The Paradox of Nature
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“The Paradox of Nature”
A painter whose best-known influence was that of the Romantic Movement, Caspar David Friedrich was well versed in many forms of art. While he had a formal art education, he did not begin his oil paintings until after the age of thirty. Two of his more famous works, he painted in 1818, The Wanderer above the Sea of Mist, and Chalk Cliffs on Rugen. Both of these paintings are typical of Friedrich in that they are composed of characters viewing nature from within nature. These characters are in a mode of reflection; they are distanced from their regular lives, which are full of finite, tangible, objects, and instead are immersed in a realm of intangible infinity, experiencing the overwhelming excess of nature in full force. These characters experience first hand the paradox of the massive force of nature, and the finitude of human life. The viewer simultaneously must realize the limits of their own perspective when looking at either of these paintings, both of which are composed of characters that have been placed very carefully in order to tease at the viewers’ inability to view the painting through the main character’s eyes. Instead, we must settle for a sort of “photograph” of the experience these characters are going through.
In Friedrich’s Chalk Cliffs on Rugen, characters are at what appears to be the edge of a mountainous cliff, on the edge of the lush forest, which turns into rocky mountains just beyond where the characters rest. Friedrich’s technical skill is displayed prevalently in all aspects of the painting, most notably in the trees surrounding these characters. Yet while this foliage is brilliantly painted, it is also painted against a sharply contrasting set of mountainous cliffs below. This contrast directs the eye to the vast space in between these plants and the jagged cliffs below, and while the viewer is unable to see what lies beneath this cliff, these characters show signs of being overwhelmed by the infinite expanse of nature in front of them. It is as though Friedrich wanted to point out the limits of painting, by showing us beauty surrounding the characters, rather than attempting to capture the moment they are experiencing. The woman pictured on the left has her right arm lazily pointed, rather than fully outstretched in urgency, she emanates a feeling of uncertainty and disbelief. The male on the right has his arms crossed, and is leaning back, both of which extrude confidence, he, like the woman on the right is exposed first hand to the excess of nature, but clearly has a different relationship with nature. Also noteworthy is the man pictured in the center of this painting, who has unexplainably collapsed, adding urgency to the question of what these characters are able to view that we are not. While the man on the right remains stoic, the other two characters are full of emotion, showing how truly affected they are by the magnitude of the internal emotion these cliffs create in them. While in most landscape paintings the landscape itself is the main point of interest, Friedrich draws more attention to the emotional transformation occurring in the characters. He does this by only showing us a portion of the spectacular landscape that would be in view to