The predominantly dark overall impression of the painting Cluster of Rocks (1) is created by the monochrome brown and green shades of the dense branches from the intermeshing trees, through which individual trees and branches emerge due to their darker coloring. They combine with a pile of boulders and a small pond in the foreground, however their tonality barely stands out, which is why the painting was considered unfinished. (2) The section of sky shining above the rocky ridge, the top of the fir tree on the left cut off by the upper edge of the painting, as well as the foreground closed off at the bottom by the surface of the water cause the painting to come across as highly segmented. Friedrich would further develop this cramped form which visually closes the painting in a series of pictures that deal primarily with political themes, including Tombs of Ancient Heroes and The Chasseur in the Woods. For two trees in this painting, the artist oriented himself, right down to the details, on a pencil study of two conifers that probably originated before 1811. (3)

Friedrich’s contemporaries pointed out both the painting’s sombriety as well as its trueness to life. In a letter to the lawyer and collector Dr. Ludwig Puttrich in Dresden dated June 9, 1811, the Dresden-based painter Gustav Heinrich Naeke wrote about several of Friedrich’s small-format paintings, including “Rocks,” whose effect he summarized by stating that “the whole thing is meant to have a somber tone.” (4) At least since the exhibition of his lost sepia My Burial in 1804, Friedrich’s art was now generally perceived as an expression of grief and gloom. (5) The reviewer in the Journal des Luxus und der Moden characterized the painting by Friedrich exhibited in 1812 at the Dresden Academy, known as Mountainous Landscape, as “faithfully lifted out of nature.“ (6) The temporal proximity and the context of Naeke’s letter has led to the assumption that the painting in question is what is now referred to as Rocks in the Harz Mountains. Because of its description in Journal des Luxus und der Moden in 1812, the painting it is also identified as the “mountainous landscape” presented in the Academy exhibition that same year.

Holger Birkholz, in: exh. cat. Hamburg 2023, p. 166.

(1) Börsch-Supan/Jähnig 1973, p. 319, n. 195.
(2) Neidhardt 1985, p. 7.
(3) Grummt 2011, vol. 2, p. 634, n. 656.
(4) Whereabouts unknown (the quote is from the archive of Karl Wilhelm Jähnig), cited from Börsch-Supan/Jähnig 1973, pp. 212 f.
(5) See Anonymous 1804, pp. 330 f.
(6) Anonymous (F. C.) 1812, p. 358.