Ernst Ferdinand Oehme - Dom im Winter - 1821

  

The artistic work of Ernst Ferdinand Oehme is uniquely represented in the Dresden collection with a total of ten works. Born in Dresden in 1797 as the son of a small tax official, Oehme was only able to begin his studies at the art academy in 1819. However, in the same year, he managed to become a student of Johan Christian Dahl, who then introduced him to Caspar David Friedrich. At the academy exhibition in 1821, Oehme presented his large painting "Cathedral in Winter," which unmistakably demonstrated his connection to Friedrich. This sensational early work, now a highlight of Oehme's in the Dresden gallery, attracted the interest of the Saxon Crown Prince Friedrich August II, to whom the young artist presented it as a gift. In the form of a towering and completely unscathed Gothic cathedral architecture, the medieval church is elevated here – unlike in Friedrich's metaphors of transience – to a newly hoped-for ideal image. The Christian church is the life-giving center of that longingly imagined world. Through the snow of the cold winter, the monks stride towards the candlelit high altar inside the sacred building, the erected cross becoming the center of a light phenomenon that promises to illuminate the dark space auspiciously and radiates warmth against the cold.

Source: Albertinum