their left; a boulder prevents the oak from falling, and there is another boulder on the left. In the background the landscape falls away; the tops of pine trees suggest a forest. In the immediate foreground are a tree stump and a large dry branch lying on the ground. The painting is almost monochromatic in shades of brown and grey, depicting nightfall. The Dresden version is generally held to be the original, because it most perfectly exemplifies the golden section in the ratios between the central vertical axis, the perpendicular axis between it and the star, and the other axis running through the older man's eye. The German art historian Werner Busch sees the geometric layout as signalling the transcendent message of the two figures' experience of nature. As in many paintings by Friedrich, there is no middle ground; the foreground earthly scene is contrasted with the lighted sky and the abyss at the two men's feet made perceptible through this contrast, which exemplifies the antithetical relationship of rational, palpable earthly space and irrational and sublime infinity explored by the Romantic painters. The composition places these in a harmonious relationship. It has been described as a defining image of German Romanticism. The two men depicted may be Friedrich himself, on the right, and his pupil August Heinrich (1794–1822) on the left; Friedrich's friend Wilhelm Wegener gave this interpretation. Dahl agreed that the younger man was Heinrich but identified the older as Christian Wilhelm Bommer, the brother of Friedrich's wife Caroline; however, in 1819, Heinrich was 25 but Bommer only 18. In the variant with a man and a woman, Caroline Friedrich would then be the woman. Two art historians of the early twentieth century also proposed locations. Max Semrau located Friedrich and his friend Benjamin Friedrich Gotthelf Kummer on a cliff on the island of Rügen; Max Sauerlandt, the same two men in the Harz Mountains. Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon In this painting, the man and woman face away from the viewer, centered vertically, and located left of center horizontally. The woman's arm is resting on the man's shoulder. The serene and contemplative pose of the couple contrasts with the contortions of the half uprooted oak tree, which is itself in opposition with the verticality of the lush pine tree on the left. This irregular and asymmetrical pictorial construction—one linked with the post-Baroque aesthetic of the previous century—was