Oak trees and thoughts on Caspar David Friedrich’s painting “The Lone Tree”

Caspar David Friedrich’s painting Der einsame Baum (“The Lone Tree”) (see below, upper) features an oak tree that demands the attention of the observer. Clouds seem to form a shallow dome over it and the foothills of the distant mountains behind the tree slope down on either side to further emphasise its presence. The tree retains most of its leaves, but the uppermost branches appear dead and this is a feature of old oak trees [1,2]. Without going into the complex causes of this dieback, it is common to see oak trees with apparently dead branches in the crown. I saw a pedunculate oak (Quercus robur) with dead branches while driving through Forncett in Norfolk (see below, lower – I should state that I parked my motor car before taking the image using my mobile telephone). Further examples can be seen in three oaks from an avenue in Berkhamsted (shown below, bottom), with a vigorous healthy tree on the left; a tree with some die-back in the centre; and a tree with more developed die-back on the right. It is highly unlikely that leaves will re-appear in these dead and dying branches in future seasons.

Many deciduous trees that produce new leaves in spring also show a powerful ability to regenerate after having been damaged, often intentionally by tree surgeons [3]. We have a local example: a London plane that recovered its loss of leaves after a few months (see below). When the tree had its branches lopped, I felt a little sad, but I knew that the tree would recover and produce new shoots and leaves. It was quite different to watching the leaves falling in autumn, itself a mildly sad event, although I know that this promotes the essential cycling of organic matter. Once dead, however, even deciduous trees are not going to recover and they leave a ghostly lattice of branches that have their own appeal, not just to Friedrich but to other artists, like David Hockney or Trevor Grimshaw [4,5].

Looking at Friedrich’s painting Der einsame Baum (“The Lone Tree”) in more detail, we see the symbolism involved. Of course, we don’t know what the artist was thinking when he painted the work, but we can attempt some explanations. I take as my excuse for making this analysis a quote attributed to Friedrich and given in Grave’s book [6] “…thus it is a great merit, maybe the greatest thing the artist is capable of, when he touches the spirit and arouses thoughts, feelings and emotions in the beholder, even if these are not his own”.

In the distance are massive mountains, showing the blue colouring of Rayleigh scattering that indicates that they are far away. Our vision thus meets a barrier, a device used by many painters, and we are deflected back to the main subjects of the work. As we come “out” of the painting and away from the sloping foothills, we see smoke from the chimneys of houses in a village that also has a church with a spire (see below, upper). The plain is then crossed by a row of trees with cottages and what appears to be a ruined church, and nearer to us are more trees growing next to a pond and some of the oaks have dieback in their upper branches (see below, lower). Dieback here appears advanced and there is the stump of one tree, indicating the eventual fate of all of them. Then we come to our main subject, the solitary oak, against the trunk of which rests a shepherd, with his flock scattered around him, while the foreground also has another pond. The painting was one of a pair commissioned by Joachim Wagener and completed in 1822, the other being Moonrise over the Sea. They were to represent evening and morning, so we know that Der einsame Baum shows the morning light and the shepherd has been with his flock from the early hours, if not through the night. We can also surmise that it is early autumn as the smoke coming from chimneys suggests a chill in the air, yet the tees are in full leaf.

So, what of the symbolism? I will describe my interpretation using headings.

The mountains

The mountains not only provide a backdrop for the scene, but they are also massive and continue into the distance. Their magnificence is awe-inspiring and reminds us of the sublime and, in turn, the peacefulness of the rural scene that we focus upon.

The church(es)

The churches are symbols of Christianity and all that is involved in that religion. We assume that Christianity is important to those living in the village, who will thus believe in Heaven, and in life after death, accepting that Jesus Christ died, and was resurrected, to save us from sin. The painting also suggests strongly the importance of Nature as a source of spirituality, something that was of special importance to Friedrich [6]. As Caroline Levisse writes: “ …according to Friedrich, it is possible to find in the world around us scenery, objects, and phenomena that can elicit a religious experience” [7]. (If the building in the near distance is a ruined church, I cannot provide an explanation for its existence in the painting, other than that it is based on a real landscape. Why is it ruined, if it is a church?).

Impending death

Oak trees showing naked branches at the crown are likely dying and thus present a metaphor for our own impending death. This is a dominant feature of the lone oak we see and, while it continues to live after shedding its leaves in autumn and then producing more in spring, it has only a limited time span before it dies and becomes a stump. Stumps have strong appeal and a local example (see below, upper [and since fallen]) became a totem for me, just as the stump of a felled tree in east Yorkshire did for David Hockney until it was vandalised [4] (below, lower). Looking at the oak in Friedrich’s painting, we thus drift to thoughts of our own death, while continuing to be alive, even after parts of our body begin to fail (although we are nor deciduous, of course).

