Basilius von Ramdohr

He studied law and aesthetics at the University of Göttingen, before commencing a long and glamorous career as an art-critic and diplomat.

In his early twenties he had a brief affair with Charlotte Kestner née Buff, the model for Lotte in The Sorrows of Young Werther.

In the 17–21 January 1809 edition of the Zeitung für die elegante Welt he published an article severely criticising Caspar David Friedrich's painting Cross in the Mountains (Tetschen Altar) (1808) and the school of German Romanticism to which it belonged.

He was disturbed by the unacademic style of the painting, having little in common with the traditions established by Claude Lorraine and Jacob van Ruisdael, and deeply indignant that Friedrich should have presented it as an altarpiece to a private chapel.

The debate about the relative merits of unmediated, spontaneous expression versus strict classical form (landscape painting representing the former) began in earnest at this time.