Gondola isn't supposed to be sad, he is supposed to be melancholic.

He is not suicidal, but accepts life as it is and experiences it as an observer.

Gondola is a wanderer who sees the world in a state of eternal melancholy, unable to do anything about it but move from place to place.

Gondola himself is an abstract form, and the combination of gondola and the landscapes he frequents (be it photography, painting, or digital) represent the unexplainable melancholy of the artist behind him.

He is far more than a sad frog with a rope around his neck.