![]() The sky looks endless, though it is veiled with scattered, sometimes rugged clouds. You feel to fall or to rise into it, however you let your look eyes wander around in it and can virtually breath the air and cool wind. The painting unfolds an overwhelming presence by its size of 37.3 in × 29.4 in and because it was done with such great diligence it is opening a astonishing window into another realm. He could be absolutely anybody, yet we know from other paintings that Friedrich must have looked like that, so he is kind of bringing himself and his view into it, while the dark clothing supports him staying anonymous. The whole painting is about him (but who is he?) and in the same moment the overwhelmingly beautiful landscape part is outside of him. Here the anonymous wanderer makes the picture talk, as he is standing in the very middle of it and turning the back towards the viewer. People are part of the nature and the same time separated from it, bringing them into the pictures, Friedrich creates another level of awareness. But there is also this deeper aspect, that nature and universe were the more important topic to him anyway, so he concentrated on talking to the viewer through lanscapes. He solved this problem with showing them from the back or the side. This was a great achievement of the romantic era and contemplative Caspar David Friedrich stood out as the master of this kind of art.įunny, that he made his way though he is said not having been very fond or talented in painting people. The landscape depicts the soul of a man and carries multiple messages.įriedrich´s pictures, as they focus on nature rather than people get timeless and transcendental, as inside and outside world seem to be unified in them. So the highly credible view he presents to us doesn´t exist in reality. So some of the mountain tops appearing in the mist here could be identified, but they´re actually situated in different places of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains. With a big pile of these drawings he went home and composed the painting itself in his atelier. He used to go out into nature and took many meticulous on site sketches. Yet whole situation looks so natural and compelling, as Friedrich composed the picture out of different landscape pieces from the Elbe Sandstone Mountains (a mountain range straddling the border between the state of Saxony in southeastern Germany and the Czech Republic). ![]() You can sense the land underneath, but not clearly see it. Mention the sharp contrast between the foreground and background, the dark silhouette of man and mountain against the misty translucent landscape. The boulder’s dramatic silhouette inspired by the jagged sandstones atop the Kaiserkrone, or “imperial crown” another table hill near the Zirkelstein.Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) Wanderer above the Sea of Fog Oil on canvas (37.3 in by 29.4 in)(The Epoch Times)Ī man standing on a formation of rocks, looking upon a sea of fog and clouds – together with other well known landscapes by Caspar David Friedrich the Wanderer above the Sea of Fog marks the peak of German painting in the Romantic era. Even the rocks the titular wanderer stands on was pulled from nature. Below the Zirkelstein is the Gamrig, a rock formation that overlooks the village of Waltersdorf. The strange, vertical pillar in the far distance to the right of the figure is likely based on the Zirkelstein, a table hill topped by a 130ft tall sandstone rock on the border between Switzerland and the Czech Republic. Below the mountain a fingered rock craig seems to represent million-year-old Bastei rock formation. The distant mountain peak to the left of the figure resembles either the Kaltenberg peak in Austria or the Růžovský vrch, the Rosenberg mountain. Friedrich described his approach to landscape painting saying “The artist should paint not only what he has in front of him but also what he sees inside himself.” Friedrich brought this practice to the Wanderer, splicing together a variety of landscapes from the Elbe Sandstone Mountains in Saxony, that he'd previously sketched in person.
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