“It is quite interesting to view the last three paintings by the recently deceased Professor Friedrich: he received considerable attention around 30 years ago, being the first artist capable of imbuing landscapes with allegorical meaning, a departure from the style customary at the time; it is a pity that later he became too one-sided by virtue of his somber melancholia; these paintings were executed in 1835 […]. The larger landscape depicts a ‘Hay Harvest with Looming Thunderstorm’, and recalls a place in Pomerania, from whence the artist hailed; the two smaller ones depict ‘A Mountain Summit with a Wooded Rise’ and ‘The Moon above Ruins with Gathering Thunderstorm’; for all their fleetingness there is true substance to their beauty; in the first and third, the artist’s imagination has evidently divined apparitions in the shapes of the clouds; gazing at these airy forms at a distance from the painting, with their luminous halos, one can almost see a hovering choir of angels above the ruined monastery; but step closer and the illusion vanishes, as is so often the case in nature itself.” – anonymous author, “Über die dießjährige Dresdner Kunstausstellung im August 1840,” in Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, Literatur, Theater und Mode, 1840, p. 1203.