Universal Ramblings

I recently saw Thomas Cole's "Voyage of Life" painting series. It includes four paintings depicting a man's life.

In the first one, he arrives in a boat as a baby, with an angel steering the boat toward a pleasant place.

In the second one, the man is a child, steering the boat himself toward a ghostly castle in the sky, while the angel watches from shore.

In the third one, the man is an adult, praying for help while the boat steers itself through a dark and dangerous course. There appear to be dark faces above, in the clouds.

In the fourth and final one, the man is elderly, and the angel guides him toward Heaven.

According to Wikipedia, the paintings represent life and earthly ambition, and not so much otherworldly existence. The castle in the sky is the boy's dream of success and a better world, and the faces in the clouds during adulthood simply represent bad weather.

But my first take on it was a little different. I saw the ghostly castle as being the boy's vision of heaven. Children are thought to be more connected with heaven than adults. So I figured when the guy became an adult, and the view of the sky become mean faces instead of a cool castle, that meant that he was bound mentally and spiritually to earthly things, and manipulated by demonic forces.

Either way, whether the castle represents pure ambition, or the palace of God, it still looked pretty cool.

Looking at the adulthood picture again, maybe there's only one face in the clouds -- a creature blowing a gust of wind toward the man.

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