Damien Rayuela

The Halted Traveller

The term "halted traveller" or “ruckenfigur” is usually associated with German romantic painters like Caspar David Friedrich, to describe a person seen from behind facing a landscape. Taking this principle to photography, I position the ruckenfigur in the middle of the frame to mediate the setting for the viewer. The impossibility to see the face of the wanderer leaves us with his posture and the scenery to question the unfolding of both the inner and outer landscape and their relation to each other.

“The active contemplation of nature not only leads to a better knowledge of it, it is also a stimulus for the understanding of the human condition, its accidents and backwaters, its lights and shadows, all that boundless and enigmatic landscape that shapes the inner world of each person.”

— F.Nietzsche