"Gothic Windows in the Ruins of the Monastery at Oybin" combines two elements beloved by the German Romantics: the window and the Gothic ruin. The picture presents the view through not one but two Gothic windows-on either side of a ruined choir-toward a pale blue morning sky and distant hill. Young trees growing within the ruin refer to the cycle of life. In its starkness and movement from darkness to light, the image invites both hope and meditation, feelings that are also found in Romantic poetry of the time. The church, with its fine Gothic tracery, remained the best-preserved part of the ruined fourteenth-century Celestine monastery at Oybin, near Zittau, in Saxony. Perched on an outcrop of rock, it became a popular motif for landscape painters from about 1800 on. This is one of three Carus paintings with motifs of the monastery as their subject, and it is based on a precise drawing he made in August 1820.

Franz Ulrich Apelt, Zittau (by 1935–d. 1944); by descent through his family (1944–2007; sold through Thomas Le Claire, Hamburg, to MMA)

Zittau. Städt Handerwerkerschule. "Oberlausitzer Kunst im neunzehnten Jahrhundert," June 6–August 4, 1935, no. 11 (as "Blick durch gotische Fenster am Oybin-Chor," lent by Sammlung Apelt, Zittau).

and. Residenzschloss Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister. "Carl Gustav Carus — Natur und Idee," June 26–September 20, 2009, no. 130.

Berlin. Alte Nationalgalerie. "Carl Gustav Carus — Natur und Idee," October 9, 2009–January 10, 2010, no. 130.

Marianne Prause. Carl Gustav Carus, Leben und Werk. Berlin, 1968, pp. 151, 178, 182, no. 299, fig. 299a, reproduces a drawing inscribed August 1820 (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden), used as a study for this painting.

J.A. Eisenwerth. Beiträge zur Motivkunde des 19. Jahrhunderts. Munich, 1970, pp. 13–165, ill. p. 34.

Sabine Rewald in "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 2006–2007." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 65 (Fall 2007), p. 39, ill. (color).

Sabine Rewald in Masterpieces of European Painting, 1800–1920, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2007, pp. 16, 218, no. 13, ill. (color and black and white).

Dirk Gedlich in Carl Gustav Carus — Natur und Idee: Katalog. Exh. cat., Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister. Berlin, 2009, pp. 142–43, no. 130, ill. (color).

Johannes Grave. "Der 'Fixierte Blick': Bildtheoretische Implikationen des Fensterbildes bei Carl Gustav Carus." Carl Gustav Carus — Wahrnehmung und Konstruktion: Essays. Berlin, 2009, pp. 209–10.