes only from a pure soul" ^{[7, p. 508]}. An artist is like a child in this regard, and genuine art arises on the basis of a "pure childish soul." A noble artist "knows God in everything," and a low artist "sees form everywhere, not spirit" [Ibid.]. The artist himself must be a spiritual person so that his art is also permeated with the spiritual. Talking about one not very successful painting on a religious subject, Friedrich believes that for the execution of some plots "a deeper Christian soul endowed with a more subtle feeling is needed – simple pictorial techniques and skills are not enough here, as, we note, and always when it is necessary to create something solid, durable" ^{[7, p. 521]}.

Friedrich apparently felt such a soul in himself. True, he did not paint paintings on religious subjects proper, but even in his youth he created an altar image "Cross in the Mountains" (1808, New Masters Art Gallery, Dresden), gave its description and interpretation ^[16], which are of interest to us as an ecphrasis of his own creation, when the really embodied image (its description) is interspersed with its understanding by the artist and certain criticism. Friedrich was prompted to write this text by a certain critical article about his image, with the main reproaches of which the German artist did not agree. The description of the painting itself is brief and succinct: "On the top of the mountain there is a tall cross surrounded by evergreen fir trees, and evergreen ivy wraps around the base of the cross. The setting Sun casts its last rays, and the Savior on the cross shines in the purple of the evening dawn" ^{[7, pp. 494-494]}. This is one of Friedrich's early works, and the romantic and mystical spirit of many of his later works is already felt in it ^[19]. The crucifixion on a high cross enhances the Christian component of the spirituality of this painting, which in most later canvases has a more universal meaning. Here, since we have an altar image for one of the private chapels, Friedrich focuses on the Christian motif. The savior, the artist emphasizes, is made of the purest noble metal, therefore it shines in the rays of the evening dawn, and this radiance in a softened form extends to the earth. The cross stands firm on the mountain, "how strong is our faith in Jesus Christ. Evergreens at all times of the year stand around the spruce cross, like our hope for the Crucified One" ^{[7, p. 495]}. Friedrich pays no less attention than the painting itself and the golden frame, which is made according to his sketch. It consists of two lateral, Gothic-like columns, the tops of which are completed by palm branches forming a vault above the painting. "There are five angel heads in the palm branches, all of them prayerfully looking down at the cross. At the bottom, in the middle of an elongated rectangle, there is an all-seeing eye enclosed in a triangle and surrounded by rays." The grain ears and vines above the triangle symbolize, according to Friedrich, the blood and flesh of the Crucified ^{[7, p. 495]}.

This painting, the German romantic is convinced, actively affects the "feeling viewer", "touches" him as something spiritual, "creates a wonderful mood in him" and therefore is a genuine work of art aimed at expressing the truth. At the same time, there may be some technical flaws in the field of color and shape, Friedrich agrees with some of the criticism. However, he is convinced, if a painting is impeccable in shape and color, but leaves the viewer cold, then it does not achieve its purpose, it is not a genuine work of art. The German painter accepts the criticism that there are few contrasts in his painting, on which art should supposedly be based, but he does not consider this a disadvantage. In the heat of controversy, he declares himself "the sworn enemy of the so-called contrast" ^{[7, p. 496]}. It can be concluded that Friedrich means the need for the absence of contradiction between the form of the work and its spiritual content. Formally, he was hardly against the law of contrast, since he actively uses it both in the painting described and in his other canvases. In particular, the altar "Cross in the mountains" is formally built on the contrast of the dark mountain with the dark fir trees of the foreground and the luminous sky of the background of the most extensive plan.    

 It is no coincidence that Friedrich focuses on the fact that the picture should move the "feeling" viewer, i.e., first of all, it is addressed not to reason, but to feeling. He is convinced that it is feeling that plays the most important role in art. "The law for an artist is his feeling. Pure sensation cannot contradict nature, it can only correspond to it" ^{[7, p. 502]}. There are artists who are guided only by the knowledge of what they need to do, while others are guided only by feeling; Friedrich is convinced that for genuine art both are necessary with the primacy of feeling. For the human soul lives by feeling, and it is she who controls creativity, is the "art in us." Addressing the novice artist, the German painter teaches: "Every pure movement of the soul must be sacred to you – and every good feeling, because this is art in us! In the hour of inspiration, the movement of the soul becomes a visual form, and let this form become your painting" ^{[7, p. 501]}. An artist should depict not what he sees in front of him, but what he sees in himself. And if he does not see anything in himself, then he does not need to take up a brush – nothing good will come of it. The artist is required to see more than what is in front of his eyes. An inner vision based on a deep feeling is the basis of art ^[20]. It is not enough to learn composition and perspective – for a full–fledged painting, it is necessary that it is not just invented on the basis of painting techniques, but that it be "felt" ^{[7, p. 504]}.

The paintings of a certain artist of the twentieth century, Friedrich notes, are made with great technical skill, everything that the hand is capable of is realized here, "but it is in vain to look for something that would touch the heart and feeling." This artist, like many others, knows what art is and what its goals are, but does not feel it, has not penetrated the essence of art with his soul. The images of art must first of all be felt by the artist, only then can he begin to execute the painting, even if it is painted from nature. Happy is the artist whose "head, heart, and hand hold the step" ^{[7, p. 518]}. Analyzing a particular painting, Friedrich constantly fixes his attention precisely on the feeling, shows who has a picture based only on craft basics, and who knows how to be guided by his feeling, thereby influencing the feelings of the viewer. He never tires of repeating that "art is in the truest sense of the word the language of our feelings, our spiritual mood, art is even a reverent mood, it is our prayer." I cannot say for sure, Friedrich shares with the reader, what exactly I feel when contemplating a good painting, but "I feel that I am elevated, captured, excited", that this picture pleases me. It is not the plot that touches me, because it is trivial, and not the master's skillful use of a brush, "but the outpouring of a pure, excited soul" ^{[7, p. 519]}.

