Caspar David Friedrich

September 5, 1774 - May 7, 1840

One of the central figures of German Romanticism

Seashore with Shipwreck by Moonlight
(1825-1830)

The Sea Of Ice
(1823-1824)

Portrait of Caspar David Friedrich, c. 1810-20

by Gerhard von Kügelgen (1772-1820)

This Dude was intense.

I recently discovered the painting The Sea Of Ice, which I've also seen translated as Shipwreck (Polar Sea).

The image was a part of my daily visual landscape for about a week before I realized it was a painting. My glance had been reading it as a contemporary installation, some kind of set. A dramatic, other-worldly scene. -- As a painting it is a very different animal, and as a painting created in the 1820's... it blows my mind. The sensibility seems so contemporary: The solidity, geometry, broken bits, jagged edges.