Friedrich’s portrait-format composition The Chasseur in the Woods is an image of suggestive power. (1) We see from behind the figure of a soldier in a blue cape, with a gold helmet and low-hanging saber, standing on the edge of a coniferous forest in a tiny clearing. Spruces tower immediately in front of him, occupying a large part of the picture plane, blocking it off in the middle ground, and permitting a little cloudy sky to be seen only on the upper edge. Two groups of young trees are distributed with striking symmetry; they are partly dusted with snow in the foreground on the left and right.

The lone solider pauses. He has clearly become separated from his company or reconnaissance party. He seems small and lost in the middle of the wintry landscape, which because of Friederich’s composition looks as if it had woken up to menacing activity. But there is no path to lead him out of the unfortunate situation. His gaze may follow the reddish-brown trunks for a time but it quickly gets lost in the dark, making one think of the myth of the impenetrable German forest, which was evoked increasingly in the years of the Napoleonic Wars. (2) The trees standing close to one another also convey a sense of closed ranks and can thus be interpreted as an associative reference to the army of the liberation fighters. (3)

But neither is any way out visible behind the soldier. The stumps of two sawn-down trees illustrate not only human intervention in nature but were – like the raven as well – common symbols of death at the time. Friedrich’s chosen visual idiom can therefore be read as implying that the figure’s existence is acutely threatened. (4) Although the painter did not choose to characterize him by his uniform as a French solider or to make clear political statements, (5) there are good reasons for that reading against the backdrop of the stoked atmosphere of the time. (6)

Friedrich understood the forest of his homeland as a place fraught with patriotic meaning, as is clear in a pencil drawing from July 20, 1813 – and hence a good month before the Battle of Dresden (August 26–27). (7) Condensed almost into an emblem, we see a group of conifers, with several smaller deciduous trees in front of them. At top right the artist inscribed the sheet with the following militant appeal: “Arms yourselves, / people, for the new battle of German Men / Hail your weapons!“ (8)

Markus Bertsch, in: exh. cat. Hamburg 2023, p. 174

(1) Börsch-Supan/Jähnig 1973, pp. 327 f., no. 207.
(2) Exh. cat. Frankfurt am Main/Weimar 1994, p. 472; Howoldt 2006, p. 65; Grave 2023, pp. 134 f.
(3) Börsch-Supan/Jähnig 1973, p. 327; Vogel 2006, p. 106.
(4) The painting was already interpreted in this sense by its first owner, Prince Malte von Putbus: “It is a winter landscape, the rider, whose horse has already gone missing, is rushing into arms of Death; a raven caws the song of death to him. This painting too, like almost all of the master’s works, is mystical, terrifying, and gloomy.“ Cited in Aubert 1911, p. 610. See Börsch-Supan/Jähnig 1973, p. 327.
(5) Exh. cat. Madrid 1992, pp. 152–54; exh. cat. Frankfurt am Main/Weimar 1994, p. 472; Howoldt 2006, p. 65; Zuchowski 2021, p. 375.
(6) When the painting was shown in the exhibition at the academy in Berlin in the autumn of 1814, the Vossische Zeitung of December 8 spoke explicitly of a “French chasseur.” Cited in Aubert 1911, p. 610.
(7) Grummt 2011, vol. 2, pp. 657 f., no. 698. See Vogel 2006, pp. 103 f.
(8) Grummt 2011, vol. 2, p. 657.