Winter

The sunny Colosseum by Alma-Tadema compared to this painting by Caspar David Friedrich.

Winter (1807/08)

It’s pure symbolism. The ruin, the dead tree, the old lonely monk, the snow, the rare light. All indicates failure and death. But there is no horror, this death is luring, promising peace and rest.

(There exist only black and white reproductions because the original was destroyed by fire in 1931).