Gothic Church among Oaks

Gothic Church among Oaks — Karl Friedrich Schinkel. 1810.

Medium: lithograph with tint stone. Dimensions: Sheet: 47.8 x 34.1 cm (18 13/16 x 13 7/16 in.).

Collection record: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

Schinkel was the principle German architect of the first half of the 19th century. Responsible for almost every public building in Berlin, his neoclassical buildings for the city, based on the rational order and classic proportions of antiquity, came to define the power and stability of the Prussian capital. Schinkel also had a career as a painter and printmaker in which he developed his ideas of architectural splendor in landscapes that juxtaposed nature with buildings. The theme of the visionary Gothic cathedral pervades his work. Gothic Church among Oaks combines the principal Romantic tenets of Christianity, nature, patriotism, and medievalism into one image. Here, as in Quaglio’s Outer Staircase of a Gothic Ruin, a small child is contrasted with the enormity of the oak and the Gothic ruin. The continuity of life in the midst of death is signified by the sunflower among gravestones.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.