The living oak tree produces successors that grow from acorns, and many humans produce offspring that survive us. This leads us to the idea that life continues after death, reminding us of the selfish gene concept and the “immortality” of genes. Thoughts then turn to the idea of life after death and whether there is a hereafter for the soul, or not. Then we are drawn to ideas of reincarnation on Earth or the passage to some spiritual domain, both of which can bring comfort.

Isolation and loneliness

The isolation of the oak tree poses an important question from a biological perspective – how did it get here? It will have grown from an acorn, but how did the acorn get to this position, when there is no evidence of there being a parent oak tree or, indeed, other oak trees close by? Perhaps it was carried by an animal, or moved there by a child?

I asked members of my family what the painting meant to them and the dominant reply was a sense of loneliness, fitting given the title of the work and its focus on dying. In the time leading up to death it is possible to be very lonely; after all we are the ones going through the process. We die alone and we are likely to feel the loneliness of this in our last hours or days, even when surrounded by family.

The shepherd

As the painting is set in the early morning, and the shepherd is with his flock (see below), and may have been through the night, he is clearly both attentive and protective. This reminds us of Jesus as the Good Shepherd quoted in St John’s gospel in the Holy Bible (Authorised King James Version, chapter 10 verse 14): “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.” The symbolism in Friedrich’s painting may thus carry the Christian message that, after death, one’s soul can only enter Heaven if we are in the flock of Christian believers.

Water

Trees require water to grow and it is transmitted to their leaves via a complex of xylem vessels. It is then, together with carbon dioxide and sunlight, converted into simple sugars during photosynthesis, a process that is mediated by the green pigment chlorophyll. Trees without leaves, like those that are lopped or have dying branches, will have a reduced ability to generate sugars and, unless more leaves are produced, the tree will not produce sufficient energy to maintain growth or, in some cases, survival. Water is thus essential for tree growth and the lone oak in Der einsame Baum is located next to a pond, so water is unlikely to be limiting.

We are again drawn to St John’s Gospel in the Holy Bible (Authorised King James Version, chapter 4 verse 14): “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I [Jesus] shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” This reference to water, so important for living organisms, means that the ponds shown in Friedrich’s painting provide us with a metaphor for the importance of Christian faith in allowing eternal life

It all points to Friedrich’s Christian religious beliefs. Crosses, large crucifixes and churches feature prominently in his work, alongside trees and landscapes. Whether one is sympathetic to his beliefs, or not, the subjects in Der einsame Baum show how paintings can offer us thought-provoking images that capitalise on our fear of ageing and death and how this fear can be alleviated. One can only wonder what was in Friedrich’s mind when he created the work and ponder whether it was anything like my interpretation That aside, it’s a marvellous painting by a true Romantic.

[1] https://ati.woodlandtrust.org.uk/how-to-record/species-guides/oak/

[2] https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/tools-and-resources/fthr/pest-and-disease-resources/chronic-oak-decline-dieback/

[3] https://penritharborist.com.au/the-future-protecting-that-trees-regenerate-after-being-cut-down-for-a-sustainable-environment

[4] Martin Gayford (2016) A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney. Thames & Hudson, London.

[5] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2022/09/trevor-grimshaw-and-caspar-david.html

[6] Johannes Grave (2012) Caspar David Friedrich. Prestel, Munich

[7] https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2024/31-may/features/features/caspar-david-friedrich-faith-on-canvas

 

 

 

 

Death of a devout Christian

We don’t like talking about death, yet it is a natural process that we must all go through. The stages of dying are described factually in The Natural Death Handbook [1] and anyone fearing the event will hopefully be comforted by the account given in the book. That also applies to those around the dying patient, as it is as hard for the watchers as it is for the dying: shown clearly in Edvard Munch’s painting By The Death Bed (1896):

Of course, death can also be sudden and dramatic and the act of dying may not follow the sequence described in the book. There is also the emotional involvement in the process that religious belief has conditioned into us. In Christianity, death is the end of our time on Earth before our soul passes to an afterlife and, hopefully, entry to Heaven. The “fire and brimstone” school of Protestant preaching is designed to make us scared of the alternative: something that might happen if we move away from a particular set of religious beliefs and practices that some preachers espouse.

Although I am not a Christian, I would have thought that belief in Heaven and the death of Jesus to save our souls would bring comfort, but I wonder if it does? To try and find an answer, I wanted to see what happened to Philip Henry Gosse as he was among the most devout Christians that I have read about.

