Rivierlandschap met zeilboot 1870 - 1923

Willem Witsen sketched this river landscape with a sailboat using graphite on paper. The sailboat, a key motif, carries rich symbolism across cultures. Beyond its practical use for navigating waters, it evokes themes of journeys, exploration, and the passage of time. Think of ancient Egyptian funerary boats, meant to transport the soul to the afterlife, or the ships in Dutch Golden Age paintings, symbols of trade and prosperity. Here, the sailboat on the calm river stirs a deep, subconscious connection to humanity's age-old relationship with the sea. This motif resurfaces time and again in art history, each time imbued with new layers of meaning, yet always retaining that core sense of adventure, risk, and the unknown, reflecting the cyclical nature of human experience.