Short Analysis on the art work of Caspar D. Friedrich: Wanderer above the Sea of Fogs
Romanticism was a time when it focused on emotions, individualism and the appreciation of nature. Within that time, there is a painting that illustrates the meaning of knowing oneself. The work is known as the “Wanderer above the Sea of Fogs” or Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer in German painted by Caspar David Friedrich. This work evokes a sense that, even if you are lost in nature, you do not feel lost, but you feel in a state of reflection and contemplate not only the beauty of the landscape but also the essence of nature itself.
According to the writings Michael Gorra of Princeton University Press describes that this art work is carrying a message about one of Kantian self-reflections. (Gorra, M. 2004) However, I have studied Immanuel Kant before, but I was completely unaware of his view in self-reflection. Seeing that Gorra describes the work as “one of the Kantian self-reflections” I decided to learn more about which of the Kantian self-reflections best describes it.
Kant mentions that there are two types of self-awareness: self-awareness and the psychological states of one in the inner sense, and self-awareness and one’s states by performing acts of aperception. (Brook, 2013) Kant explains in a passage from his book Anthropology these two types of self consciousness, the “I” who is always the same everywhere and has no different ways of interpreting it and the “I” as an internal experience and that contains the matter of consciousness referring to this c empirical internal intuition or empirical self-awareness. This empirical self-awareness, Kant, names it the inner sense.
Now, the “I” as an internal experience is the one who best defines the work “The Walker on the Sea of Clouds”, because this work makes you feel that you are self-aware of the perception that we have of the world without having to explore it. But how is it that the work invokes the conscience that we have in the world without me having had experience in it?
According to Kant, this self-awareness rests on internal intuition, and so on the relationship of ideas. The inner sense could not consciously see what we are doing, such as going to the place of the work and having the experience of the landscape, since this implies the power of thought. But this self-awareness that we experience is a game of our own thoughts thus rebuilding the stage with the knowledge that we have already known through experience and thus playing with thoughts to feel the work.
Sources:
1) Kant, I. (1798) Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, Mary Gregor (trans.), The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974 (Ak. VII).
2) Brook, Andrew (2013) Kant’s View of the Mind and Consciousness of Self, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/kant-mind/
3) Gorra, M. (2004). The Bells in Their Silence: Travels through Germany. Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7sr5d
