This picture, painted by Friedrich in 1818, shows what could be interpreted as a man in a meditative encounter with nature. In Romantic art, clouds are symbolic of not only natural processes but also of spiritual ideas and contemplation, therefore the figure in the picture could be daydreaming. However, with no view of his face, it is impossible to give an exact answer as to what he is doing or thinking. It is quite well known that Friedrich frequently used figures painted from behind gazing into infinity as a device to express human yearning for eternity, therefore giving support to the argument that the man could be daydreaming of something better in life.

Light and dark colours are used in this picture to distinguish between the man, with his dark green clothes, and the endless sea of fog stretching out in front of him.

This painting gives the impression that it was painted at dawn, or at least fairly early in the morning, with the cloud covered sky and the lack of midday or afternoon sun which one might expect to see showing through somewhere in the picture or in the colours used. The colours are all fairly cold, blues, whites and greys, giving the impression that perhaps the sun has not yet risen enough to add warm colours to the picture. The misty, unknown environment of dawn and dusk represents, as the Romantics believed, a time when the most supernatural and dreamy states of man occurred. Friedrich frequently painted landscapes of misty mornings, which portrayed such a dreamlike state of being as in this painting. As Friedrich himself once said, ‘when a region is cloaked in mist … it enriches the imagination’, thus giving the impression that this is a painting of a dream due to the vast nothingness stretching out in front of the man.