Zauber der Stille

So elegant and effortlessly told. Reading this new book by Florian Illies is like watching a Billy Wilder film – simply magnificent. Absolutely captivating: there is something new to discover on every page. With Florian Illies, the past suddenly feels like the present. In "The Magic of Silence," he unfolds the adventurous stories of Caspar David Friedrich for the first time. A wild journey through time to the man who invented longing for the Germans. Friedrich's evening skies have stirred the most passionate feelings for centuries: Goethe is so overwhelmed by their melancholy that he wants to shatter it on the edge of the table, while Walt Disney falls so deeply in love with them that he lets his "Bambi" run only through Friedrich's landscapes. Revered by Hitler as much as by Rainer Maria Rilke, hated by Stalin as much as by the 68ers, and desired by the Mafia as much as by Leni Riefenstahl – through the example of Caspar David Friedrich, this compellingly narrated book makes 250 years of German history visible. And Friedrich, the painter, becomes a flesh-and-blood human being. After "1913" and "Love in Times of Hate," this is Florian Illies' third major historical portrait.