poliphilo: (Default)
poliphilo ([personal profile] poliphilo) wrote2023-11-15 11:43 am

The Sea Of Ice

 Ailz read me Suella Braverman's "leaked" letter to Rishi Sunak. "That's not politics as usual," I said, "It's a coup in the making."

Later I was out walking and thinking things over when this image jumped into my head. It's by Caspar David Friedrich and dates from almost exactly two hundred years ago.  It shows a ship being crunched up and eaten by arctic ice.



Friedrich never seems to have settled on a title There are several available- and the one I favour is "The Sea of Ice".  I first encountered it as "The Wreck of Hope", but I think that's too prescriptive. You can't tie an image like this- iconic, dreamlike- to a single meaning- and all I'm going to say about it is I think it fits our times...
cmcmck: (Default)

[personal profile] cmcmck 2023-11-15 12:19 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm a huge fan of Friedrich's work.