Makayla Rippy

Phillips 

English 101

10 March 2016

Wanderer Above the Sea of Life

There have been many arguments throughout art history about what the definition of art is. Some still argue to this day that art should only be something to please the eye, while others argue that art should have some deeper meaning that requires the viewer to think hard to discover its meaning. With each different art movement came a different idea about the meaning of art, and these are only a small few of them. Friedrich was able to combine both the aesthetic aspect and the deeper meaning ideal in his work, "Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog." Not only does he create a very beautiful, mountainous landscape that is pleasing to the viewer's eye, but he also creates the opportunity for the viewer to put themselves in the position of the Wanderer -- someone who has overcome one of the many difficulties that life has in store for him. Because of this, the painting is universal, and allows for any human being to understand where the artist is coming from, because everyone has struggled or will struggle at some point in their lives.

Taking a closer look at the Wanderer himself, one can observe that he is wearing very nice clothes -- especially for someone hiking up a mountain. The suit that he wears is a subtle dark green, which is not a mere coincidence. The color green is often associated with growth, because of its plant-like quality, and is thus used as the major color of the Wanderer to show that as he overcomes the mountains, he grows from the hardships. The staff that he holds at his side is probably an easier symbol to understand. The basic use for a staff is to help one make it up the mountain when the legs are not strong enough to do so on their own. Thus, the staff could symbolize the people that will inevitably help you through your struggles, as long as you are not too prideful to ask for help. Perhaps this is Friedrich telling the audience that it is okay to have help, and might be an easier way -- if not the only way to make it up the mountain. 

Compositionally, Friedrich does an excellent job of using different textures in different portions of the painting to convey different meanings. In the foreground, taking up a third of the painting, there are very jagged rocks that the Wanderer is standing on, only a portion of the rough and rocky path that he has traveled through to get to the successful top-of-the-mountain man. This path and the other rock formations in the image are symbols for the troubles he has gone through, and also the troubles that he will have to face in the future. The success of making it up at least one peak is the event that leads to the serene feeling that Friedrich invites the viewer to feel along with the Wanderer. For someone who is currently struggling, one look at this image would most definitely give them hope, and this was done purposely, to provide relief from any viewer that is struggling, by showing them what it will feel like when they finally resolve their problems. 

In the middle ground of the painting, Friedrich uses purposeful, expressive brushstrokes to create a rather chaotic-textured group of clouds and fog that harmonize well with the jagged rocks down below. The Wanderer looks out in the distance of them, seeing how many more mountains there are to "explore," signifying how many more struggles he will have to overcome. The vast amount of them could also signify major life events that the typical human usually gets to, such as falling in love, having children, and so on, throughout a lifetime. This serves as a sort of timeline for his life that the Wanderer is fortunate enough to get a glance of  ahead of time. However, the Wanderer can only see the peaks of each mountain, because of the fog which has made the paths to each mountaintop unclear. This leaves room for the viewer to make the decision of how they get to each peak of each mountain, which allows the painting to be extremely personal to the viewer. The uncertainty caused by the blurred vision can be rather troubling and anxiety-inducing, however, the painting is still uplifting, almost giving a message of 'you can do this.'  Friedrich does this by choosing to paint the Wanderer (the viewer) above the chaos, despite how much there is. The figure looks downward, as if to say that the viewer is also above all of the struggles, no matter how abundant they are. Adding to the uplifting aspect, he also creates two definite directional lines with the symmetrical mountains in the middle ground that lead equally to the Wanderer, so that no matter what, the viewer's eyes are always drawn back to him, creating a sense that he is the utmost powerful driving force and focal point in this image. Lastly, if one were to squint at this image and focus solely on the contrast of light versus dark, the viewer would notice that there are many more lighter shades than darker ones. These two elements are not literally balanced, because there is more of one than the other, but when applied to someone's lifetime, things are more "balanced" and good in general when there are more positive aspects than negative ones. Overall, despite the pressure of having such abundant rock formations, or struggles, in this image, Friedrich still manages to create an uplifting feeling for the viewer.

In the background, things are much clearer. The sky is painted with gentle strokes, fluffy clouds at the top of the image, and even the mountain in the background has gentle curves to it, in stark contrast to the rocks in the foreground. The clouds are also extremely different texturally, much softer than the vision-blocking fog down below. Friedrich does this purposely so that the Wanderer has something to look forward to in the future -- that eventually the paths he takes become more clear, and thus symbolizing that the struggles will become more easily resolved in the future. More significantly, yet also the most subtle and underseen part of this image, there is a final peak far away and hidden by clouds that appears to be significant to a final life event that one faces. There is a bright light around the peak of that mountain, which usually is associated with death and moving on to heaven or whatever there is to come in the afterlife. However, the fact that this small portion of the painting is illuminated makes the viewer feel like by the time they get there, death will not be something frightening, but rather beautiful and welcomed at the end of this long journey through life. Judging by the fact that many of his works have references to religion, it is not hard to infer that the "bright light" at the end of the journey is supposed to signify the ultimate reward at the end of our lives, giving the painting its ultimate deeper meaning that forces the viewer to truly notice the details if they wish to understand such meaning.

Overall, Friedrich provides the viewer with an extremely visually-stimulating atmosphere in which a lot is going on, but everything is eventually brought back to the center of the image -- the Wanderer, or what the artist wants the viewer to see him as--the you character. Although he uses many different elements of art throughout the image (texture, color, composition), everything is still unified and harmonizes well because of a single color. The overwhelming amounts of blue in the painting give both aesthetic pleasure, because blue is a very calm and serene color, but also unifies the entire image as if everything is as it should be, telling the viewer that struggles will inevitably happen but the Wanderer will ultimately overcome them no matter the height of the mountain. In the end, the long journey it will be worth it when they are ultimately rewarded with the relief of death and passing on.

Works Cited

Friedrich, Caspar David. Wanderer Above the  Sea of Fog. 1818.
