Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog

In 1818, the German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich, who reflected the mood of lyrical poetry, painted Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, a painted scene of a man with a crutch standing on the top a mountain and staring at the fog. It appears on the cover of Frankenstein and evokes a sense of the divine in nature. The fog conveys a mystical presence and an awe of the unknown, characterizing the sense that nature is powerful, immense, and mysterious (Potash).

The Romantic era was a response to the scientific and industrial revolutions, and the singular focus on reason.  Science (and Victor Frankenstein) believed that they could unlock the mysteries of life, that they could solve every riddle of the universe. Romanticism was an antidote to that pride and arrogance, but re-instilling a sense of awe, ever fear, of nature (Potash). In Romanticism, nature is divine and mysterious.

        Thinking really deeply on the cliff, the man in the painting personifies Friedrich’s overwhelming desire for solitude: “I have to stay alone in order to fully contemplate and feel nature”, he wrote (Marceau and Candlish, 376). Romanticism frequently portrayed nature with bleak, mountainous landscapes and forests where one could become forever lost (Marceau and Candlish 376). These landscapes are places of meditation and solitude, where man moves aimlessly and wearily. It symbolizes solitude and sometimes expresses despair. Therefore it really makes man self-reflect.

Marceau, Jo, and Louise Candlish. Art: a World History. New York, NY: DK Pub., 1998. Print.

Potash, Brett. Romanticism Arts Analysis. 2011.