Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (c. 1818)
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg
A man in a dark coat stands on a rocky summit above a sea of mist – the icon of Romanticism
Image: Caspar David Friedrich · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Art
Caspar David Friedrich
1774–1840 · German
Romanticism
Caspar David Friedrich was the leading painter of German Romanticism, based for most of his career in Dresden. His silent, spiritual landscapes – lone figures seen from behind, gazing at fog, moonlight or the sea – express awe before nature and the sublime, and made Wanderer above the Sea of Fog an emblem of the Romantic age.
How to spot them
- ▸The Rückenfigur: a figure seen from behind, contemplating a vast landscape
- ▸Misty mountains, moonlit coasts, Gothic ruins, bare oak trees and graveyards in winter
- ▸Stillness and symmetry – spiritual, almost religious landscapes rather than dramatic action
- ▸Quiz clue: Greifswald, Dresden, the island of Rügen, the Baltic coast
Key works
The Sea of Ice (1823–1824)
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg
Shards of Arctic ice crushing a wrecked ship
Image: Caspar David Friedrich · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
The Monk by the Sea (1808–1810)
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin
A tiny monk before an immense empty sea and sky; companion to The Abbey in the Oakwood
Image: Caspar David Friedrich · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
The Abbey in the Oakwood (1809–1810)
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin
Monks carry a coffin past a ruined Gothic abbey among leafless oaks
Image: Caspar David Friedrich · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Chalk Cliffs on Rügen (c. 1818)
Museum Oskar Reinhart, Winterthur
Three figures peer over white cliffs on the Baltic island of Rügen, associated with his honeymoon
Image: Caspar David Friedrich · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Two Men Contemplating the Moon (1819–1820)
Galerie Neue Meister, Dresden
Two figures from behind watching a crescent moon; Samuel Beckett cited it as a source for Waiting for Godot
Image: Caspar David Friedrich · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Quick-fire facts
- •Born in Greifswald on the Baltic coast in 1774, then part of Swedish Pomerania.
- •He studied at the Copenhagen Academy before settling in Dresden.
- •As a boy he saw his brother Johann Christoffer drown after falling through ice.
- •His Cross in the Mountains (the Tetschen Altarpiece, 1808) caused controversy for using a landscape as an altarpiece.
- •The Monk by the Sea and The Abbey in the Oakwood were bought by the Prussian royal family in 1810.
- •He married Caroline Bommer in 1818.
- •He fell into obscurity after his death and was rediscovered in the early 20th century.
- •His signature device of a figure seen from behind is called the Rückenfigur.
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Sources
- National Gallery, London — Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Caspar David Friedrich