The Monk by the Sea was exhibited in its current form at the Berlin Academy in October 1810, to much controversy and criticism: 

- "In its monotony and boundlessness" wrote Kleist, "it has no foreground except the frame, when viewing it, it is as if one's eyelids had been cut away." 

What is most striking in this painting is the abject loneliness and a lack of any consolation in the horizon.