In what’s considered Caspar David Friedrich's (German, 1774–1840) most iconic painting and a paragon of Romanticism, an anonymous figure surveys a wondrous vista. His position obscures our vantage point of the mountains so that our focus is on him and his presumed experience of the view. The painting's portrait format, as well as the man’s imposing scale, are rather anomalous traits among Friedrich’s body of work, in which human subjects are often diminished by formidable landscapes.
Until May 11, 2025, visitors to The Met have the rare opportunity to see The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (ca. 1817) outside of Germany. Friedrich’s masterpiece from the collection of the Hamburger Kunsthalle makes its American debut at The Met as part of Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature, the first comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the artist held in the United States.
Gifts for Art Lovers
Commemorate the occasion with the Friedrich Wanderer above the Sea of Fog Tote, available at the Museum and The Met Store online.
Friedrich’s Wanderer likewise features on the cover of The Met’s corresponding exhibition catalogue by Alison Hokanson, curator in the Department of European Paintings at The Met, and Joanna Sheers Seidenstein, assistant curator in The Met’s Department of Drawings and Prints.
This richly illustrated volume features essays by leading scholars who examine Friedrich's career, considering how he created a new and open-ended pictorial language to express the Romantic vision of nature.
Friedrich reimagined European landscape painting by portraying nature as a setting for profound spiritual and emotional encounters. Working in the vanguard of the German Romantic movement, which championed a radical new understanding of the bond between nature and the inner self, Friedrich developed pictorial subjects and strategies that emphasize the individuality, intimacy, open-endedness, and complexity of our responses to the natural world. The vision of the landscape that unfolds in his art—meditative, mysterious, and full of wonder—is still vital today.
Organized in cooperation with institutions across Germany, the exhibition presents oil paintings, finished drawings, and working sketches from every phase of the artist’s career. Such beloved paintings as Monk by the Sea (1808–10)—also on view in the United States for the first time courtesy of the Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—will join The Met’s Two Men Contemplating the Moon (ca. 1825–30), the only painting by Friedrich in the Museum’s holdings. The two figures have been identified as Friedrich, at right, and his friend and disciple August Heinrich. Together they’re seen from behind so that the viewer may participate in their communion with nature.
This artful paperweight has been crafted exclusively for The Met by New York City–based designer John Derian, who's renowned for his unique decoupage decorations.
Fascination with the moon ran high among the German Romantics, who regarded the motif as an object of pious contemplation. Complementing the exhibition is a display of artworks featuring lunar imagery in Gallery 554, located just beyond the exhibition’s exit.
Shop Top-Quality Art Prints
For the duration of the exhibition, shop reproductions of a selection of Friedrich’s works in the exhibition with Met Custom Prints.
Available exclusively through The Met, Met Custom Prints are made to order based upon the dimensions, material, and optional frame of your choosing. In collaboration with USA-based print specialists who use state-of-the-art techniques and equipment, we offer high-quality print reproductions that make for the perfect keepsake or gift. Read more about the process of customizing your very own Met print here.
Visit Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature at The Met Fifth Avenue through May 11, 2025, and shop Friedrich-inspired designs in-store and online.
