Drifting Clouds 1820

Caspar David Friedrich, a painter working in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, created this landcsape, Drifting Clouds. Friedrich lived through a period of intense social and political upheaval in Europe. As the enlightenment gave way to a more romantic era there was also a rise in nationalist sentiments. It's hard to ignore the connections between the individual and the expansive power of nature in this work. The vast, open landscape invites you to contemplate the sublime. It can make you feel small, as though the landscape dwarfs the self. Friedrich seemed to capture the longing for stability that many felt during this era. Friedrich once said "The painter should paint not only what he sees before him, but also what he sees in himself." Consider how the painting invites us to think about the ways the exterior world reflects our own interior landscape. It offers a space for contemplating the convergence of personal experience and broader existential questions.