Driemaster 1778

Jurriaan Andriessen created this drawing of a three-masted ship using pen and brown ink, with a watercolor wash. A ship, throughout history, has symbolized not just travel and trade, but also adventure and the unknown. Consider, for instance, the "Ship of Fools," a recurring motif in medieval and Renaissance art, a vessel carrying human folly and moral decay. The ship, unbound from earthly tethers, becomes a potent metaphor for the human condition, adrift in a sea of uncertainty. It's not a coincidence that we find ships laden with souls in ancient Egyptian funerary art, ferrying the dead to the afterlife. The ship is an allegory, a vehicle for spiritual passage. In this drawing, the vessel seems to exist within the collective consciousness, as a symbol of dreams and aspirations but also, perhaps, of the fears that lurk beneath the surface.