Caspar David Friedrich was born in Greifswald,Germany.He studied at the Academy in Copenhagen and subsequently settled in Dresden,Germany. Friedrich's landscape apintings are based entirely on those of northern Germany and are beautiful renderings of trees, hills, harbors, morning mists, and other light effects based on a close observation of nature. Friedrich's best-known paintings are expressions of a religious mysticism. In 1808 he exhibited one of his most controversial paintings, The Cross in the Mountains , in which--for the first time in Christian art,an altarpiece was conceived in terms of a pure landscape.His paintings are expressions of a religious mysticism. In 1808 he exhibited one of his most controversial paintings, The Cross in the Mountains a landscape.Even some of Friedrich's apparently nonsymbolic paintings contain inner meanings, clues to which are provided either by the artist's writings or those of his literary friends