Print this page Romanticism to Realism: Friedrich, Menzel and Kollwitz

This course follows the evolution of German art across three generations through Caspar David Friedrich, Adolph Menzel and Käthe Kollwitz. Together, these artists reveal a powerful shift from Romantic contemplation to realism and, ultimately, to art as a witness to suffering and injustice. You’ll explore Friedrich’s visionary landscapes, Menzel’s uncompromising observation of reality, and Kollwitz’s stark commitment to representing inequality, war and human pain. A rich course for anyone interested in art history, modernity and the social role of art.

DELIVERY MODE

• Face-to-Face

COURSE OUTLINE

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840)

• Explore Friedrich's renewal of landscape painting, focusing on the "sublime"— a combination of awe, fear, and beauty that makes the viewer feel small in the face of nature’s power and God's presence.
• We will compare his use of the Rückenfigur to that of the earlier 18th century English painter Richard Wilson's expansive landscapes.
• The decline in Friedrich's popularity, as artistic tastes shifted toward realism, and his death in poverty and obscurity in Dresden.

Adolph Menzel (1815–1905)

• Examine his meticulous paintings of Prussian history and modern industrial life.
• His turn to scenes of modern life in the 1860s and 1870s, producing the groundbreaking, industrial masterpiece Iron Rolling Mill (1875).
• With his 10,000 surviving drawings, we will further see the reason for Menzel's reputation as one of the most technically brilliant draughtsmen in history.

Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945)

• We will examine Kollwitz position as one of the most prominent 20th-century artists of social protest.
• The influence of her family upbringing and the working class neighbourhood she and her husband Karl Kollwitz lived in, upon her work.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

1. Gain an overarching picture for the evolution of German art in terms of both the Romantic and Realist movements, through the lives of three of its most prominent artists.
2. Relate formal changes in art to both aesthetics and societal change.

COURSE RESOURCES

Suggested Reading:

• Caspar David Friedrich : The Soul of Nature, Alison Hokanson and Joanna Seidenstein ed., (Metropolitan Museum of Art: 2025).
• Werner Busch, Adolph Menzel: The Quest for Reality (Getty Publications: 2017).
• Käthe Kollwitz: A Retrospective, Starr Figura ed., (The Museum of Modern Art: 2024).