St. Jacob’s Church

St. Jacob’s is the second of the three Brick Gothic churches in Greifswald. It was constructed in the 13th Century, in line with the development of the new town. ‘Little Jacob’, as the church is affectionately called by the people of Greifswald, also plays an important role in Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings. Friedrich had studied both the church’s exterior and interior very carefully and produced very precise drawings. In one drawing, he even depicted the church in ruins, a fate which St. Jacob’s has always been lucky to escape, even when converted into a field bakery during French occupation. In 1817, the interior of the church was reconstructed under the direction of Caspar David Friedrich’s former drawing instructor and architect Johann Gottfried Quistorp (1855 – 1835).

In his painting, ‘Abbey Cemetery in the Snow’ (1819), unfortunately lost in a fire in 1945, Friedrich had lengthened the choir of the church considerably and placed the building in a barren winter landscape.