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Rating: "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog" (Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer) is an oil on canvas painting by Caspar David Friedrich created in 1818.
I am not an art critic and I am not even interested in being one. If I wanted to talk about this painting technically, I would write on the appropriate platforms. Instead, I want to describe to you what I feel every time I stand before this image. Friedrich's painting is the essence of Romanticism itself, with its impressive emotional intensity, its denial of reason, its spiritual significance, and its individualistic nature. Every time I see this painting, I instantly identify with the man portrayed from behind. And I meditate. I reflect on the origins of things, on the scene before me, with its rugged mountains shrouded in fog. What does the fog envelop? Is it like a veil hiding the unknowable?
Yet, a bit of wind would be enough to clear away that fog and reach Knowledge. It is a mystical journey, a cognitive experience like no other. Time stops around me, I am almost able to grasp the meaning of that arcane message, until that moment inaccessible to everyone but me, a fortunate individual. And instead, I find myself frozen, enraptured, and at the same time powerless and terrified in front of that scene. Standing on this peak, as the sunset slowly enters the visual play of the scene, I realize how wonderful the Universe is, the cosmos, infinite space. Wonders and impotence at the same time, because the Universe encompasses forces unknown to us, which we cannot fight, destined to subjugate us forever, until eternity. It is the sublime, a typical element of Romantic culture. I am enraptured by observing this panorama, but I cannot help but be afraid of it and especially of the One who created it.
And then? I must inevitably ask myself who governs these forces, who created this show so inaccessible? For a moment in my life, I don't want to think about what will happen next, what will become of me, for a moment in my existence, I want to be a small detail of Nature, of its untamable world. I will be part of it for that moment that will last forever.
When, unfortunately, I awaken from this dream, I realize that my thoughts are just wanderings, reflections without apparent sense. Perhaps my inner self knows them, but I am not sure. I might have gotten everything wrong, but I don't care. What matters are the emotions this painting gives me and the journey I undertake by observing it...
..."and the shipwreck is sweet to me in this sea..."
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