Romanticism: Caspar David Friedrich

Edmund Burke's notion of nature's sublime power to evoke a sense of mystery and loss of self is most consistently expressed in the paintings of the German Romantic, Caspar David Friedrich. For Friedrich, the sublime included the appeal of lunar folklore, myth, and German nationalism. He was particularly attracted to the theme of figures contemplating the moon, like the above painting, Moonrise over the Sea. Notice that the figures are silhouetted so that their identity becomes absorbed into the forms of nature. This sense of unity with nature, compounded by the haunting setting, conveys the figures' Romantic character.

The above painting, The Stages of Life, is a meditation on the artist's own mortality, depicting five ships at various distances from the shore. The foreground similarly shows five figures at different stages of life.

Incidentally, Friedrich's other Romantic masterpiece is featured on this very page (think you can find it?).