Klosterruine eldena greifswald caspar david friedrich biography

The ruins of Eldena Abbey on the outskirts of Greifswald, near the fishing village of Wieck, are an important monument of the Romantic era and probably some of the most famous ruins in Germany.

The Brick Gothic Abbey owes its fame to Caspar David Friedrich, whose paintings have made the ruins of Eldena Abbey known worldwide and turned them into a symbol of Romanticism.

The Abbey, whose ruins evoke a great but long lost past, had caught the artist’s imagination from an early point in his career, and they became a frequent subject of his paintings.

Friedrich, to whom the ruins represented a symbol of his beloved homeland, studied the Abbey precisely and produced many drawings from different angles, evidence of which can be seen in the ‘Eldena Room’ at the Caspar David Friedrich Centre.

Cistercian monks settled at the site of the former Abbey more than 800 years ago. They founded a monastery in 1199, which played an important role in the formation of settlemen