Spring - Morning - Childhood (from the Cycle of Seasons, Times of Day, and Stages of Life, from 1803)

Created in 1803, Caspar David Friedrich’s Seasons marks the artist’s shift from faithful reproduction of nature to works characterized by their emphasis upon aesthetic quality, abundant use of allegory, and scrupulously constructed landscapes. Friedrich adopts the classical form of the picture cycle, representing the different times of day and seasons of the year in a total of four works. These encompass themes from natural, human, and cultural history, which depict people by reference to a range of different moods, ways of life, and careers. Friedrich lends a more ‘romanticizing’ note to the work by creating a new symbol of the modern citizen, forged out of an identity that is divided and yet ultimately reconciled with its own self. Here, the modern individual is ever mindful of and yearns for his creator, while being left to bear the responsibility of his own free will and his struggle through life.