The email today has this: "This painting captures a burst of sunlight over distant hills as blue sky dispels gathered storm clouds. The hut at top left indicates human presence within this vast landscape. Caspar David Friedrich based this scene on the Riesengebirge, a mountain range on the present-day border of the Czech Republic and Poland where Friedrich had taken a walking tour 25 years earlier. Distinct elements of this landscape held strong symbolism for Friedrich and his audience: the fir tree represented life and vitality; the dead tree, mortality; and the illuminated hills, an aspiration toward the promise of eternity."
Here is an article from the museum, when the painting was first acquired: https://www.slam.org/press/press-release-saint-louis-art-museum-acquires-sunburst-in-the-riesengebirge-by-caspar-david-friedrich/
When we were dating in the early '80s, Beth and I purchased a poster for a Nashville art gallery. It was a detail of Friedrich's "Die Lebensstufen" ("The Stages of Life"), 1835. We have had the poster framed on our wall for nearly forty years, and we were pleased to see a memorial to Friedrich when we visited Dresden several years ago when our daughter's choir performed in that city.
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