Caspar David Friedrich: Woman Before the Rising Sun/ Woman Before the Setting Sun, Part 1

This luminous painting, by the nineteenth century German artist Caspar David Friedrich, has two titles. It is sometimes known as Woman before the Rising Sun. But it is also called Woman before the Setting Sun.

Standing before, and completely absorbed by this setting sun, or rising sun, is a woman. Silhouetted against the horizon, where the distant mountains meet the yellow-orange sky, she is transfixed by a majestic light. She is experiencing nature through what Friedrich called a “sacred intuition.” And his art encourages the same orientation of the spirit in us.