David Caspar Freidrich's The Monk By The Sea

Throughout the study of Western Art, the artist has always positioned their work in terms of their audience, hardly ever deviating from the message their patrons wish to send. However, as art developed from the Rococo through Neo-classicism to the Romanticism, and the audience changed from aristocracy to an ever-growing middle class, the functions of art evolves to defy previous works. This calls into question some of the basic assumptions audiences had of an artists’ status at the time, and alludes to their growing distinction as intellects helping shape sociopolitical opinion of the just and unjust. Unlike Louis XIV who led France victorious with absolute power and unchallenged autocracy, the new king, Louis XV was heavily influenced by

High romantic artists interpreted things through their own emotions, and these emotions included their social and political consciousness (Benz, “The Mystical Sources of German Romantic Philosophy”). Yet at the same time they withdrew more and more from the confining middle class’s bourgeoisie lifestyle. David Caspar Freidrich’s The Monk By The Sea, defines this divide between the romantic artist and his audience by foregoing traditional practices of perspective and space to communicate a political and spiritual message. Friedrich doesn’t paint a foreground, forcing the audience to look past the monk and focus on the ominous sea, which dwarfs the monk in size. The sea itself is a metaphor for the divine power of nature, and allows the audience to contemplate the natural world, and their place in it. Moreover, Freidrich repurposes the uncertainty his audience feels to parallel with the French occupation of Germany at the time. According to Britannica, Napoleon’s forces had occupied Germany at the time of the painting. The monk, who seems small and inconsequential in comparison to the sea, is painted as defiant. In consequence, it seems that the artist’s own beliefs and the will to spread them are the true patrons, and a break from tradition is thus