Sunset

Sunset, painted in 1837 and now in the Hermitage Museum, is a late work from Friedrich's final productive years. By the late 1830s Friedrich was increasingly isolated, his Romantic vision having fallen out of fashion as younger artists embraced Realism and Biedermeier sentiment. The sunset — a natural metaphor for the closing of life — carries particular poignancy as a late-career subject. Friedrich had suffered a stroke in 1835 that limited his ability to work in oils, and his late paintings have a spare, haunted quality that intensifies their emotional impact. The Hermitage's Friedrich holdings reflect the historic cultural connections between the German-speaking world and the Russian Empire.

Friedrich reduces the composition to its most essential elements: horizontal bands of landscape silhouetted against a luminous sky. The warm sunset tones and the extreme simplicity of the forms create an image of contemplative finality characteristic of his last paintings.