Caspar David Friedrich
Oak in the Snow
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- Oil on canvas, 71 x 48 cm .
- National Gallery, Berlin
- 1829
In this late picture, Friedrich once again selects a tree as his central focus. And once again it is in winter. This time, a winter so punishing that it has stripped off the branches of the tree, and they lay scattered about..
The symbolism of this broken tree becomes clearly only when we look into the background, and see an imposing city (strongly resembling Dresden) arising across a river (strongly resembly the Elbe).