Albrecht Durer had a piece of turf and Caspar David Friedrich had a frozen sea. Though from different eras, these German artists embodied their people’s appreciation of nature. Durer lived in Luther times, an era that ushered in an emphasis on experiencing God through the wonders He created, not the man-made artifices of the Catholic Church or worldly sinners. Friedrich revives a similar sentiment in The Monk by the Sea, kickin‘ it German Romanticist style.

Born in 1774, Friedrich matured beside the Baltic Sea. Though a summer destination for some, the winters at this body of water arrive laden with ice and storms, transforming into a dark and desolate landscape. Friedrich embodies this feeling in The Monk by the Sea, a dramatic homecoming portrait. A faithful servant confronts nature on his own, empty grey skies and churning surf meeting his solitary figure. This pared down painting illustrates a nature-based approach to religion, one that emphasizes the realization that humans truly remain alone except for their God. Depressing, sure;  but simultaneously liberating.

Heinrich von Kleist describes Friedrich’s mesmerizing work best: "Nothing could be more sombre nor more disquieting than to be placed thus in the world: the one sign of life in the immensity of the kingdom of death, the lonely center of a lonely circle. With its two or three mysterious objects the picture seems somehow apocalyptic, like Young’s Night Thoughts, and since its monotony and boundlessness are only contained by the frame itself, contemplation of this picture gives one the sense that one’s eyelids have been cut away."