One of the key ideas that underpinned the Romantic Age was the notion of the sublime, and no Romantic painter captured the sublime more effectively than the German landscapist Caspar David Friedrich. A deeply pious, somber man, Friedrich hardly ever left his homeland, and his genius did not reveal itself until his thirties. But when it did, the result was landscape painting like nothing ever seen before. Rich in symbolism, Friedrich's landscapes capture the spiritual power of nature.