Graveyard under Snow

In 1824 the chair of landscape painting at the Dresden Academy came free, and Friedrich, who had waited years for it, was passed over. He was given an associate professorship instead. Two years of illness and low spirits followed, in which he painted very little, and in 1826 he went north to Rugen, the Baltic island he came from, to take a cure. It was the last time he saw it. This snow-covered graveyard dates from that same year. Churchyard gates and grave slabs run through 40 years of his work, very often in winter light. After a stroke in 1835 he could no longer handle oils at all, and spent his last years on small sepia drawings.