Memories of the Giant Mountains

Friedrich walked the Giant Mountains, on the old border of Bohemia and Silesia, back in 1810, sketching as he climbed. He painted this view about 25 years later, in 1835, which is why it's called a memory rather than a place. No single spot looks quite like this. He assembled the ridge from things he had seen and carried home, thinning the peaks into pale, receding layers until the rock seems to dissolve into weather. That same year, 1835, Friedrich suffered a stroke that left him barely able to paint. Landscapes like this, stitched together from decades-old walking notes, were how the German Romantic worked: outdoors for the looking, indoors for the making.