# On the Sailing Boat [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [FRIEDRICH, Caspar David]() - Date: 1801-1850 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 71 x 56 cm ## Commentary On the Sailing Boat c. 1819 Oil on canvas, 71 x 56 cm The Hermitage, St. Petersburg This painting, with its bold composition, was probably purchased by the future Tsar Nicholas I in 1820, when he visited Friedrich in Dresden. As if we ourselves were on board, our eyes are directed towards the prow of the boat, where a couple are sitting. They are holding hands and gazing at the distant city ahead, its church spires and buildings emerging hazily from the mist. The woman is Caroline, the artist's wife, and the man is probably intended to be Friedrich. The artist is possibly referring here to the motif of the ship of life, to the notion of life as a journey from this world to the next, as familiar from Christian pictorial and literary tradition. The picture is dominated, however, by the emotional span between the narrowness of the boat, the way in which it seems to be gliding soundlessly forwards, strangely without waves, and the longed-for horizon. Dominant, too, is the bold composition with its slightly offset verticals \(the mast\), its horizontals \(the distant shore\) and its foreshortened view of the wedge-like front of the ship. It would be several decades before a close-up view of this kind would be encountered again in the work of the Impressionists. <P> <TABLE ALIGN=LEFT CELLPADDING=5 BORDER=1 WIDTH=320 BGCOLOR="\#99CCCC"> <TR VALIGN=MIDDLE><TD><IMG SRC="/support/gif/listen.gif" BORDER=0 VALIGN=MIDDLE> Suggested listening \(streaming mp3, 4 minutes\):<BR><A HREF="\#" onClick="w=window.open \('/music1/schubert/schubert\_liszt\_wasser.html', 'newWin', 'scrollbars=yes,status=no,dependent=yes,screenX=0,screenY=0,width=350,height=350'\);w.opener=this;w.focus\(\);return true"><B>Franz Schubert: Auf Dem Wasser Zu Singen \(To Be Sung On The Water\), Franz Liszt's transcription</B></A> </TD></TR></TABLE> ## Related artworks - [Adolf Gottlieb Friedrich, Reading]() - [Boats in the Harbour at Evening]() - [Bohemian Landscape with Mount Milleschauer]() - [Chalk Cliffs at Rügen]() - [Chalk Cliffs on Rügen]() - [Cross in the Mountains]() - [Cross in the Mountains \(Tetschen Altar\)]() - [Cross in the Mountains \(Tetschen Altar\)]() - [Dolmen in the Snow]() - [Drifting Clouds]() - [Easter Morning]() - [Evening Landscape with Two Men]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()