Church and Graveyard in the Snow by Moonlight
1827
Medium
Lithograph, with gray tone block on cream wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 41.4 × 35.9 cm (16 5/16 × 14 3/16 in.); Plate: 43.4 × 37.8 cm (17 1/8 × 14 15/16 in.); Sheet: 55.9 × 45 cm (22 1/16 × 17 3/4 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
148401
Art Historical Context
Carl Blechen’s *Church and Graveyard in the Snow by Moonlight* captures a haunting winter night scene through the subtle tonal range of lithography. Created in 1827, the work depicts a solitary church and its graveyard blanketed in snow, illuminated only by the moon’s soft glow. The medium—a lithograph printed with an additional gray tone block on cream wove paper—allows Blechen to render delicate gradations of light and shadow, evoking the quiet stillness and chill of the landscape. As a leading figure in early German Romanticism, Blechen used such nocturnal subjects to explore themes of sol...