Caspar Friedrich

Caspar Friedrich:  The Sea of Ice (1823–24)

Caspar David Friedrich (1774 - 1840) was considered as the highest representative of Romanticism in Germany, and one of the most important painters of his time. This work of art represents a painting of the nature and the spiritual life of man.

The painting's icy palette corresponds to the Arctic setting. It is undoubtedly one of the artist's masterpieces, yet the radical nature of its composition and subject was greeted in its own day with incomprehension and rejection.

In the painting, now often called The Wreck of the Hope, the painter imbued the subject with unsurpassable dramatic intensity. The particular feature of this work is that the drama has already happened. The huge towering pinnacles are the slowly moving icebergs that have long become fixed there. The bold attempt by man to burst the bounds of his sphere ends in death.

Caspar Friedrich:  The Sea of Ice (1823–24)

When the artist was 13, an accident occurred, that, perhaps subconsciously, formed part of the shadow that seemed to darken his temperament throughout his life. While ice skating he was saved from drowning by his younger brother Christoph, but Christoph himself drowned in the icy water in front of his eyes. It can be hardly denied that Friedrich's various "sea of ice" paintings must be seen in relation to this traumatic experience.

My opinion of this picture is that the re-exposure of the trauma that this man lived on the canvas is just as beautiful as it is awesome. The color tones that he uses shows very well the experience lived in the accident. The work itself is very beautiful and is a source of inspiration that can take several meanings.

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