The Watzmann, 1824–25. Caspar David Friedrich. Oil on canvas. Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; loaned by Deka, Frankfurt am Main.
The Romantic era ushered in a new appreciation for mountains as sites of beauty and grandeur and emblems of the immense power and age of the earth. Friedrich responded to the period’s surging interest in the sights and sensations of high elevations in The Watzmann, a monumental painting of a peak in the Alps that he depicted in eye-catching detail, despite never seeing it firsthand. It was precisely the might of the mountains that appealed to the Romantics; to them, lofty peaks offered an encounter with the sublime—a mixture of beauty, danger, awe, and exultation.