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History of the World in Objects and Art
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1910
The Mexican Revolution |
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1910
The Mexican Revolution |
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1912 |
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On the hubris of humankind
The news hit the world like a blow: "Titanic sinks four hours after
collision with iceberg; 1,250 presumed dead." Thus read the New York
Times headline of 16 April 1912. Only twenty-four hours before, an
unprecedented tragedy had been enacted 400 nautical miles
off Newfoundland in the Atlantic. More than hall the ship's
passengers had died.
Not only had a stunningly elegant ship gone down; with her sank the
myth of modern times. Industrial man had believed it could dupe
nature with technology: the glittering new Titanic, on her maiden
voyage from Southampton to New York, was regarded as a marvel of
engineering and as "unsinkable". Yet she fell victim to the vagaries
of nature like so many expeditionary vessels that had sailed into
perilous waters a century before.
In Caspar David Friedrich's The Polar Sea, the capsized ship caught
in the ice may be the "Griper", which took part in expeditions to
the North Pole that made the headlines in 1819—20 and 1824. British
Polar explorer Sir William Edward Parry had become embroiled in a
very dangerous situation whilst seeking the Northwest Passage. Caspar
David Friedrich may well have been inspired by newspaper reports
about Parry as well as by heavy ice floes on the Elbe in the winter
of 1820—21.
The painting has occasionally been interpreted as having
a religious meaning: the intransience of human life before divine
eternity. There are also political interpretations: resignation in
the face of the fruitless German wars of independence. And yet The
Polar Sea remains in the first instance a symbol of the terrors of
the icy wastes of the Polar regions - and of human presumption,
which no longer stands in awe of nature.
Caspar
David Friedrich
(1774-1840)
The Polar Sea
1824 |
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1914
The First World War |
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1914
The First World War |
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1914
The First World War |
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1914
The First World War |
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1917
The October Revolution |
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1917
The October Revolution |
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1917
The October Revolution |
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1918
The 1918 Influenza Pandemic |
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1919
The Weimar Republic |
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CONTENTS |
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