Caspar David Friedrich Stele Cribs

The approximately 1.50 meter high sandstone stele in Krippen was created by local stonemason Jan Lorenz. It shows a side portrait of Caspar David Friedrich and a relief of his painting "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog".

Caspar David Friedrich spent the most productive time of his life in Saxony. Friedrich came to Saxon Switzerland several times to hike and draw. From spring to summer 1813, the painter with the distinctive whiskers even lived here for several months at a time.

In the tranquil village of Krippen on the Elbe, in the house of his friend Friedrich Gotthelf Kummer, he sought refuge from the war and Napoleon, whom he hated. Saxony is the main theater of the Wars of Liberation. Prussians, Russians and French take it in turns to march through Dresden. The fateful Battle of the Nations near Leipzig is imminent.

Creating peaceful landscape impressions in a year of war: This is difficult for the sensitive and melancholic artist, who also sees himself as a patriot and takes a passionate interest in political events. "I've been out of Dresden for more than 14 days and live here in a very pleasant area. The stay here could be very useful for me if the events of the time had not so completely upset my mind and made me unable to start anything," he wrote in a letter to a friend on March 31.

Inspired by the mystical rocky world of Saxon Switzerland, he collected inspiration for later works in his "Krippen Sketchbook", including "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog".

The stele on the Bächelweg now commemorates this. In the style of historical signpost pillars, as they once gave the Romantic painters orientation in nature, it marks the starting point of the Caspar David Friedrich Trail.

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