燃烧中的新勃兰登堡

By the mid-1830s Caspar David Friedrich had fallen out of fashion. The Romantic mood he had helped define was fading, money was short, and in 1835 a stroke left him barely able to handle oils. This comes from those last years, and it was never finished. Look closely and much of it is still underdrawing and thin underpaint. The town on the horizon is Neubrandenburg, where his parents came from and his siblings still lived. It appears to be burning, though no great fire is recorded there in his lifetime. He may have been remembering older blazes, from the 1600s and 1700s, or the glow may simply be a sunrise. The picture stays unfinished, and even its name is unsettled, remembered as both a burning town and a sunrise.