Mountainous Landscape, North Wales c. 1802

John Sell Cotman rendered this watercolor painting of North Wales, focusing on a landscape dominated by mountainous forms and a solitary figure. The mountain has long served as a symbol of the sublime, the place where the earthly meets the divine. Think of Mount Olympus in Greek mythology, or Mount Sinai in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Here, the mountains in North Wales evoke this same sense of awe and spiritual transcendence. Mountains connect us to primal and universal longings, as the site of revelations and transformative experiences. Observe the lone figure making its way through the landscape. This wanderer evokes Romanticism's fascination with the individual's emotional response to nature. This motif reappears across art history: in Caspar David Friedrich’s "Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog," for example. The emotional power of this image lies in its ability to resonate with our collective memory, with the deep-seated human desire to seek understanding, meaning, and emotional catharsis in nature.