Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (German: Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer), also known as Wanderer

above the Mistor Mountaineer in a Misty Landscape, is an oil painting c. 1818 by the German

Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich. It currently resides in the Kunsthalle

Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany.

The painting is composed of various elements from the Elbe Sandstone.

Mountains in Saxony and Bohemia, sketched in the field but in accordance with his usual practice,

rearranged by Friedrich himself in the studio for the painting. In the background to the right is

the Zirkelstein. The mountain in the background to the left could be either the Rosenberg or the

Kaltenberg. The group of rocks in front of it represent the Gamrig near Rathen. The rocks on which the

traveler stands are a group on the Kaiserkrone.

According to the painter’s description,in the foreground a young man stands upon a rocky precipice with

his back to the viewer. He is wrapped in a dark green overcoat, and grips a walking stick in his right

hand. His hair caught in a wind, the wanderer gazes out on a landscape covered in a thick sea of fog. In

the middle ground, several other ridges, perhaps not unlike the ones the wanderer himself stands upon, jut

out from the mass.Through the wreaths of fog, forests of trees can be perceived atop these escarpments.

In the far distance, faded mountains rise in the left, gently leveling off into lowland plains in the east.

Beyond here, the pervading fog stretches out indefinitely, eventually commingling with the horizon and

becoming indistinguishable from the cloud-filled sky.

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog is true to the Romantic style and Friedrich's style in particular, being

similar to other works such as Chalk Cliffs on Rügen and The Sea of Ice. Gorra's (2004) analysis was that

the message conveyed by the painting is one of Kantian self-reflection, expressed through the wanderer's

gazings into the murkiness of the sea of fog. Dembo (2001) sympathised, asserting

that Wanderer presents a metaphor for the unknown future. Gaddis (2004) felt that the impression the
wanderer's position atop the precipice and before the twisted outlook leaves "is contradictory, suggesting

at once mastery over a landscape and the insignificance of the individual within it".

According to my own understanding, the painting is all about self-realization of a man toward his life. It

also tells about the reality of a once person towards the society, which is about discrimination. Because of

discrimination, people tend to be alone, rather than to socialize with others. The man on that painting

represents the personality of a person which is “full of dreams”. The mountain represent “hopes”and

“rising light”,for those people who are hopeless and scared to face the reality of life.

The technique, we have to say it, is impeccable. The lighten background and the figure in shadows make

us pay attention to the wild, the indomitable. Friedrich seems to tell us that, to get there, to the authentic,

we must go through men and its rationality.

 Basket of Fruit(Caravaggio)

Basket of Fruit (c.1599) is a still life painting by the Italian Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da

Caravaggio (1571–1610), which hangs in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana (Ambrosian Library), Milan. It

shows a wicker basket perched on the edge of a ledge. The basket contains a selection of summer fruit:

A good-sized, light-red peach attached to a stem with wormholes in the leaf resembling damage by

oriental fruit moth (Orthosia hibisci). Beneath it is a single bicolored apple, shown from a stem

perspective with two insect entry holes, probably codling moth, one of which shows secondary rot at the

edge; one blushed yellow pear with insect predations resembling damage by leaf roller (Archips

argyospita); four figs, two white and two purple—the purple ones dead ripe and splitting along the sides,

plus a large fig leaf with a prominent fungal scorch lesion resembling anthracnose (Glomerella cingulata);

and a single unblemished quince with a leafy spur showing fungal spots. There are four clusters of grapes,

black, red, golden, and white; the red cluster on the right shows several mummied fruit, while the two

clusters on the left each show an overripe berry. There are two grape leaves, one severely desiccated and

shriveled while the other contains spots and evidence of an egg mass. In the right part of the basket are

two green figs and a ripe black one is nestled in the rear on the left. On the sides of the basket are two

disembodied shoots: to the right is a grape shoot with two leaves, both showing severe insect predations

resembling grasshopper feeding; to the left is a floating spur of quince or pear.

According to the painter’s description, The basket of fruit leans on a flat surface, but we don’t know if it

is a table, a shelf or something else. In addition, the background is neutral, so for the first time still life

becomes the protagonist of the painting.

The details are painted accurately, and even the apple eaten by a worm, the dried leaf of the fig or the dust

on the grapes deserve to be painted on the canvas.

What makes this painting a masterpiece of fundamental importance lies in the way the artist develops a

new way to see painting and still life.Caravaggio depicts things as they are.

This is Caravaggio's only independent still life that survives and has been identified securely. Sensitive

and respectful rendering of fruit, crystal, linen, and the like was traditional among North Italians, but not

until about the time of Caravaggio's birth did a few Lombard artists begin to paint still life unrelated to

figures. Caravaggio followed their example. His accomplishment as a still-life painter was recognized and

became partly responsible for the popularization of the genre among Italian painters during his lifetime

and after. 

He dignified the subject. The Basket of Fruit is like a haiku: unpretentious, but striking and intensely

concentrated. The components are presented forthrightly, without any evident mannerism. Asymmetrical

and seemingly piled up casually, they have in fact been arranged as carefully as an architectural

construction. The low horizon line causes the basket to loom up, confirming the monumental effect. Each

organic element reveals its proper form and obeys nature's laws: the still-fresh dewdrops, the

characteristic shapes of the different kinds of leaves, the apple's color modulation, the pearl-like grapes,

the figs' striated skins, the woven rhythm of the straw fabric of the basket, even its loose strand. Each is

specific, and yet each is transmuted to universality. The leaves summarize the life cycle: still reaching

toward the sun on the upper left, drooping on the lower left, and withering and dying on the right. No

wonder one writer has seen a reflection on life and death in the picture.

According to my own understanding, the painting is all about the importance of fruit in our daily life. It

also shows how people arrange their fruits based on the occasions they are gathering. Seeing the painting
makes me feel bloom, because of the mixtures or combination of colors they uses. This painting also

encourages people to eat fruits and also it encourages people to u