How to Read Paintings: Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich

Christopher P Jones is the author of <a href="https://www.chrisjoneswrites.co.uk/how-to-read-paintings/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">How to Read Paintings,</a> an examination of art’s most enthralling images and their meanings. A man stands on top of a crag of rocks, overlooking a valley cloaked in mountain mist. Other ridges rise through the fog, giving the impression of islands in a sea. The man himself appears to have hiked up this mountain and now looks out over the precipice at the heights he has scaled. He is an explorer — though we sense driven more by romantic sensibility than by any professional pursuit. The way his hair catches in the wind, his overtly noble stance with one leg raised, his frock coat and walking cane, all give the impression of a well-to-do town-dweller who has chosen to spend time in the wilds of nature rather than human society. Like so many paintings by the German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich, the images focus on a person gazing out over nature. We gaze out alongside him, a few paces behind perhaps, but still a companion in the moment. The term for this device is Rückenfigur, or figure seen from behind, a compositional device by which the viewer can more readily identify with the scene. <a href="https://medium.com/thinksheet/how-to-read-paintings-wanderer-above-the-sea-of-fog-by-caspar-david-friedrich-b8c8f0e20d45">Learn More</a>