Sunday, July 6, 2008

I Spoke Too Soon, Here's Another Friedrich


Traveler Contemplating a Sea of Fog, 1818. Here's a figure who appears a lot in Friedrich's work, the awe-struck witness who sees more than we do.

7 comments:

it's margaret said...

Was I dreaming, or did Friedrich paint this after travelling to the western parts (at the time) of the States, and he was blown away with the vastness of the landscapes?

it's margaret said...

oh --and a new grav for you? Who is the artist?

Counterlight said...

Friedrich never traveled outside of Germany, that I'm aware of.
He did, however, strongly influence a lot of American artists who studied in Germany (Bingham, Church, etc.), and Germans who became American artists (Bierstadt).

My new gravatar is a painting of the patron saint of artists, St. Luke, painted by Guercino in the early 17th century. I love that Look-at-my-Masterpiece! gesture together with the admiring angel.

it's margaret said...

I like your new grav too!

Thanks for putting me right about Friedrich. I knew there was some connection between western painters and his work.

Davis said...

At first glance I thought the gravatar was a Nazarene painting, but Guercino will do anytime.

johnieb said...

This is the dust jacket for John Lewis Gaddis's *The Landscape of History*, part of which is a meditation on the work.

Gaddis gets my goat with his justification for the Cold War, on which he is a leading authority, but his thoughts on the meaning and writing of History here were good.

Anonymous said...

My modern equivalent would be the view from my mother's flat on a foggy morning. She lives on the 11th floor in a highrise overlooking the river, and every once in a while fog reduces the landscape to a few close treetops, and some highrises and radio towers in the distance. There's that sense of wonder at the "new" and disorienting landscape of fog that just demands an observer in the picture.

NancyP