The Networks 326 Werner Busch GEORG FRIEDRICH KERSTING (1785 –1847) Georg Friedrich Kersting produced a total of three paintings of Caspar David Friedrich at his easel in his studio.1 Despite their age difference of more than ten years, the two artists were close, and Friedrich may well have advised his younger friend in matters of his artistic training. Friedrich had studied at the Academy in Copenhagen from 1794 to 1798. Kersting was enrolled in Copenhagen from 1805 to 1808. When he subsequently came to Dresden on his planned travels to Italy, it was apparently Friedrich who persuaded him to stay and recommended that he enrol at the Dresden Academy. In July 1810, the two artists went on a walking tour of the Riesengebirge (Giant Mountains) together.2 Not long after their return, Kersting embarked on the first of his three paintings of Friedrich in the studio (fig. 1). The finished painting, dated 1811, was first exhibited that year at the Dresden Academy alongside a canvas of the same size and date showing the painter Gerhard von Kügelgen, also at work in his studio (fig. 2).3 Despite the comparable subject and interior setting, the paintings are fundamentally different in tone. We can safely say that they and subsequent works in the same vein should be read as programmatic. Friedrich’s bare studio is juxtaposed with Gerhard von Kügelgen’s cluttered space. Both artists are shown at work in a room with two tall windows, one of which is completely darkened, while the other has wooden shutters that cover the lower part. As recommended in contemporary treatises,4 this arrangement was said to create the best possible lighting for painters. If at all possible, the windows should be north-facing, so that the canvas would be lit by diffuse, indirect light only, which should come in at an angle from above to avoid glare. Friedrich, who is shown working on a landscape with a waterfall, has furnished his studio with extreme restraint. A small table with a few painting utensils on it is complemented by an arrangement of two palettes, a set square, a T-square and a ruler hanging on the wall and the boarded-up window in so conspicuous a manner that one wonders whether these tools were really hanging there or 1 Georg Friedrich Kersting Caspar David Friedrich in His Studio 1811 | CAT 272
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