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We see that the gentleman’s pose is quite confident and contemplative as he looks across the unknowable horizon. The sublime experience, however, is not an experience in which fear and insecurity cripple our ability to accomplish our goals. Caspar David Friedrich’s ‘Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog.’ (Public Domain) Thus, the first characteristic of our experience of the sublime is just that: Our inability to absolutely know the unknown or the infinite can make us aware of our own fears and insecurities. It is not always that we enter the unknown with confidence and poise. Traversing the unknown can make us aware of our own fears and insecurities. In the painting, the mystery exemplified by the fog and the infinite expanse of sky can be said to represent the unknown. Why is this painting significant for discussion? It is difficult to discuss this painting without also discussing a general conception of the sublime. Mountains can be seen in the distance, coming up from the fog. He is most well-known for his painting “Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog.” In this painting, he depicts a gentleman at the top of a mountain looking out into the mysterious and seemingly endless horizon. As Friedrich stands in solitude on the mountain, he contemplates the vision before him, an expression of truth.Caspar David Friedrich was a German Romantic painter. Many scholars believe this is a self-portrait and the landscape is a psychological portrait. The artist invites viewers to relate to the central figure by allowing us to see what he sees. However, Friedrich transforms this landscape into a Romantic subject, artificially composed to stimulate a strong emotional response in the viewer. The carefully rendered details and shifting values give veracity to the scene. The man, dressed as a gentleman to suggest intellectualism, contemplates the world.įriedrich’s training is evident in this oil painting. Through the work, Friedrich makes a statement about the individual and nature. The distant mountains seem to converge around the figure, linking him with the landscape. His perch at the apex of a craggy promontory positions him in the ideal place to commune with nature and suggests the inner state of his psyche. The shifting fog and chiaroscuro (high contrasts of light and dark) convey a sense of movement and energy. The palette is limited to blue, gray, and brown, with hints of pink in the distance. He sought to create a Christian artwork without using traditionally Christian images instead, a man observes a seemingly infinite landscape.įriedrich uses mood and symbolism to convey the sublime. Friedrich creates an impression of unending space to reveal nature’s divinity.
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Friedrich visually reinforces this idea with the triangular crag in the foreground, which points to the sky. The vertical orientation-echoed in the man’s upright stance-emphasizes a connection to the heavens. Friedrich does not frame the composition with typical pictorial devices such as tree branches instead, he leaves the picture plane open with a distant focal point. The vast scene unfolds in foggy atmospheric perspective, receding in hazy layers. In Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, Friedrich conveys the majesty of an untouched landscape. The Romantic understanding of the sublime, as defined by Edmund Burke in his influential 1757 Philosophical Enquiry, linked it with intense subjective feelings of awe and terror, best seen in nature. Later in his life, his paintings reflected a sense of desolation. Friedrich’s childhood was scarred by the deaths of many of his friends and family. Artists from this movement expressed emotion in their work. Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) was a key German Romantic painter.