Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) was the most important German romantic painter. Even his person embodied the typical romantic: He was more introverted, Environmentalist and religious, he saw nature as a mirror of human emotions. In his meticulously painted paintings Friedrich reached an incomparable metaphysical transparency.

The painter should not just paint what he sees before him, but also what he sees in himself. "With this recommendation to his painter colleagues, Caspar David Friedrich explained the driving force and the meaning of his paintings.

The Landscapes takes in his work a prominent position. Friedrich undertook with friends long hikes through the mountains and along the coast. He experienced man in his smallness compared with the immense power of nature. The solitary figures look longingly in vast landscapes with distant horizon. Consult often the viewer back on, so that this can empathize with them. Using symbolic metaphor, the moon as the universe and tree stumps as an indication of transience, he produced contemplative romantic feelings and religious sentiments. With its natural moods Friedrich wanted to gain insight into the human soul.

At the age of 24, after an academic training in Copenhagen, drew it the young artists to Dresden. In the Elbe a crossroads formed around him, and other painters and poets such as Tieck and Schlegel to the center of the early Romantic period. The characteristic of the Romance is the mutual impact of poetry and painting. Friedrich's landscapes are visually mirror the feelings and seek to express what the poetry with words. "Internally, the mysterious path leads. In us, or nowhere, eternity with its worlds, the past and future." So said the poet Novalis expressed representative of the early Romantics.

The mold is usually taken directly from the original, so that the replica reproduces even the finest details. After casting the replica, using the most appropriate method, the surface is polished, patinated, gilded or painted according to the original.

A replica of ars mundi is a recognizable image of the original.

Günter Dietz developed a revolutionary method for the authentic reproduction of images, where not the usual printing inks are used, but the same original colors used by the artist. Depending on the artist's painting technique, up to 180 (!) various paint applications need to be applied in order to achieve a perfect replica of the original that also sensationally reflects the "relief" and pastosity of colour composition.

Here are the examples of  'Couple at the Garden Table' by August Macke:

Similarly, the material of the original carrier, such as reproduction on canvas, paper, wood, copper, parchment is always used.

The result is a perfect, gridless reproduction that comes very close to the original in expressiveness and effect. Even museum specialists often can not distinguish the replica from the original. Therefore, a special security notice must be inserted, which is visible only under X-rays.

The circulation of most of the Dietz replicas is limited, usualy to 950 copies. Each canvas replica is stretched onto a frame as the original, so you can retighten the canvas according to variations in room temperature and humidity. High-quality solid wood strips round off the image of every Dietz replica.

Numerous masterpiece paintings of Rembrandt, Caspar David Friedrich, Claude Monet, Gustav Klimt and various others have been recreated by the Dietz Offizin. Famous modern artists such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall used the method developed by Günter Dietz to have replicas of their works produced.

Press commentaries:

“The Dietz System provides images as good as the originals. What the electronics did with the invention of Hi-Fi and stereo for music playback - here the graphic technology made up for visual art.“ (Die Zeit)

“In theory there is no difference between the original and the Dietz replica. They should not be called reproductions, but facsimiles.“ (Newsweek)

“For art printers all over the world remains unrealizable to this day, what managed only Dietz with the help of printing technology: The perfect reproduction of painted works. “ (Der Spiegel)

Konrad Adenauer at the presentation of Dietz replica of the frieze "To the young St. Peter" (Bundeshaus Bonn)



Günter Dietz (on the left) and Marino Marini

The mental attitude which spilled over from literature and philosophy to visual arts, established in about 1800 but which failed to produce its own style in visual arts.

The art of Romanticism was determined by content, relevant attitude to life and the sensations triggered by it. Inwardness and feelings, imagination and dream, world and nature, the power of myth and striving into infinity became central themes. The specific area of Romantic art lies in the painting and drawing. The landscape, as a theme that is constanly turned to, always moves to the forefront: man and nature are in relationship with each other, reflect the moods. Besides a new nature feeling there was a renewal of the religious attitude and a return to the past, tradition, history, old legends, fairy tales, as well as to the art of old masters and epochs. Especially in the case of Germany these was strongly national-oriented art.

Main representatives in Germany include among others: C.D. Friedrich, P.O. Runge, J.A. Koch, M. v. Schwind, and also the Nazarene group of artists. French Romanticism, which was characterized by other trends than the German, is represented mainly by the art of Delacroix.

The Romantic period lasted until around 1830.