Catedral gótica junto al agua

Schinkel was really an architect, and this cathedral was never built. He invented it, stacking towers and spires he had admired in Cologne, Prague and Milan onto a single island in a river. He painted it in 1813, the year Prussia and its neighbours rose to drive Napoleon's armies out of the German lands. In that moment the Gothic cathedral had become a patriotic dream. Cologne's own great church had stood half-finished for centuries, and completing it stood for a nation pulling itself together. So this glowing evening scene is partly a wish. The setting sun burns through the openwork of the towers, and down on the embankment small figures of every rank gather at the water, looking up at a building that existed only in his mind.