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	In 1825, the Literarisches Conversations-Blatt wrote about the Dresden Academy Exhibition, mentioning a "remarkably beautiful large landscape" by Professor Friedrich: "a solitary mountain region... splendidly depicted with varying tones across the upper mountain ranges. In the foreground, grasses and small trees cling to the towering basalt rocks. Higher up, mist curls around the desolate ridges, and at the top, the shimmering rock faces, crowned with eternal snow, glow in untarnished clarity. The solitude here is eerie; one longs to see at least an eagle or chamois—yet in vain, no life dwells here except for the air and light. Every pulse of emotion seems to falter at this height."

	Caspar David Friedrich had never actually visited the Alps, yet he created several paintings of these mountains. For his iconic work The Watzmann, he used a variety of sources. A key reference was a watercolor study of the mountain’s summit captured by his pupil Johann August Heinrich, now in the National Museum of Oslo. Friedrich also drew on his own sketches from his travels through the Harz Mountains. The rocky formation in the foreground was based on his drawings of the Trudenstein at Hohnekopf, near the Brocken, from June 28, 1811.

	Friedrich had already exhibited a large Alpine landscape in Dresden in 1824, a view of Mont Blanc (High Mountain Range, oil on canvas, 131 x 167 cm, formerly at the National Gallery in Berlin, lost during the war). As with The Watzmann, he borrowed from another artist’s drawing, this time a sketch by Carl Gustav Carus. His painting of The Watzmann was likely a response to the work of 23-year-old Ludwig Richter, who had also painted the same mountain, exhibiting his work in Dresden in 1824. However, Friedrich rejected detailed, narrative depictions like Richter’s.

	In Friedrich’s vision, the glacier-clad Watzmann, radiant in bright light, embodies the vastness and grandeur of nature, serving as a distant symbol of divine majesty. Gentle mists hover over the ridges of the Archenkopf and Grünstein mountains below. Friedrich masterfully renders the shifting tones between green and violet. In this isolated alpine landscape, no living creatures are present. The pyramid-like composition culminates in the brilliant white of eternal ice—a concept Friedrich had explored two years earlier in his famous painting The Sea of Ice (Hamburger Kunsthalle).

	Eberhard Hanfstaengl, who acquired The Watzmann for the Berlin National Gallery, praised Friedrich’s "artistic and poetic power... in which he blends his own and others’ depictions of nature into a heightened form, transcending mere landscape painting and becoming the epitome of mountain portrayal."

	In 1825, the Literarisches Conversations-Blatt wrote about the Dresden Academy Exhibition, mentioning a "remarkably beautiful large landscape" by Professor Friedrich: "a solitary mountain region... splendidly depicted with varying tones across the upper mountain ranges. In the foreground, grasses and small trees cling to the towering basalt rocks. Higher up, mist curls around the desolate ridges, and at the top, the shimmering rock faces, crowned with eternal snow, glow in untarnished clarity. The solitude here is eerie; one longs to see at least an eagle or chamois—yet in vain, no life dwells here except for the air and light. Every pulse of emotion seems to falter at this height."

	Caspar David Friedrich had never actually visited the Alps, yet he created several paintings of these mountains. For his iconic work The Watzmann, he used a variety of sources. A key reference was a watercolor study of the mountain’s summit captured by his pupil Johann August Heinrich, now in the National Museum of Oslo. Friedrich also drew on his own sketches from his travels through the Harz Mountains. The rocky formation in the foreground was based on his drawings of the Trudenstein at Hohnekopf, near the Brocken, from June 28, 1811.

	Friedrich had already exhibited a large Alpine landscape in Dresden in 1824, a view of Mont Blanc (High Mountain Range, oil on canvas, 131 x 167 cm, formerly at the National Gallery in Berlin, lost during the war). As with The Watzmann, he borrowed from another artist’s drawing, this time a sketch by Carl Gustav Carus. His painting of The Watzmann was likely a response to the work of 23-year-old Ludwig Richter, who had also painted the same mountain, exhibiting his work in Dresden in 1824. However, Friedrich rejected detailed, narrative depictions like Richter’s.

	In Friedrich’s vision, the glacier-clad Watzmann, radiant in bright light, embodies the vastness and grandeur of nature, serving as a distant symbol of divine majesty. Gentle mists hover over the ridges of the Archenkopf and Grünstein mountains below. Friedrich masterfully renders the shifting tones between green and violet. In this isolated alpine landscape, no living creatures are present. The pyramid-like composition culminates in the brilliant white of eternal ice—a concept Friedrich had explored two years earlier in his famous painting The Sea of Ice (Hamburger Kunsthalle).

	Eberhard Hanfstaengl, who acquired The Watzmann for the Berlin National Gallery, praised Friedrich’s "artistic and poetic power... in which he blends his own and others’ depictions of nature into a heightened form, transcending mere landscape painting and becoming the epitome of mountain portrayal."