"To see any of Friedrich's paintings as simply nationalist is, however, mistaken. His paintings are not celebrations of German mysticism so much as examinations of it. Friedrich uses the emptiness of the Baltic shore and the Thuringian forest to suggest the hubris of empire. He is not the prophet of German territorial ambition but its satirist. Friedrich's theme is the unconquerability of space. Human beings are tiny interlopers in a world they can never hope to rule. He exposes authority - of the monarchical states, Prussia and the rest, from which German liberals felt so alienated."