Isle of the Dead (painting)


Isle of the Dead is the best-known painting of Swiss Symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin. Prints were very popular in central Europe in the early 20th century—Vladimir Nabokov observed in his 1936 novel Despair that they could be "found in every Berlin home".
Böcklin produced several different versions of the painting between 1880 and 1886, which today are exhibited in Basel, New York City, Berlin, and Leipzig. A sixth version, begun in autumn 1900 with the help of Böcklin's son Carlo Böcklin and finished by Carlo in 1901, is part of the Hermitage Museum's collection in Saint Petersburg.

Description and meaning

All versions of Isle of the Dead depict a desolate and rocky islet seen across an expanse of dark water. A small rowing boat is just arriving at a water gate and seawall on shore. An oarsman maneuvers the boat from the stern. In the bow, facing the gate, is a standing figure clad entirely in white. Just ahead of the figure is a white, festooned object commonly interpreted as a coffin. The tiny islet is dominated by a dense grove of tall, dark cypress trees—associated by long-standing tradition with cemeteries and mourning—which is closely hemmed in by precipitous cliffs. Furthering the funerary theme are what appear to be sepulchral portals and windows on the rock faces.
Böcklin himself provided no public explanation as to the meaning of the painting, though he did describe it as "a dream picture: it must produce such a stillness that one would be awed by a knock on the door". The title, which was conferred upon it by the art dealer Fritz Gurlitt in 1883, was not specified by Böcklin, though it does derive from a phrase in an 1880 letter he sent to the painting's original commissioner. Not knowing the history of the early versions of the painting, many observers have interpreted the oarsman as representing the boatman Charon, who ferried souls to the underworld in Greek mythology. The water would then be either the River Styx or the River Acheron, and his white-clad passenger a recently deceased soul transiting to the afterlife.

Origins and inspiration

Isle of the Dead evokes, in part, the English Cemetery in Florence, Italy, where the first three versions were painted. The cemetery was close to Böcklin's studio and was also where his infant daughter Maria was buried.
The model for the rocky islet was perhaps Pontikonisi, a small, lush island near Corfu, which is adorned with a small chapel amid a cypress grove, perhaps in combination with the mysterious rocky island of Strombolicchio near the famous volcano Stromboli, Sicily.

Versions

Böcklin completed the first version of the painting in May 1880 for his patron Alexander Günther but kept it for himself. In April 1880, while the painting was in progress, Böcklin's Florence studio had been visited by Marie Berna, née Christ and soon-to-be wife of the German politician Waldemar, Count of Oriola ). She was struck by the first version of this "dream image", which sat half completed on the easel, so Böcklin painted a smaller version on wood for her. At Berna's request, he added the coffin and female figure, an allusion to her husband's death from diphtheria years earlier. Subsequently, he added these elements to the earlier painting. He called these works Die Gräberinsel. It was acquired by the Gottfried Keller-Stiftung in 1920.
The third version was painted in 1883 for Böcklin's dealer Fritz Gurlitt. Beginning with this version, one of the burial chambers in the rocks on the right bears Böcklin's initials, "A.B." In 1933, this version was put up for sale, and noted Böcklin admirer Adolf Hitler acquired it. He hung it first at the Berghof in Obersalzberg and then, after 1940, in the New Reich Chancellery in Berlin. It is now at the Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin.
Financial imperatives resulted in a fourth version in 1884, which was ultimately acquired by the entrepreneur and art collector Baron Heinrich Thyssen and hung at his Berliner Bank subsidiary. It was burned after a bomb attack during World War II and survives only as a black-and-white photograph.
A fifth version was commissioned in 1886 by the Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig, where it still hangs.
In 1888, Böcklin created a painting called Die Lebensinsel. Probably intended as an antipole to the Isle of the Dead, it also shows a small island, but with all signs of joy and life. Together with the first version of the Isle of the Dead, this painting is part of the collection of the Kunstmuseum Basel.
A sixth version, allegedly created in 1901 and acquired in 2022 from a private collection, can be found at the State Hermitage in Saint Petersburg. It bears the signatures A. Böcklin invenit and Carlo Böcklin fecit 1901, and can therefore be assumed to be the version mentioned by the Thieme-Becker biographical dictionary which was started by Arnold Böcklin together with Carlo in autumn 1900.

Versions

  1. May 1880—Oil on canvas; 111 × 155 cm; Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Kunstmuseum, Basel.
  2. June 1880—Oil on board; 74 × 122 cm; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Reisinger Fund, New York.
  3. 1883—Oil on board; 80 × 150 cm; Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
  4. 1884—Oil on copper; 81 × 151 cm; destroyed in Berlin during World War II.
  5. 1886—Oil on board; 80 × 150 cm; Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig.
  6. 1901—Oil on canvas; Hermitage, Saint Petersburg.

Admirers

The painting has attracted a wide variety of admirers. Freud kept a reproduction in his office; Lenin had one above his bed; Hitler bought one of the originals. Vladimir Nabokov wrote that reproductions of the painting could be “found in every Berlin home”.

Works inspired by ''Isle of the Dead''

Paintings

  • Salvador Dalí's 1932 painting The True Painting of "The Isle of the Dead" by Arnold Bocklin at the Hour of the Angelus is inspired by Böcklin's work.
  • The Swiss artist H. R. Giger created two versions of the picture, Island of Death and Hommage à Böcklin, in his typical biomechanical style.
  • Australian Surrealist painter James Gleeson drew a parallel with the painting and the entrance to the underworld in the Aeneid in his 1989 work Avernus Transvisioned as Böcklin's Isle.

Drama

Ballet

Film

Literature

Music

Classical composers

Video games