What it is
A tiny figure stands on a dune before an almost empty canvas: a band of dark sea and a vast, pale, brooding sky.
What it represents
Human smallness and the longing that opens up when there is nothing between you and the infinite.
The symbolism
The writer Heinrich von Kleist said that looking at it felt like having your eyelids cut away. It is solitude with no consolation, only presence. The emptiness is the subject, and the monk's stillness is what makes it bearable.
Poems and letters beside it
poem
Solitude
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1883)
A poem that says the world gives back what you give it. The monk stands very small before a very large sky.
prose poem
On Loneliness (from The Prophet)
Kahlil Gibran (1923)
Loneliness as a wide, quiet landscape rather than an enemy. Friedrich's lone figure faces it without flinching.
poem
Ode to Solitude
Alexander Pope (1700)
A wish for a small, quiet life lived far from the noise. The monk at the shore has found that kind of stillness.
poem
Alone
Edgar Allan Poe (1829)
A poem about feeling set apart from everyone, even as a child. Friedrich's figure stands apart in the same way.
