“Die Fichte sticht, die Tanne nicht” (“the spruce pricks, not the fir”) goes the German saying, yet in spite of this it can be difficult to distinguish between spruce and fir trees—especially when they are painted in oil. Both can be seen in Early Snow: (1) fir trees line the path that leads from the foreground into the forest; spruce trees form an almost impenetrable front that only allows a glimpse of clouded blue sky at the upper edge of the picture. Exactly on the central vertical axis, its sprawling branches framed by the left and right verticals of the Golden Ratio, a spruce tree covered in soft snow stands out against the dark trunks of the forest.

Descriptions of this picture persistently mention both types of conifer: on the occasion of its first presentation in 1828, the painting appears as Spruce Forest in Winter in the Artistisches Notizenblatt; (2) fourteen years later, in 1842, it was sold posthumously from the collection of Georg Andreas Reimers as Fir Forest in Winter. The botanical classification is of scholarly significance: Friedrich himself compared the evergreen fir with the everlasting hope of those who have faith in Christ—according to one of his rare statements about his art, which he felt compelled to make in the so-called Ramdohr dispute concerning his painting The Cross in the Mountains (Tetschen Altar). (3) In Friedrich’s oeuvre, Early Snow is closely related to The Chasseur in the Woods. The latter was created around 1813, which is why the image of the soldier—possibly French—lost in the menacingly lonely winter forest is generally interpreted as an instance of Friedrich’s political commentary. Compositionally, the two paintings can hardly be distinguished; the main difference lies in the absence of man and raven. The patriotic dimension undoubtedly recedes in Early Snow,4 which is perhaps also expressed in its smaller format. Without a reflective figure, the gaze is drawn directly into the forest, which nevertheless creates a certain feeling of loneliness. While Börsch-Supan equated the spruces in Chasseur with the closed ranks of German freedom fighters, in Early Snow they embodied Christianity’s hope for resurrection. (5) Interpreted as a metaphor for the desire for redemption, Early Snow could be seen as a counterpart to Easter Morning or to Hamburg’s Pine Forest with a Waterfall.

Friedrich, who often drew on his hikes to create pictorial elements for later paintings, must have experienced the forest – in Saxony, for example – as being threatened by human intervention. Due to industrialization, the forest population was at its lowest level in Germany to date. In a time without electric lighting, the forest was considered a threatening place that could be fatal for solitary wanderers. With global warming in the Anthropocene, wherein human behavior has become the decisive factor for nature, the spruce (unlike the fir) is increasingly endangered. Although they can live for several hundred years, insect infestation and falling groundwater levels mean that the conifers, which are essential for German forestry, are becoming increasingly powerless.

Clara Blomeyer, in: exh. cat. Hamburg 2023, p. 180.

(1) Börsch-Supan/Jähnig 1973, pp. 412–14, no. 363.
(2) Ibid., pp. 112 and 412.
(3) Friedrich/Zschoche 2006, p. 53.
(4) Börsch-Supan/Jähnig 1973, p. 413.
(5) See ibid., pp. 327 and 413.