Brief Biography-Caspar David Friedrich was born in the town of Greifswald. His father, a successful candle maker, was a zealous protestant who rigorously brought his nine children up. Unfortunately, Caspar was deeply affected by a few deaths in the family during his youth. His mother died when he was seven, and two sisters died before his brother tragically drowned trying to save him during a skating accident.
The artist Johann Gottfried Quistorp first tutored Friedrich and encouraged him to concentrate on landscape painting. In 1794, he entered the Copenhagen Academy, but he wanted to be more impressed by the strictly academic approach to art there. So instead, he went to Dresden in 1798 and never ventured outside Germany again. The Dresden Romantics group influenced his train of thought; they were the first to use Romanticism.
In 1803, he attempted suicide through depression, turning him into a melancholy man. However, his works became well recognised, and he lived relatively well. In 1805, he won an award presented by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe for sepia paintings in his annual art competition in Weimar. His standing improved somewhat when his pictures, Abbey in the Oakwood and Monk by the Sea, got purchased by the Prussian Crown Prince, who made him a member of the Berlin Academy in 1810. He married in 1818 and gained a stipend from the Dresden Academy. The Norwegian artist Johann Christian Dahl became a good friend and lived in the same house in Dresden.
In his later years, his health failed gradually, and in 1825 he had the first of several strokes. By the time he died in 1840, he was sadly a forgotten artist.