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In this painting of a cemetery, Friedrich was reacting to the shocking news of the death of Gerhard von Kügelgen, a friend and fellow artist. On 27 March 1820, Kügelgen walked out to view the site where his new house was being built in a Dresden suburb. He only wanted to see how the work was progressing, but did not return to his home that evening. The next morning, his body was found at the edge of a field. His face was distorted by blows and cuts, and his body was naked apart from his underdrawers. Kügelgen had been murdered in a robbery! For some months, the talk in Dresden was of nothing but this terrible murder. Later, the murderer was caught and publicly beheaded.

With Kügelgen’s death, Friedrich lost possibly his best friend. The memoirs of Kügelgen’s son Wilhelm illustrate just how well Friedrich felt among his friend’s family. Wilhelm describes, for example, a summer’s day out together with Friedrich in an unusually funny and playful mood: “One beautiful afternoon, Friedrich proposed to us children a recreation of an altogether peculiar kind, namely, to erect a tower in the middle of the water. With enthusiasm we, wading through the shallow brook, brought the building stones, and Friedrich in attire resembling that of a fisherman, and standing in the water like a long-legged heron, piled up the stones into the form of a pyramid or pillar, which soon rose to the height of a man above the stream.”

His painting of the cemetery expresses a profound grief – and yet there seems to be a sign of comfort. While the graves lie in shadow, the cemetery gate leads into the soft dawn or evening light, and thus becomes the threshold to a bright afterlife. From one of his poems, we know Friedrich was convinced that “joy and light” awaited those who pass to the other side.