Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) is renowned as the Romantic painter par excellence, his works icons of an age of major social upheaval. His landscape paintings and drawings broke with traditional patterns of representation and paved new ways of both experiencing and reflecting on the ambivalent relationship between humankind and nature.

Accompanying the most comprehensive Friedrich retrospective in many years, this catalogue reexamines the artist's groundbreaking work in light of the current climate crisis and postcolonial reflection. It centers on more than sixty paintings and about one hundred drawings. Selected works by Friedrich's contemporaries, notably August Heinrich, Georg Friedrich Kersting, Ernst Ferdinand Oehme, and Johann Alexander Thiele are also featured.

The second part of Caspar David Friedrich focuses on the contemporary reception of his work. In contributions ranging from video and photography to installations, some twenty artists working across a variety of genres and media explore the Romantic era, its attitude to nature, and the art of Friedrich. The participants include Alex Grein, Swaantje Güntzel, Jochen Hein, Johanna Karlsson, Hiroyuki Masuyama, Loudmila Milanova, Mariele Neudecker, Ulrike Rosenbach, Susan Schuppli, Santeri Tuori, and Kehinde Wiley.