Times of Day
1804
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
About the artist
Artist
Philipp Otto Runge
Philipp Otto Runge (German: ; 1777–1810) was a German artist, draftsman, painter, and color theorist.
See the richer artist page1804
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Times of Day is a 1804 by Philipp Otto Runge, a Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see four tall, dreamy prints side by side—morning, noon, evening, night—filled with twisting plants, sleeping babies, and glowing light. Runge packed each scene with symbols: flowers for seasons, babies for life stages, light for God. He wanted nature to feel like a quiet prayer, not just a pretty view. The prints were meant to hang together, almost like a sacred cycle. If you like this quiet wonder, look up *sfumato*—the soft, smoky way Runge blurred edges to make his scenes feel like a dream.
Phillip Otto Runge’s large-scale, four-part print series, Tageszeiten (Times of Day) , is a landmark of German Romantic printmaking, capturing the “new art” promoted by Runge and his contemporary, Caspar David Friedrich, one rooted in a more personal and spiritual response to nature. Runge presents allegories of nature as a means to understand God and the sublime on earth. His four-part series represents not only the four times of day but also the seasons and the stages of human life, while contrasting eternal time with human time through various literary and religious references. Viewing the…
After receiving a set of Times of Day as a gift from the artist, the German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) apparently exclaimed, “it’s enough to drive you crazy—beautiful, and mad at the same time!”
Read the full account in the museum source.
Philipp Otto Runge (German: ; 1777–1810) was a German artist, draftsman, painter, and color theorist.
See the richer artist pageYour cart is empty
Explore artworks →
