Philipp Otto Runge's Der Morgen or The Morning is one of four pieces entitled Die Tageszeieten or Times of Day. Runge aimed to represent four times of day as a which would express spiritual states.

Runge's Der Morgen was influenced and inspired by the writings of Jacob Böehme, especially Aurora oder Morgenröte im Aufgang (Aurora or Morning Redness in the Stairway).

Jacob Böehme was a German philosophical mystic born in 1575. Böhme had a number of spiritual experiences or illuminations. At age thirty-five, Boehme experienced an "illumination" in which all his former experiences were synthesized, and he recognized them as but different expressions of one underlying truth, the source of all religions, sciences and philosophies. This vision caused him to publish Aurora in 1612.

Philipp Otto Runge wrote to his brother on March 9, 1802....

"When the sky above me teems with stars, when the wind blows through the vastness of space, and the wave breaks in the immense night; when above the forest the reddish morning light appears, and the sun begins to illuminate the world; when the valley steams, and I lie tossing in the grass which sparkles with dew; when every leaf and blade of grass teems with life, and the earth comes to life and stirs beneath me, and everything harmonizes in one great chord: then my soul rejoices and soars in the immeasurable space around me. There is no high or low, no time, no beginning or end. I hear and feel the living breath of God Who holds and supports the world, in Whom everything lives and acts--this is our highest feeling: God."