Professor Butter Beard and Caspar David Friedrich’s “The Abbey in the Oakwood”
“I looked upon the scene before me – upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain – upon the bleak walls – upon the vacant eye-like windows – upon a few rank hedges – and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees – with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after dream of the reveler upon opium – the bitter lapse into every-day life – the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness a sinking, a sickening of the heart – an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into the aught of the sublime.” – Edgar Allen Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher”
I just finished watching (or actually bingeing) the latest “The Fall of the House of Usher” on Netflix. I must grant major kudos to the team that expanded Poe’s short story of isolation and madness, first published in 1839 in “Burton's Gentleman's Magazine,” into an eight-hour-plus mind-bending miniseries. Poe’s Roderick Usher, with a “face not easy to forget,” has now morphed into a corrupt CEO of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals who solves the world’s pain with readily accessible opiates. Over wickedly expensive cognac, Roderick shares the tale of his family’s “fall” with Dupin, an Assistant United States Attorney, whose intent is to bring the Usher twins to justice – all told within “the house” ridden with ghosts, gloom and guilt.
The actors were seductively enticing in their roles, but I wanted more time with them in the house. This time of year, I find myself, with a bouncing Nels alongside me, craving to explore spine-chilling spaces – foggy churchyards, roaring ocean cliffs, supposedly haunted homes and abandoned strip malls – all in hopes of that tingle of goosebumps as they slither up the back of your spine.
It’s rather like letting yourself dream-journey into a painting by Casper David Friedrich.
Caspar David Friedrich was born in 1774, on the Baltic Sea coast, in Greifswald, Swedish Pomerania, in modern-day Germany. He lost many family members during his childhood including his mother, two sisters, and one younger brother, all who passed away before Friedrich turned fourteen. In 1790, Friedrich began to study art at the University of Greifswald under artist Johann Gottfried Quistorp. During this time, Friedrich started learning to sketch from life, often exploring the darker shades of nature and death as the source of his artistic inspiration.
Friedrich developed into an innovative landscape painter, featuring landscapes in an entirely new way than his predecessors and contemporaries. Through his paintings, he chose to look into the landscape through a lens of the “sublime,” a term in art and philosophy that describes connecting with the spiritual self. Friedrich’s landscapes are now often described as “expansive, grand, and awe-inspiring,” sometimes even slightly “fear-inducing,” encouraging the viewer to reunite with their darkest spiritual side.
Often attracted to the imagery of tombs, barrows and commemorative monuments, Friedrich chose to depict a twilight funeral procession of monks within his “Abbey in the Oakwood.” The faceless monks, some of whom bear a heavy coffin, head toward the gate of a ruined Gothic church in the center of the painting. Only two candles light their way. A newly dug grave yawns out of the snow in the foreground, near which several unstable burial crosses can be faintly discerned. This lower third of the picture floats in darkness—only the highest part of the ruins and the tips of the leafless oaks are lit by the setting winter sun as the waxing crescent moon quietly emerges in the sky.
It is believed that Friedrich based his “Abbey in the Oakwood” upon his own studies of the ruins of Eldena Abbey, which then reappear in several of his other paintings. Eldena Abbey may well have had personal meaning for Friedrich, as it was destroyed during the Thirty Years War by invading Swedish troops, who later re-used the stolen bricks from the abbey to construct their own fortifications. The historian Stephen Eisenman writes, “In this painting, Friedrich draws a parallel between those actions and the use of abandoned German abbeys as barracks by resourceful occupying soldiers. Thus, the funeral becomes a symbol of the burial of Germany's hopes for resurrection.”
With the decline of Romanticism and the rise of Realism, Modernism, and other movements, Friedrich’s work fell into obscurity in his later years. Some sixty years after his death, Friedrich began to achieve a wave of posthumous fame when a collection of his paintings were displayed in a 1906 Romanticism exhibit in Berlin. He is now respected as one of the most important German artists and a major influence for creators such as the writer Samuel Beckett and painters Johan Christian Dahl and Mark Rothko.
I find myself wandering into his candle and moonlit landscapes, fully anticipation the chilling whisper of the artist ghost’s breath on my neck as he introduces me to the ever silent monks. I shake myself out of the dream and wander into the kitchen to transpose the sensation into something warm and aromatic and comforting. For this week’s tart, I was inspired to roast and caramelize small sugar pumpkins. I then added crisp bacon, autumn leeks sautéed in the fat of the bacon and a custard of duck eggs, heavy cream and nutmeg - all finished with the surprising tang of warm goat cheese. I’ll offer a slice to Roderick and Madeline in return for a snifter of cognac as they draw me yet again deep into their tale of “The Fall of the House of Usher.”
Roasted Pumpkin, Leeks, Bacon and Goat Cheese Tart
One 9” tart
Butter Crust:
1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp fine sea salt
12 Tbsp unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and kept very cold
2-3 Tbsp ice water
Filling:
3 small sugar pumpkins, roasted, peeled and cut into 1” cubes
5 slices thick-cut bacon, cooked crisp (save the bacon grease)
1 large (or 2 smaller) leeks, whites only, cut and cleaned
1 cup heavy cream
2 large eggs and 1 additional yolk
fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
4 ounces goat cheese
1) In a food processor, pulse together the flour and salt. Add the butter and pulse into a breadcrumb stage. Add the water and pulse just until the dough starts to come together. Turn the contents onto a counter and squeeze together into a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill at least one hour. Roll the dough to fit and fill a 9” tart pan. Fit the dough into the pan and chill again for another 30 minutes before blind baking.
2) Heat your oven to 375 degrees. Half the sugar pumpkins, scrape out the seeds and pith, brush the inside and outside with olive oil and place them cut side down on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Roast them for 25 minutes, flip the pumpkins over and continue to roast for another 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and let the pumpkins cool until they stop steaming. You should now be able to scoop out the pulp like an avocado. Cut the cooked pulp into 1” squares and lightly salt. Set aside in a large bowl.
3) While your pumpkins are baking, cut and clean your leeks. I do this by placing the cut pieces into a bowl of water and then swishing them around. Let the dirt settle to the bottom of the bowl and scoop out the clean leek pieces with a slotted spoon.
4) Cook the bacon as you prefer. I prefer to bake it in the oven on a rack. Cook until crisp and pour the hot bacon fat into a cast iron skillet. Cut the bacon into 1” pieces and add them to the bowl with the pumpkin.
5) Cook your leeks in the bacon fat until they just start to wither. Season with salt and pepper (and some chili flakes if you desire). Add the cooked leeks to the bowl with the bacon and pumpkin.
6) Blind bake your crust in your hot oven. While the crust bakes, lightly whisk together the eggs and cream. Season with salt and pepper and the nutmeg. Once the crust is starting to brown, remove it from oven. Lightly toss together the leeks, pumpkin and bacon and then spoon this filling into the tart crust. Pour the eggs/cream over the pumpkin filling. Crumble the goat cheese over the tart filling and bake for 30-40 minutes until the custard is set and the top begins to caramelize. Cool the finished tart on a wire rack before serving.
