Ernst Ferdinand Oehme, a pupil of Caspar David Friedrich, stayed faithful to his teacher's themes and motifs of haunting Nordic monastery courtyards covered in snow, Gothic churches at sunset, and castle ruins in the mountains, but he never aspired to the same spiritual heights.
Oehme here deviates from Friedrich's characteristic starkness in his emphasis on family, warmth, and human fellowship. The cozy bay window with its festively emblazoned Christmas tree relieves the otherwise ominous loneliness suggested by the solitary figure and the single Gothic spire. Oehme's unique ability to humanize the bleak elements of Friedrich's Romanticism best identifies him as a master of the late Biedermeier period.
Permanent collection label, 2001. Written by Laurie Winters, Curator of Earlier European Art.
