Why Caspar David Friedrich’s Portray Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog (1818) a Romantic Masterpiece, Evoking the Energy of the Elegant

When Cas­par David Friedrich com­plet­ed Der Wan­der­er über dem Nebelmeer, or Wan­der­er Above the Sea of Fog, in 1818, it “was not properly obtained.” So says gal­lerist-Youtu­ber James Payne in his new Nice Artwork Defined video above, which focus­es on Friedrich’s most well-known paint­ing. Within the artist’s life­time, the Wan­der­er in reality “marked the grad­ual decline of Friedrich’s for­tunes.” He with­drew from soci­ety, and in 1835, “he suf­fered a stroke that left the left aspect of his physique effec­tive­ly par­a­lyzed, effec­tive­ly finish­ing his profession.” How, over the cen­turies since, did this once-ill-fat­ed paint­ing change into so icon­ic that many people now see it ref­er­enced each few weeks?

Friedrich had identified pop­u­lar and crit­i­cal scorn earlier than. His first main com­mis­sion, paint­ed in 1808, was “an altar­piece which exhibits a cross in professional­file on the high of a moun­tain, alone and sur­spherical­ed by pine timber. Exhausting for us to below­stand now, nevertheless it brought about an enormous scan­dal.” This owed partially to the dearth of tra­di­tion­al per­spec­tive in its com­po­si­tion, which pre­saged the texture­ing of sure­much less­ness — over­laid with “rolling mists and fogs” — that may char­ac­ter­ize his lat­er work. However extra to the purpose, “land­scape had nev­er been con­sid­ered a go well with­in a position style for overt­ly reli­gious themes. And naturally, nor­mal­ly the cru­ci­repair­ion is proven as a human nar­ra­tive pop­u­lat­ed by human fig­ures, not Christ dying alone.”

It’s honest to say that Friedrich didn’t do issues nor­mal­ly, each philo­soph­i­cal­ly — break­ing away, together with his fel­low Roman­ti­cists, from the mech­a­nis­tic Enlight­en­ment con­sen­sus in regards to the world — and aes­thet­i­cal­ly. The Wan­der­er (fur­ther ana­lyzed within the Nerd­author video just under) presents a Weltan­schau­ung during which “land­scape was a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of a divine world order, and man was an indi­vid­ual who watch­es, con­tem­plates, and feels way more than he cal­cu­lates and thinks.” To realize his desired impact, Friedrich assem­bles an imag­ined vista out of var­i­ous ele­ments seen round Dres­den, pre­despatched­ing it in a person­ner that com­bines char­ac­ter­is­tics of each land­scapes and por­traits to “cre­ate a pow­er­ful sense of house” whereas direct­ing our atten­tion to the lone uniden­ti­fied fig­ure proper within the cen­ter.

The “curi­ous com­bi­na­tion of lone­li­ness and empow­er­ment” that outcomes is vital to below­stand­ing not simply the pri­or­i­ties of the Roman­tics, however the very nature of the aes­thet­ic sub­lime they rev­er­ent­ly expressed. To be sub­lime is not only to be beau­ti­ful or plea­sur­in a position, but additionally to exude a type of intim­i­dat­ing, even worry­some huge­ness; the way it feels to enter the pres­ence of the sub­lime can nev­er be ful­ly repli­cat­ed, not to mention defined, however as Friedrich demon­strates, it will probably effec­tive­ly be evoked. Therefore, as Payne factors out, the ten­den­cy of cur­hire media like film posters to crib from the Wan­der­er, in ser­vice of the likes of Dunkirk, Obliv­ion, Into Darkish­ness, and After Earth. Deter­min­ing whether or not these pic­tures reside as much as the ambi­tions evi­dent in Friedrich’s artis­tic lega­cy is an exer­cise left to the learn­er.

Relat­ed con­tent:

An Intro­duc­tion to the Paint­ing of Cas­par David Friedrich, Roman­ti­cism & the Sub­lime

The Oth­er­world­ly Artwork of William Blake: An Intro­duc­tion to the Imaginative and prescient­ary Poet and Painter

How the Avant-Garde Artwork of Gus­tav Klimt Bought Per­verse­ly Appro­pri­at­ed by the Nazis

Bri­an Eno on Cre­at­ing Music and Artwork As Imag­i­nary Land­scapes (1989)

Nice Artwork Defined: Watch 15 Minute Intro­duc­tions to Nice Works by Warhol, Rothko, Kahlo, Picas­so & Extra

Primarily based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His initiatives embody the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the e-book The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll via Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video sequence The Metropolis in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­e-book.