Monday, September 26, 2011
Wanderer above the Sea of Fog
I am not sure if we are supposed to post about paintings, but here we go. I did research on "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog" (by Caspar David Friedrich). It is interesting that the background, which we have called "dominated" or "humbling", is actually a conglomerate of different sites that Friedrich had visited. For example, the mountains of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains in Germany and, more specifically, the Zirkelstein, the smallest table mountain in Switzerland. The "Wanderer" actually took sublimity to a whole other level. Not only are we looking at an image that gives us a great perspective through the eyes of another fictional character, the scene itself is an imaginary blend of real, natural landmarks.
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That’s interesting that the painting wasn’t of one place but an amalgamation of many. At first I thought that made it cheating, it can’t really be the Sublime if it isn’t even a real piece of nature that a human could see in reality, but on second thought I think I agree with you. Friedrich has separated out the most sublime aspects of the various places he has seen and we are forced to see them through his eyes, at once bringing us closer and distancing us from nature. It is something more than just the human or the natural, but at the same time it is given is power through human experience, both Friedrich’s and the viewer’s, so it seems right that it is a place where the imagined and the real meet.
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