Church and Graveyard in the Snow by Moonlight
Carl Blechen (German, 1798-1840)
1827
- Medium
- Lithograph, with gray tone block on cream wove paper
- Classification
- Dimensions
- Image: 41.4 × 35.9 cm (16 5/16 × 14 3/16 in.); Plate: 43.4 × 37.8 cm (17 1/8 × 14 15/16 in.); Sheet: 55.9 × 45 cm (22 1/16 × 17 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- Germany
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Suzanne Lord Folds, Harold Joachim, William McCallin McKee, John H. Wrenn Memorial and Prints and Drawings Purchase endowment funds
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Blechen’s melancholy, monumental lithograph makes eloquent use of a gray tint block to evoke a snowy landscape and a sense of stillness. A lone man, cloak fluttering in the wind, has appeared surreptitiously at night to pay his respects to the dead. Perhaps in this moment he encounters his secret lover’s final resting place. Momentarily overcome with grief, he steadies himself on the plinth beneath a sculpture of the Madonna and Child.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
