Ernst Ferdinand Oehme - Prozession im Nebel - 1828

 

Oehme had dedicated his surprising early work, "Cathedral in Winter," inspired by Caspar David Friedrich, as a gift to the Saxon Prince Friedrich August II. He could henceforth enjoy the special patronage of this art-loving Wettin. A Saxon travel scholarship allowed him a coveted study stay in Italy from 1822 to 1825. Even after his return from the south, Friedrich's art continued to strongly influence him, as evidenced impressively by our work created in 1828. Closer even than the "Cathedral in Winter," this procession of monks in a sparse and mist-covered landscape aligns with Friedrich's visionary visual language. However, their vocabulary cannot be pronounced with equal weight because the understanding and inner coherence of this highly subjective language were accessible only to the genius loner himself. Thus, the procession of monks through the fog, following the cross, has been understood by contemporaries as a metaphor for human life (LIFE spelled backward as FOG) and for the ascent of humanity into eternity. However, the symbolic meaning of such pictorial signs as the bridge and the stone wayside cross remains somewhat unclear in the context of the whole. On the other hand, Oehme masterfully captured the natural phenomenon of fog, from which the outlines of trees and shrubs ghostly emerge, in a painterly manner.

Source: Albertinum