''The Lonely Tree'' (German: ''Der einsame Baum'', sometimes translated as "The Solitary Tree") is an 1822 oil-on-canvas painting by German painter
Caspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich (5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landsca ...
. It measures . The work depicts a panoramic view of a
romantic landscape of plains with mountains in the background. A solitary
oak tree dominates the foreground.
An ancient oak stands at the centre of the painting, clearly damaged but still standing. The tree's branches, dark in silhouette, project into the largely overcast morning sky. Banks of cloud seem to form a dome above the tree. The crown of the tree is dead, and the top of its trunk and two truncated branches resemble a cross. A shepherd shelters under the leaf-bearing lower branches. His flock of sheep graze beside a pond in the wide grassy meadow around the tree. In the middle distance, villages and a town nestle among other trees and bushes. Tree-clad hills pile up into blue-grey mountains in the background.
The work was commissioned by banker and art collector
Joachim Heinrich Wilhelm Wagener
Joachim Heinrich Wilhelm Wagener (16 July 1782 in Berlin – 18 January 1861 in Berlin) was a German banker and patron of the arts. His collection formed the initial nucleus of the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin.
Life and work