51 of the 19th century, which can be illustrated, for example, with reference to the paper he used. Well into the 18th century, the only paper available in Europe was laid or handmade paper, recognisable by its ribbed structure and produced using a sieve formed of metal wires. All of Friedrich’s works on paper up until the early Dresden period – including the watercolours produced in Copenhagen in 1797 (figs. 2– 4, pp. 35–37) and the drawings in the early Berlin Sketchbook I and II, dated 1799/1800 – were executed on laid paper. The textured surface structure has a profound impact on the optical impression of works executed on laid paper. This is clearly evident, for example, in the tree studies found in the Berlin Sketchbook II (fig. 14). Through the use of laid paper, the drawing acquires its own grid structure, which has a strong effect in close-up viewing. More importantly, the screen structure of the paper shows through the lines of the drawn limbs and branches, shaping the character of the linework itself. For the generation that preceded Friedrich, these surface characteristics were increasingly perceived as a restriction. The resultant demand for absolutely smooth, fine paper was eventually accommodated by the English papermaker James Whatman, whose innovative wove paper or socalled ‘Vélin’ (as it was called on the continent, in evocation of vellum) was quickly disseminated throughout Europe beginning in the 1780s.11 Paper displaying the characteristic Whatman watermark is found on numerous 19th century works, including a large number by Friedrich.12 Wove first makes its appearance in his oeuvre around 1799. Friedrich required smooth paper in particular for executing portraits, for which he used black chalk with powerful hatching lines and extremely fine modelling for the face.13 The earliest landscape drawings executed on wove paper referenced by Grummt are The Regenstein in the Harz (Clifftop with Wooded Summit) (fig. 7, p. 172) and the drawings of the Large Mannheim Sketchbook of 1799, the earliest sketchbook consisting of wove paper. This sketchbook contains numerous vedute and precisely rendered depictions of architecture from the wider surroundings of Dresden and Saxon Switzerland but also the (no longer surviving) castle ruins of Wolgast near Usedom in formerly Swedish Pomerania (fig. 15).14 Notated here for the first time (alongside a number of abbreviations referring to a legend) are colour notations and information on the impressive thickness of the walls of the destroyed gunpowder tower (“11 Füß dick oben” – 11 feet thick at the top), and, at the entrance to the bridge in the foreground, notations on the proportions of a human figure, and alongside that, the word “Mann”.15 To facilitate later transfer, to an etching plate, for example, Friedrich has delimited the pictorial field and partially blackened the reverse of the drawing. In view of the subsequent development of Friedrich’s drawing style towards fine lines and accurate rendering, it hardly seems surprising that he switched almost entirely to wove paper around 1800. He exploited the new possibilities of this type of paper, visibly adjusting his working manner in relation to them, to the evident benefit of his artistic intentions. In contrast to his drawing paper, Friedrich seems to have been less exacting in choosing writing paper – clearly, far fewer aesthetic demands were made on the latter. As late as 1830 or thereabouts, letters and other texts were still being written on laid paper, often with watermarks of the kind no longer found in contemporaneous drawings. Examples are the watermarks with the Saxon coat of arms on his Äusserungen (“Remarks …”), or the watermark with crossed swords on a letter to Louise Seidler (fig. 1, p. 339).16 Later on, Friedrich used laid paper only in isolated instances, on occasion for architectural designs, for example.17 THE SKETCHBOOKS Although the switch to wove paper was virtually immediate, Friedrich’s technique changed only gradually. As earlier, he generally reworked his 14 Caspar David Friedrich Tree Studies (verso) Disbound Berlin Sketchbook II 7 April 1800 | CAT 28 15 Caspar David Friedrich Ruin on a Dyke (Powder Tower, Castle Ruins of Wolgast) Disbound Large Rügen Sketchbook c. October 1801 | CAT 59
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