Studieblad, onder andere met twee Marker meisjes in een roeiboot 1875

George Clausen sketched this study sheet with graphite, featuring two girls in a rowboat. The boat, a vessel carrying life across water, echoes ancient motifs of journeys and transitions. Consider the boat as a symbol, its shape and movement evoking both protection and peril. Across cultures, boats have signified passage—from the Egyptian sun god Ra traversing the celestial Nile to the boat of Charon ferrying souls across the River Styx. Here, these Marker girls adrift in their small boat also suggest a larger, more existential voyage. In psychoanalytic terms, the boat might represent the self navigating the waters of the subconscious. Water, as a primordial symbol, signifies the depths of our emotions and memories. As we consider the girls in their rowboat, we are reminded of the cyclical nature of human experience, where the familiar symbols of our past resurface and evolve, bearing the weight of collective memory and shaping our present perceptions.