Talking about the painting that touched him so much, the German romantic notes that we praise its master for thoughtfulness, successful organization of composition and similar qualities, and all this – already clearly based on his artistic experience, Friedrich notes – "he developed unconsciously, because while he was creating his canvas, his soul dissolved into pure harmonic sounds and feeling became the law for him, and then the mood and spiritual uplift could only produce such a picture" ^{[7, p. 519]}. Friedrich, thus putting feeling before knowledge in the first place in art, is convinced that a genuine work of art arises on an unconscious basis, first of all, and acts on the unconscious sphere of the viewer, first of all. "It happens that a pious person prays without words, but the almighty hears him, and so a feeling artist writes, and a feeling person understands him and even not so sensitive still has a distant premonition of something" [Ibid.]. Here the German painter stands on a typically romantic position, internally arguing with the aesthetics of classicism, although, as we have seen more than once, he highly values both knowledge and craft techniques of art, but gives priority to the feeling and the unconscious sphere of the artist and the viewer.

Regularly addressing the issue of feeling in art, Friedrich even seems to leave beauty in the shade as its essential foundation, although, of course, he does not deny art it. However, he is prone to some uncertainty about the beautiful. "Who can know," he asks, "what is the only beautiful thing, and who can teach it?" ^{[7, p. 507]}. Many art critics are convinced that it is wonderful to imitate Italians and paint Italian landscapes. Friedrich himself found beauty and greatness in German landscapes, and most often in the north; he devoted his work to them, believing that the spiritual in art is best conveyed through northern landscapes – landscapes of his homeland (Friedrich's hometown Greifswald is the northernmost Germany). He is not a supporter of purely sensual beauty in art, does not agree in any way with the critic who claims that a beautiful face and a beautiful ass are equally worthy of a plastic image. "For my part," Friedrich declares, "I demand from art that it elevate the spirit, I demand a religious uplift – although not only this" ^{[7, p. 520]}.

Having paid much attention to art and its creator, the artist, showing that the personality of the artist, his spiritual world have a major impact on the emerging work of art, the German romantic is forced to note that the artist, nevertheless, is still under the influence of external factors. As a man of his time, he is significantly influenced by the epoch. And even the most brilliant artist cannot escape this influence: "people are not as free to rise above time and place as many people think" ^{[7, p. 522]}. In addition to the era, the artist is also influenced by fashion, which has its place in artistic circles. So, Friedrich complains, a few years ago everyone was pleased with the images of winter landscapes, but today no one is happy. Meanwhile, the white snow blanket of nature is "the embodiment of the highest purity", you can see the most delicate shades of colors on it, and it is also associated with a premonition of summer, when the colors of nature will be revived in all their richness and brightness. Many people also dislike clouded nature. "However, the area shrouded in fog seems wider, loftier, more majestic, it sharpens the imagination, we are looking forward to something - as if we see a girl in front of us, who is wrapped from head to toe in fur coats. The distance, lost in the haze, generally attracts the eye and imagination more strongly than the objects located under our noses. But what can you do, the mists and winter landscapes are now spat on" [Ibid.].

Resisting fashion, Friedrich himself painted many winter misty, morning, night landscapes, because they more expressed a new aesthetic view of nature – romantic. Winter landscapes are one of his favorite themes; at the same time, they are given not in daylight, but in twilight, when a snow shroud or fog hangs in the air, and distant plans slightly peek through a white or gray haze, appearing to be some kind of fantastic scenery. Often, ghostly temples, crucifixes, corners of ancient cemeteries with crooked crosses and tombstones, gnarled trunks of old withered trees, ruins of ancient structures can be seen through the snow or fog. All this is filled with Friedrich's special fantastic life and mystical spirituality.

He also loves moonlit landscapes. They are permeated by Friedrich's mysterious contemplative mood. He often portrays the contemplatives themselves. One of his favorite subjects is "Two men contemplating the moon" (for example: 1820, Gallery of New Masters, Dresden). The men are positioned with their backs to the viewer in the foreground of the painting, and then the night landscape unfolds with the rising moon, a gnarled old tree in the foreground, whose roots, partially protruding from the ground, stretch towards the moon, framing it from below; mossy huge stones around the tree, cold twilight light spilled across the sky – all this creates a romantic the mood actively affects the viewer. No less spiritually intense is the painting "Moonrise at Sea" (1823, National Gallery, Berlin). The foreground is occupied by huge boulders on the seashore. Three figures are sitting on them with their backs to the viewer – two women and a man. There are two sailboats at sea, the edge of the moon appeared above the horizon from behind a band of clouds, which brightly illuminates the strip of sea near the horizon and part of the sky above the moon; most of the sky is covered with slightly illuminated lilac clouds. The sea is blue purple closer to the shore. The painting gives the impression of peace and peaceful contemplation.

Both German romantic artists Runge and Friedrich not only managed to create works of a new artistic direction, but also contributed a lot to the formation of the aesthetics of romanticism proper, deeply comprehending art as the creator of a special mood and spiritual state of a person, elevating him above everyday reality. In this way, they largely anticipated the aesthetics of symbolism. Many of their views are still significant today, and their paintings have entered the treasury of world art as relevant at all times.