Winter Landscape: Casper David Friedrich's seasonal ghost story

At first glance nothing could be more Christmassy than Casper David Friedrich’s painting Winter Landscape. A fairytale castle rises in the purple twilight, and snow-laden fir trees add to the atmosphere of carols. But look again. The figure praying in front of a rustic cross has thrown away his crutches: they will not be needed again because he is going to die here. The soaring gothic building is not a castle but a fantastic cathedral, emblematic of his hope of resurrection. The power of Friedrich’s Romantic painting, created in about 1811, is that it confronts imagination with something limitless and inexplicable. Think of it as a seasonal ghost story
Illustration: © National Gallery, London