On a Sailing Boat

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 through the haze of morning. 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 sailing through life to the notion of life as a journey from this world to the next, as this theme is familiar from Christian pictorial and literary tradition. They face away from us looking out across the water towards a farther shore where lies the edge of a city, their destination. It's a horizon of gothic spires and buildings yet non-exact and unidentifiable of yet, a dream-land, another world. They're on a soul's journey.