The Painter 284 5 Caspar David Friedrich View over the Elbe Valley | 1808 Detail of fig. 24, p. 143 Foreground with visible vertical scratch in ground layer. 6 Caspar David Friedrich The Cross in the Mountains | 1807/1808 Cross-section (12948) of sample taken from left-hand edge of sky. Layers 1, 2: Ochre-coloured ground Layer 3: Patchy white ground Layer 4: Thin layer of violet containing splinters of blue smalt and particles of red cinnabar Layer 5: Very thin layer of pale-yellow paint. Thicket in the Snow (BS/J 360) illustrate, it is by no means a given that Friedrich invariably painted his pendants on canvases from the same roll. GROUND All of Friedrich’s paintings on canvas are executed in numerous layers applied over a ground whose colour, texture, and absorbency have a direct influence on the application of the paint layers and, with it, on the visual effect of the work. There has been much debate and a great deal of contradictory information about the question as to whether Friedrich prepared his canvases himself. The evidence gathered thus far shows that, like many of his contemporaries, he used commercially primed canvas, cut to size from long lengths of cloth. At the beginning of the 19th century, there were several suppliers in Dresden, some of them known to us by name, who sold primed fabric supports in various colours.21 The grounds of the Dresden paintings consist of two to four thin layers. While the lower layers were evidently applied with large palette knives, socalled priming knives, which left undulating marks that can be seen in the X-ray image (fig. 4), brushes were used for the top layer. The characteristic striations often left by the bristles still 4 Caspar David Friedrich Bohemian Landscape with Mount Milleschauer | 1808 See fig. 2, p. 268 X-radiograph revealing undulating strokes left by priming knife in ground layer containing lead white. 5 4 3 2 1
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