Gosse was an outstanding naturalist and achieved both popular, and scientific, fame from his books, papers and lectures. It can be argued that the most important events of Henry Gosse’s life were the death of his first wife Emily; his young son Edmund being “saved”; and the challenge to Creation (as described in Genesis) provided by ideas on evolution and the concept of geological time. He was a member of the Brethren (leading his own group) and had a profound belief in the imminence of the Second Coming, when believers would be carried up to Heaven in rapture.

Emily died of breast cancer [2] after being subjected to an “alternative” treatment that was more like quack medicine. During her final days, Henry was busy on writing and natural history projects, so Edmund and Emily spent much time together. Later, Henry wrote an account of Emily’s last days and I have not read it, nor am I likely to, as there are few copies still in existence [3]. She had a deep Christian faith and, while suffering a great deal of pain, I imagine that, at the end, she was happy to make the transition to Heaven, her main anxiety being that Edmund would be “saved” after the adult baptism that the Brethren practised.

As it turned out, Henry arranged that Edmund would be baptised as an “adult believer” three weeks after his 10th birthday, an act so unusual that people came to Torquay from miles around to witness the act. In his autobiography, Edmund, too, recognised that this was a very significant event in his life [4], but he went on to reject the rigid beliefs that Henry followed and this caused much tension between the two men. Edmund was also very involved in the Arts World of the time and Henry could not identify with this, or with Darwin’s important work in promoting ideas on evolution. In the year that Emily died, Henry had published Omphalos [5], that contained his theory that everything was created in six days; even rock strata that appeared to be millions of years old and which contained the fossilised remains of plant and animals. Unsurprisingly, Omphalos was rejected by both the scientific, and religious, communities and this further isolated Henry, making him even less able to shift from his strict literalist stance. I’m not sure how happy he was after becoming estranged from Edmund; being ridiculed by some readers of Omphalos; and generally worrying about being on the straight and narrow, although he was so dogmatic on that front that his passport to Heaven must have been assured in his own mind. 

He did enjoy the company of his grandchildren (the photograph above shows him in old age) and Edmund describes a happy time when the family spent 19th September 1887 at Goodrington, collecting along the shore [6]. It was shortly after this that Henry became ill with congestive heart disease and he died at “Sandhurst”, his home in Torquay, a little before 1 a.m. on 23rd August 1888; his nurse recording his last words as “It is all over. The Lord is near! I am going to my reward!” [7]. It was a peaceful end, as one would expect of someone with such a strong religious faith. Yet we know that, in the days before, Henry was angry with God, as his belief in the Second Coming was so strong that he hadn’t contemplated the act of dying that he had seen Emily pass through. How odd that such a devout Christian felt let down by God because he had to die, even though this is the fate of all humans.

Henry’s final days are described by Eliza [7]:

Even within the last fortnight, seeing me distressed, he said, “Oh, darling, don’t trouble. It is not too late; even now the Blessed Lord may come and take us both up together.” I believe he was buoyed up almost to the last with this strong hope.

Although Eliza describes being supported by Henry, Ann Thwaite [8], in her brilliant biography, details Henry’s own distress:

Eliza said that, though Henry Gosse had never had a revelation that he would himself be “one of the favoured saints who shall never taste of death”, he had waited and hoped and prayed. “This hope of being caught up before death continued to the last and its non-fulfilment was an acute disappointment to him. It undoubtedly was connected to the deep dejection of his latest hours on earth.”

So, does a religious faith help us when dying? I guess it all depends on the nature of one’s beliefs, whether one feels bad about past misdemeanours, and whether there are terrible threats of what might happen if one is on the wrong side in the afterlife. Of course, I don’t know whether I will make a deathbed religious conversion and I have no idea when, or how, I will die. However, I’m grateful to have been able to be broad and imaginative in my thinking and not constrained to what seems like the straitjacket of religious belief. Fancy going through all that for nothing.

  

[1] Stephanie Wienrich and Josefine Speyer (eds.) (2003) The Natural Death Handbook. London, Rider.

[2] Robert Boyd (2004) Emily Gosse. Bath, Olivet Books.

[3] R.B.Freeman and Douglas Wertheimer (1980) Philip Henry Gosse – A Bibliography. Folkestone, Dawson.

[4] Edmund Gosse (1907) Father and Son: a study of two temperaments. London, William Heinemann.

[5] Philip Henry Gosse (1857) Omphalos: an attempt to untie the geological knot. London, John Van Voorst.

[6] Edmund Gosse (1896) The Naturalist of the Sea-shore: the life of Philip Henry Gosse. London, William Heinemann.

[7] Eliza Gosse (1896) Appendix I in Edmund Gosse (1896) The Naturalist of the Sea-shore: the life of Philip Henry Gosse. London, William Heinemann.

[8] Ann Thwaite (2002) Glimpses of the Wonderful: the life of Philip Henry Gosse 1810-1888. London, Faber and Faber.