For those who have read my about/bio and never had the chance to google it, this is my favorite painting. Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, by German painter Caspar David Friedrich. Composed in 1818, it currently resides in the Kunsthalle Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany.
Much like all other of the more “human” feelings, I don’t know why I like this painting as much as I do. I’m more a fan of post-impressionism and everything that follows after it, but this is a great painting and it has this soothing feeling attached to it. At the same time it exhales a sense of complete hopelessness – no matter what you do, life is full of mysteries. Or at least that’s how I see this painting: as a metaphor for life and all of man’s complicated pursuits.
So you don’t say this post was utterly useless, here’s a nice video with a pretty good advice by John Irving.
Now it’s time to do some writing. Fiction writing, that is.
I love the painting as well. Why? Perhaps it’s the German idealist concept that we are in the world and depend on the world for our existence but that we also “know” the world and because we are the only “knowing” creatures we actually breathe existence back into the world itself. We would not exist without the world and the world would not exist without us.
Without a conscience to notice the world, the world does not exist. Interesting view. I’ve never thought about it in that way, but now as I look at the painting itself, I kind of tend to agree with you. Then again, everyone’s free to interpret any work of art in any way he desires.
It's interesting that you encapsulate ideas and emotions with images in art. I think that, as children, we are given more emotional freedoms when it comes to viewing and interpreting art. I am a largely auditory person, but when I write, I almost always write about artists and people immersed in the visual world. Go figure….
Exactly what is soothing and hopeless about this painting?
Christian – like you I love this painting. Had the fortune to see it many times in the Kunsthalle when I lived in Hamburg. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Nice painting indeed. Also one of my favourites as i posted in my blog. Btw, thanks so much for dropping by my blog and following it. I really appreciate it. I’m new to it but i see a good prospects in it ^^. Keep up the good work!!
I first came across this painting as the cover of a bargain issue of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I’ve associated it with the story ever since. I always imagine the subject being in a very northerly, perhaps Arctic climate when I see this.