The Museum · the collection
Two Men Contemplating the Moon
Caspar David Friedrich, ca. 1825–30. Dresden, Germany.
Thirty works are on view at a time, ten to a room. Every day at midnight UTC, the ten that have hung longest go back into storage and ten others come out, so each work hangs for three days and then rests for three. A work always returns to the same place on the same wall.
Two men stand on a forest path at dusk, their backs to us, looking at a thin crescent moon. One rests a hand on the other’s shoulder. Beside them an oak has been half pulled from the ground, its roots in the air. A dead tree arches overhead like a gate. Friedrich often painted people from behind, so that we stand with them rather than look at them, and this picture is about looking. The crescent is lit along one edge, while the rest of the moon glows faintly with light reflected from Earth. A single bright star or planet hangs nearby. Nobody is talking. The evening is doing the talking.
Look closely
- Find the faint full circle of the moon beyond the bright crescent.
- Look at the hand on the shoulder. What does it tell you about the two men?
- Find the evening star near the moon.
While you sit
You have joined them on the path. Look at the moon with them and say nothing at all.
Your seat in the galleries: a fallen walnut trunk with its roots still on one end, laid along the path.
About the work
- Title
- Two Men Contemplating the Moon
- Artist
- Caspar David Friedrich
- Date
- ca. 1825–30
- From
- Dresden, Germany
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Size
- 13 3/4 x 17 1/4 in. (34.9 x 43.8 cm)
- Rights
- Public domain
- Image
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access (CC0)
- Record
- The museum's page for this work
The words on this page were written for the campus, not taken from the museum's label.
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