The Monk By The Sea Essay

510 Words2 Pages

Caspar David Friedrich was a German painter, and helped define and shape the Romantic Movement in Germany. According to The Tate, Friedrich had a primary interest in the contemplation of the natural world (Wyss, “The Whispering Zeitgeist”). This no doubt transferred over to much of his artwork, as The Monk by The Sea immediately evokes emotion and contemplation from the viewer. In addition, Freidrich derived much of his inspiration from religion, which centered on nature as a metaphor for God’s power and anonymity. The portrait itself is named after the monk, but a vast expansive sea drowns out any thought that the monk is the actual subject of the painting; rather it alludes to how man truly occupies little space in this world and a need to heel to the divine. …show more content…

Landscape paintings of the time made use of perspective to draw the audience into the painting. This artwork makes no such attempt. There is no foreground, which forces the viewer, similar to the monk, to look forwards to the sea. Friedrich’s use of a low horizon furthers his effort to make viewers feel pure emotion. It appears that the sea spreads from one edge of the painting to the other, contained only by the frame. The cloudy sky has been drawn in three shades, and the use of oil allows for the shades to blend well with one another, occupying a vast majority of space. Moreover, Friedrich employs the use of Rückenfigur, a technique where the body points away from the viewer, challenging them to look ahead (Palmer, “Norman Rockwell and the Rückenfigur”). In this case, the monk’s rückenfigur challenges the viewer to follow suit and simply

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