There is this painting that I'd like to openly examine. I am currently looking at the works of Caspar David Friedrich and although this isn't one of the paintings that I am particularly interested in, it follows several of the prominent themes that I will be looking at. It is also very beautiful. It is called 'Morgen im Riesengebirge'.
Although it is typical for the viewer to be drawn first to the subject matter before the surrounding background, Friedrich's figures are too minute to overcome the overwhelming dominance of the landscape that they are in. We are met with a breathtaking view of mountain peaks that emerge from a sea of mist and recede into the far distance. At the center of the painting, joining the vast blue sky and land, is the sun that almost blinds us with its sheer brightness.
This sun - a feature that one cannot bear to look at for too long - is undoubtedly the focal point of the painting and the figures seem insignificant in comparison. Almost too far from our view to be clearly identified, there is a girl in a white dress helping a man up to a wayside cross that stands majestically, yet obscurely, above the landscape. It faces, and is level with, the sun which seems to suggest that the latter symbolises God. It is not at all unusual of Friedrich to use the sun as a metaphor for God and it reveals a great deal about his pantheistic tendencies, which emphasises the omnipresence of God in nature.
Furthermore, Friedrich emphasises the inability of man to grasp the absolute essence of either God or nature: the mountains disappear from our view, thus playing on our short-sightedness, and the sun is simply too dazzling to gaze on for long. The struggle that the two figures in the painting undergo in order to reach the wayside cross - a mere object in comparison to the true substance of religion, represented by the sun - reveals the limitations that face man in his yearning for the absolute. As with the viewer, the figures can only gain a glimpse of their surroundings - not grasp and become one with it.
There are probably political ideas that could be read into this painting as have been done to many of Friedrich's other paintings. However, I choose to ignore them for now since such ideas tend to be a little ambiguous. Politics never really suited the Romantics in my opinion anyhow...except for one which I will discuss another time.
Although it is typical for the viewer to be drawn first to the subject matter before the surrounding background, Friedrich's figures are too minute to overcome the overwhelming dominance of the landscape that they are in. We are met with a breathtaking view of mountain peaks that emerge from a sea of mist and recede into the far distance. At the center of the painting, joining the vast blue sky and land, is the sun that almost blinds us with its sheer brightness.
This sun - a feature that one cannot bear to look at for too long - is undoubtedly the focal point of the painting and the figures seem insignificant in comparison. Almost too far from our view to be clearly identified, there is a girl in a white dress helping a man up to a wayside cross that stands majestically, yet obscurely, above the landscape. It faces, and is level with, the sun which seems to suggest that the latter symbolises God. It is not at all unusual of Friedrich to use the sun as a metaphor for God and it reveals a great deal about his pantheistic tendencies, which emphasises the omnipresence of God in nature.
Furthermore, Friedrich emphasises the inability of man to grasp the absolute essence of either God or nature: the mountains disappear from our view, thus playing on our short-sightedness, and the sun is simply too dazzling to gaze on for long. The struggle that the two figures in the painting undergo in order to reach the wayside cross - a mere object in comparison to the true substance of religion, represented by the sun - reveals the limitations that face man in his yearning for the absolute. As with the viewer, the figures can only gain a glimpse of their surroundings - not grasp and become one with it.
There are probably political ideas that could be read into this painting as have been done to many of Friedrich's other paintings. However, I choose to ignore them for now since such ideas tend to be a little ambiguous. Politics never really suited the Romantics in my opinion anyhow...except for one which I will discuss another time.
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