“The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog”
“The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog”, sometimes called “Wanderer above the Mist”, is a dramatic and wonderful oil on canvas painting from 1817 by the German Romantic artist, Caspar David Friedrich. It is one of the most iconic paintings to come out from the Romanticism art movement.
Friedrich was a master of turning a landscape painting into one of self-reflection. The lone figure is often interpreted as a self-portrait of Friedrich against the backdrop of a wild landscape. It shows his personal experience with nature and his contemplation of it. Friedrich himself said that self-expression had to be done through physical and spiritual isolation, which is a constant theme throughout his work.
“The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” is an example of Friedrich’s allegorical landscapes in which a lonely figure is silhouetted against a sublime and dramatic landscape; a technique referred to as Rückenfigur. By showing the figure from behind, the artist invites the viewer to see the landscape through his perspective. Spirituality was having a revival in popular culture at this time. Aided by the dissatisfaction with materialism, many artists, including Friedrich, were influenced by the trend towards spirituality. Nature was reevaluated and humanity’s place in the world was reduced to scale.
Friedrich originally sketched the outline of this piece at the Elbe Sandstone Mountains in Saxony in Southeastern Germany. He made the final painting in his studio. Surprisingly, this painting was underappreciated in his lifetime and wasn’t largely appreciated until after his death.
“The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” is in the collections of the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Kunsthalle Art Museum) in Hamburg, Germany, and is on loan until November 2025.
For more on Caspar David Friedrich, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
