Night (Die Nacht)

These etchings are part of a rare first edition of Philipp Otto Runge’s Times of Day, a set of four large prints (Morning, Day, Evening, and Night) filled with elaborate floral decorations and angelic children meant to symbolize the eternal cycle of nature. For Runge, human life was part of this cycle, and the natural world was an expression of the divine.

Runge intended to use these designs for a monumental series of painted murals, but only one painting was ever completed. Landmarks of German Romanticism, a movement that emphasized emotion and the mysticism of nature, the etchings were appreciated by the movement’s leading figures, including the philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who displayed a set of Times of Day in his music room and described the works as “enough to drive one mad, beautiful and crazy at the same time.”