Winter Landscape

Winter has finally arrived. Just a couple of hours ago I was driving home with my friend Zeno along some back road in the midst of a (moderate) snow storm, and I truly felt elated: finally nature was once more on the front stage. The endless row of cars, the hosts of grey workers and their bad moods, the maddening noises, the silly malls, all gone. One occasional pair of car lights would suddenly pop up and disappear, leaving the scene unspoiled.

How majestic must life have been in the not so remote past, when mankind was still small in the vast canvas of life! My thoughts went back to the sublime paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, and particularly to Winter Landscape (1811). What was the name of that castle in the distance, or was it a church? Who lived there? Nothing is spoiling the sober beauty of the capacious expanse, nothing pollutes the unassailable silence that envelops the world.

There is peace, in that silence.