Cairn in Snow

Cairn in Snow, also known as Dolmen in the snow, (German: Hünengrab im Schnee, literally "Giant's grave in the snow") is a landscape painting by the German painter Caspar David Friedrich. Friedrich is noted for his landscapes depicting features such as trees or Gothic ruins, silhouetted against the sky or in morning mists. The painting depicts leafless trees in the winter snow, with the tops of two of the trees broken off and the third bent by the prevailing wind, giving the work a haunted, spectral air. It is a Romantic allegorical landscape, depicting a stone cairn or dolmen set amid three oak trees on a hilltop, with a contemplative melancholy mood. It was probably painted around 1807, making it among Friedrich's first oil paintings. The main elements of the painting are taken from different locations in eastern Germany. The cairn is thought to be based on the Neolithic burial site at Großsteingrab Gützkow , near the town Gützkow in West Pomerania; the megalith was destroyed before 1818, but Friedrich had sketched it since at least 1802. Friedrich sketched the trees at Neubrandenburg, most clearly an 1807 sepia sketch Hünengrab am Meer ("Dolmen by the sea"). Similar oak trees reappear in several works by Friedrich, including Monk in the Snow (1808, also known as Winter), The Abbey in the Oakwood (1818), Monastery graveyard under snow (1818) and Oak tree in snow (1829). The hill is located near Wustrow. The painting also includes four ravens, two above the cairn, one to the right, and a fourth high in the tree to the right.