Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) - The Chasseur in the Forest, 1813
'Let us frankly admit it - for us, the landscape is a stranger and one is frightfully alone among the trees that bloom and the brooks that flow past us. Being alone with a dead person, one feels far and away not so abandoned as being alone with trees. For as mysterious as death may seem, even more mysterious is a life that is not our life, that does not participate in our life and, without giving any notice to us, celebrates its own festivities, which we observe with a certain embarrassment, like guests who have arrived by accident and speak another language.'
'Let us frankly admit it - for us, the landscape is a stranger and one is frightfully alone among the trees that bloom and the brooks that flow past us. Being alone with a dead person, one feels far and away not so abandoned as being alone with trees. For as mysterious as death may seem, even more mysterious is a life that is not our life, that does not participate in our life and, without giving any notice to us, celebrates its own festivities, which we observe with a certain embarrassment, like guests who have arrived by accident and speak another language.'
Rainer Maria Rilke
