Exam Week: The Wanderer Above The Mists

This is Triss' composition on Caspar David Friedrich's painting, "The Wanderer Above the Mists", written last week during exams:

"The Wanderer Above the Mists" is a painting by Friedrich, who lived in the 1800s. It depicts a lone man standing with his back to the audience, evidently gazing over and across swirling mists to just-visible mountains. He is standing on a knoll or hill of some sort, and wearing very fine clothes, though his hair is in disarray. Though the mist appears white at first, upon closer inspection it proves to be made up of light, pastel blues, yellows and pinks, creating an effect not unlike the stars in Van Gogh's "Starry Night".

This picture is said to be very symbolic. The man is the painter himself, gazing across the mists of his life's tribulation and disorder to the mountains of Paradise. This seems an odd pick, to me. Why would mountains, which usually represent hardship and accomplishment, be Paradise? One possible answer is that the painter felt that he himself must work hard to get into Heaven, as many people in those days did. But these ideas of symbolism are merely guesses on the part of the viewers (*sic), as the painter said nothing about what it represented, or indeed if it represented anything more than a man, mists and mountains.

*Actually, Friedrich left journals describing the symbolism of his paintings, so this detail is incorrect. I still consider this a model composition, since she stated the main idea and important details, and included her own thoughts and opinions on the painting, as well as attempting connections with other things she has studied.