This, of course, is “The Wanderer”, painted by Caspar David Friedrich in 1808. As I discussed on today’s Daily Beast, it and other classic evocations of the Sublime came to mind Monday night, as the force of Hurricane Sandy came clear. I guess there’s still a question as to whether a work of art can ever capture nature’s terror and magnificence, or if its artiness will always win out and tame the subject matter. Worse, it could be that once nature itself has been seen in art, it can never regain its un-artful force.

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