Rugged table mountain in Schöna - a place of inspiration for Caspar David Friedrich
The Kaiserkrone is a heavily abraded and jagged remnant of a table mountain, which, together with the higher Zirkelstein, rises above the flatness of Schöna, directly on the edge of the village in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains.
"Felsige Kuppe" is the name Caspar David Friedrich gave to the delicate pencil drawing he made on paper on 3 June 1813 on the Kaiserkrone table mountain, not far from the village of Schöna. He had only started drawing again two days earlier, after several months of creative crisis triggered by the events of the war. Around five years later, he drew on these and other studies - including those by Gamrig - to create an oil painting in his studio. It would become his most famous work. The "Felsige Kuppe"
is the rock on which the "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog" stands.
"So high above the highest point of the rock is the horizon", he noted in the margin of the drawing "Felsige Kuppe".
(Winter) hiking tip:
"Felsige Kuppe" is the name Caspar David Friedrich gave to the delicate pencil drawing he made on paper on 3 June 1813 on the Kaiserkrone table mountain, not far from the village of Schöna. He had only started drawing again two days earlier, after several months of creative crisis triggered by the events of the war. Around five years later, he drew on these and other studies - including those by Gamrig - to create an oil painting in his studio. It would become his most famous work. The "Felsige Kuppe"
is the rock on which the "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog" stands.
"So high above the highest point of the rock is the horizon", he noted in the margin of the drawing "Felsige Kuppe".
(Winter) hiking tip:
