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

 

 

 

 

Learning about Picasso

For the past six weeks, I’ve been taking a WEA course on Picasso. Caroline Levisse, our tutor, has the happy knack of being informal, and inviting questions of those attending, while also having an in-depth knowledge of art history. As a result, the group had its own dynamic and it was interesting to hear what members had to say about Picasso, his life, and the many varieties of his art – from paintings, through sculpture, to ceramics and much else [1].

Most were very enthusiastic about what they saw, and we were all happy to acknowledge that Picasso was an extraordinarily talented artist and, probably, a great one. Others, while admiring his virtuosity, were left to question why they didn’t “get” some of his art, even that which was based on artists whose work they did react to positively. I was one of the dissenters, and was relieved when one of the class members said he admired Guernica (see above), but was not especially moved by it. His comment came as a relief to me, as I found it difficult to engage with much of Picasso’s work and I started to wonder why.

Since I was young, I have loved looking at paintings and have tried to interpret what I see. As an undergraduate, I made many visits to the National and Tate Galleries in London and attempted to learn more by listening to talks and by reading. Some paintings made an instant impact on me, some took more time, and some left me baffled. Regrettably, much modern art fell into the latter category, but I was bowled over by the large-scale paintings by Turner: one of them, Sun Setting over a Lake, is shown below.

In contrast to Picasso, Turner’s work focussed on the “essence” of the world around us. He had the skill to paint portraits and, as James Hamilton writes [2]: 

Turner’s education as an artist was running on a number of fronts in the early 1790s [when in his teens]. He followed the standard Academy tuition of drawing from casts of antique sculpture, in preparation for the Life Class, which he entered on 25th June 1792.. .. Through the evidence of two self-portraits made at the beginning and end of the decade, Turner had more than a passing interest in becoming competent in portraiture, and must have taken lessons in it. All this was available to every other ambitious artist of his generation; but what stands out in Turner’s case is the breadth of his interest, and his dogged refusal to specialise. At all times he kept a weather eye open for opportunities to make money out of his art. 

From Hamilton’s description, we see parallels with Picasso: both had a rare talent for several categories of painting (and Picasso had many other creative outlets) and both had an interest in the monetary value of their work. To this can be added their enjoyment of a messy studio, and a powerful impulse to draw and paint at every opportunity. Both were strongly egocentric and driven men and there is an interesting “compare and contrast exercise" for someone interested in those aspects of their lives.

In Turner’s works, people play an ancillary role to the landscape in which they are portrayed: in his classical works in the style of Claude, the distant figures give scale and this is true also of other works, like Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (see above), where the many members of the army give the scene a strong sense of the sublime. Picasso, on the other hand, used a strongly anthropocentric approach and most of his works featured portraits of one kind or another and, while the contents of houses had a role in providing a setting, landscape did not.

Is this why I find it difficult to appreciate Picasso’s work, while being moved by that of Turner? Is it that I find Picasso’s use of strong lines challenging and find the more diffuse shapes in Turner’s work easier to relate to? What is certain is that I am a Romantic and I have also been shaped by my career in biology, with over forty years’ of research on animals, plants, microorganisms, and the environment in which they live. While recognising that humans are unique, and very highly evolved, I am aware that we are animals that are intimately linked to the natural world, even though we can isolate ourselves from it. That form of thinking must have come early in my life, for I always liked solitary walks along the coasts and lanes of Devonshire while growing up. Maybe that is the root of my Romanticism and why I can respect Picasso as a great artist, but find his work puzzling?

[1] James Voorhies (2004) Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pica/hd_pica.htm

[2] James Hamilton (1997) Turner, a Life. London, Hodder and Stoughton.