Morning mist in the mountains

Friedrich painted this in 1808, early in the career that would make him the great German painter of Romantic landscape. It is startling for how little it shows. A single mountain, based on the Honigstein rocks near Rathen on the Elbe, rises out of drifting cloud, with large stretches of the canvas given over entirely to mist. Look closely at the summit and there is a tiny cross, almost lost against the sky, Friedrich's quiet suggestion that the divine reveals itself only to those who look for it. The painting was bought by the ruling family of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, early champions of the Romantics, which is how it came to their residence at Rudolstadt, where it hangs today.