Sailing Ship

Friedrich made this small painting in 1815, the year the long wars with Napoleon finally ended and a battered Europe began to settle. A single three-masted ship rides the open sea under full sail, alone, with a low fog closing off the horizon so that no land is anywhere in sight. He seems to have worked from a little model frigate he kept in his studio, which is why the rigging is so exact. A ship setting out was an old image for a life or a soul on its way somewhere, and Friedrich returned to it again and again. What stays with you is how much empty water and sky he gives the vessel, one carefully worked-out object surrounded by almost nothing.