Auf den Spuren Caspar David Friedrichs - Teil 1: Entlang des Malerweges vom Liebethaler Grund...

The best introduction to the mystical rocky world of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains in the footsteps of Caspar David Friedrich begins in Pirna-Liebethal. The tour takes you through wild and romantic valleys, which have a few surprises in store and even made an eerily beautiful impression on the great painter over 200 years ago.

Since the mid-18th century, Saxon Switzerland with its incomparable landscape has been a popular destination for painters. The Baroque era was replaced in the 19th century by Romanticism, which was dominated by emotion and passion. In German painting, no one embodies this as well as Caspar David Friedrich. Even in his day, Dresden artists knew the most spectacular viewpoints, the most impressive motifs and the paths in Saxon Switzerland. Friedrich also used these paths. Today's Elbe Sandstone Mountains Painters' Trail follows many of these historic paths. Hikers can discover the Uttewalder Grund, the Neurathener Felsentor and many more of Caspar David Friedrich's motifs along the recommended routes described here.

Route: A fairytale valley, a theatrical monument, a dilapidated mill: the Malerweg is a romantic trail right from the start! The trail starts in Pirna-Liebethal at the entrance to the Liebethaler Grund. It follows the clear Wesenitz river to the Daubemühle mill. A surprise along the way is the imposing Richard Wagner monument, created in 1933 by Richard Guhr. Richard Wagner actually stayed here several times. The Lochmühle, where he wrote parts of Lohengrin in the summer of 1846, is just a few steps further on. At the Daubemühle, the Malerweg crosses the Wesenitz and leads uphill to Mühlsdorf. The trail continues along the Alte Lohmstraße and later along the edge of the forest to the coordinate stone at 51° N 14° E. The Querweg, Brückenwaldweg and Schleifgrund lead back down into the shady coolness of a valley - this time into the Uttewalder Grund with its legendary rock gate.

Sensation of nature as a source of knowledge: this was a defining theme for Caspar David Friedrich throughout his life. Time and again, he sought solitude and silence, not only to see nature and the landscape, but to immerse himself in them, to feel them. "I must surrender to what surrounds me, unite myself with my clouds and the rocks in order to be what I am," he wrote. In 1821, he told the Russian poet W. A. Shukowsky that he had once spent a whole week in the Uttewalder Grund "between rocks and fir trees" and had not met a soul. In 1825, he turned this intense experience into his gloomy oil painting "Uttewalder Grund".

Rocks also line the path up to the Bastei. Here we briefly leave the Malerweg trail and take the short path over the Höllengrund up to the Bastei. With its particularly impressive landscape, the Bastei area has always provided a wealth of motifs for artists. Caspar David Friedrich also immortalized it in some of his works. After the ascent over the Höllengrund, we return to the Malerweg at the "Steinerner Tisch" rest area and from here follow the Fremdenweg to the famous Bastei.

Threatening, mysterious and both terrifying and attractive: this is how Friedrich often depicted Saxon Switzerland in his paintings. Here, he had found the ideal of a romantic landscape, which the combination of opposing sensations made into a "picturesque" one. One example is the work "Rocky Landscape in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains", completed in 1823, which shows the rocky group "Neurathener Felsentor" in the Bastei area in the background and a fallen tree above a narrow gorge in the foreground.
The descent to the spa town of Rathen is via Schwedenlöcher and Amselgrund.