Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

The painting I will analyze is called Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. It was made by the German painter Caspar David Friedrich in 1820 and represents a typical work of art from Romanticism, a philosophical and cultural movement that was particularly influential during the first half of the 19th century in Europe and beyond.

In general, it can be said that this painting is intended to represent the immensity of Nature and, in contrast, the distressing insignificance of man.

In the foreground, just in the center of the painting, we see a figure from behind who is at the top of a mountain and who is looking at the unfolding of a huge sea of clouds that slowly pass before his eyes. You can't see the face of this mysterious traveler, but you can imagine that his expression is probably surprising, given the impressive landscape he has in front of him.

In the center of the painting, amidst a carpet made of clouds, we see the rocky tops of the other mountains bending down, giving a dimension of the frightening height in which the character finds himself.

In the background, we see another mountain, the largest, located to the left of the traveler in question, which rises massively on the uniform ocean of clouds. However, this implacable mountain is lost in the horizon, merging with the insatiable clouds below and the gray and yellow vault of an eternal sky below.

The painter uses contrasting colours, with white, brown and gray being the predominant ones.

But it is not through a reasoned analysis of light, colours or its perfect geometry that the authentic essence of this painting can be revealed. We need to focus on what it wants to convey through its sober images.

Above all, the painting tries to awaken in the spectator a contradictory sensation of a disturbing serenity. On the one hand, it shows the quiet and hypnotizing movement of the clouds, which invite us to a calm contemplation. On the other hand, the painting transmits an abysmal silence and, with it, a feeling of radical solitude, almost despair but in any case distressing.

In addition, the painting also underlines a sense of incommensurability. The immensity of the mountain, the vertigo of the heights, the incessant flow of clouds and the infinity of an all threatening sky are violently imposed on the spectator, saturating the perception and upsetting the mind. In this way, with its terrifying majesty, Nature shows itself, even in silence and calmness, sublime.