"The revolutionaire and seaport scenes of Lorrain [French painter Claude Lorrain, strongly admired by Friedrich] contain many artistic principles which form an important part of Friedrich’s style: melting distances where water and sky merge as one, the portrayal of a dreamlike unreal world beyond, seascapes in which early morning light dissolves into mist which engulfs ships that appear as mysterious aspparations, magically floating in fluid ether. The assumtion that Friedrich is an isolated figure in the history of art is not correct."