Cloisters with view of winter landscape with castle

Johann Friedrich Boeck, a Pomeranian Romantic artist who was born in Greifswald who died in Szczecin, painted primarily landscapes and portraits. The collection of Pommersches Landesmuseum in Greifswald features two portraits and “View of the Greifswald Harbour” and “View of Dresden in Moonlight.” The National Museum in Szczecin owns one work of this artist: an atmospheric winter landscape with a stronghold visible in the distance. The dark framing of the mountainous landscape in the form of Medieval arcades intensifies the impression of depth. Thanks to this procedure, both the sole figure removing the snow from the road in front of the monastery and the winter panorama with the picturesque castle in the distance were highlighted. The original framing of the composition builds the mysterious and even slightly fairy-tale like vibe of the painting. Attention is drawn by the numerous details of the vaulted corridor in the foreground: discarded stones, a walled up gate with a grating, a Baroque epitaph above it, or the tombstones built into the wall or placed in the floor. The painting was created in the mid 19th century and is a testimony of Johann Friedrich Boeck's mature style, evoking associations with the work of Caspar David Friedrich; it corresponds to the themes of German Romantic landscapes with views of castles and monasteries which were created in Germany starting from the 1830s ˗ in this context, it is enough to mention “Monastery Garden in Snow” by Carl Friedrich Lessing, “Monastery Burgeis in Tirol” by Karl Eduard Biermann or “Cloister Ruins in Winter” by Carl Georg Adolph Hasenpflug.

Dariusz Kacprzak