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concept:era modern

Isle of the Dead

Oil on panel (1880, first version) by Arnold Böcklin. A cypress-crowned rocky island at dusk approached by a white-clad figure in a rowing boat. The most reproduced painting of the late 19th century; inspired Rachmaninoff's 1909 symphonic poem and de Chirico's metaphysical painting. First version held at Kunstmuseum Basel.

Scholarly Significance

Anchor Arnold Böcklin's Symbolism with Isle of the Dead (first version, 1880), one of the most reproduced and culturally influential paintings of the late 19th century.

Notes

  • ·Böcklin painted five versions: 1880 (Kunstmuseum Basel), 1880 (Metropolitan Museum of Art), 1883 (Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin), 1884 (reportedly destroyed in 1945), 1886 (Museum der Bildenden Künste Leipzig).
  • ·The first version was painted for the Florentine widow Marie Berna, who asked for 'a picture to dream over'.
  • ·Became one of the most widely reproduced images in the world by 1900; lithographic copies appeared in millions of bourgeois European homes.
  • ·Adolf Hitler owned one version (third, Berlin); Sergei Rachmaninoff composed Isle of the Dead (1909) after seeing a monochrome reproduction.
  • ·Giorgio de Chirico cited Böcklin as a central precursor of metaphysical painting.
  • ·The painting's influence on the atmosphere of Symbolist and early Surrealist imagery is substantial.