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Daniel Robles III

Transcription

Art

September 20, 2022

Death in Arnold Bocklin’s Art

What you’re currently listening to is a symphonic poem created by Russian composer

Sergei Rachmaninov. In 1907 in Paris, he saw a black and white reproduction of Arnold

Böcklin’s Isle of The Dead (II) (1883), and in 1908, inspired by it, he completed this

composition and named it after the painting.

The reproductions of this painting were all around Europe. Novelist Vladimir Nabokov

said in his novel Despair, that they could be “found in every Berlin home.” Both Sigmund Freud

and Vladimir Lenin had them on their walls. Even Adolf Hitler bought one of the five originals

in 1933. He also owned close to a dozen of Böcklin 's other works.

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Arnold Böcklin was a 19th century Swiss symbolist painter. In 1880 one of his patrons

visited his studio and saw the unfinished canvas on an easel and loved it. She asked if she could

have a version of it with a figure and a coffin. Her husband had just passed away, and she

wanted an artwork that would help her get through her loss. But this painting has appealed to

hundreds, if not thousands, of people outside of Marie Berna, the widowed patron. But why?

This painting doesn’t have a clear narrative, clear characters…it doesn't even have a clear setting.

The Isle of the Dead could be anywhere and could be anything. There’s an elusiveness to the

painting, an appealing mystery. Böcklin said that it was “A dream picture: It must produce such a

stillness that one would be awed by a knock on the door.” The elusiveness of the painting is what

creates this stillness. The elusiveness of the painting is what made it so successful. But where

does this image come from? Why is this image so elusive, why is it so mysterious?

To answer that question, wh have to go back to Marie Berna, who forever tainted this

painting with the loss of her husband. Because of her addition, Death permeates this artwork. If it

wasn’t for the small detail of the figure and the coffin, this painting could be about adventure,

about exploration and discovery. But the ghostly figure makes it about Death. Death was a

recurring theme in Arnold Böcklin’s work and life. He lost his first fiance before they could get

married, and he lost over half of his 14 children before he died. Struck by several illnesses

throughout his life, Böcklin acquainted Death numerous times, making it one of his strongest

themes. The secret to The Isle of The Dead’s elusiveness lies in Death itself. Death is infamously

elusive. Many have likened this scene to a sort of afterlife, comparing it to the crossing of the

Styx River in Greek mythology, a passageway to the afterworld. But more importantly, just like

the painting itself, we don’t know where the afterlife is, we don’t even know if it’s real. But The

Isle of The Dead, although it’s been spread throughout Europe and has resonated with many,
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isn't, to me, the most evocative work about Death painted by Böcklin. Let me show you another

of his paintings about Death, his Self Portrait with Death playing the Fiddle (1872).

It’s an unconventional self-portrait in many ways. First, the artist is not looking at the

viewer, as he traditionally would. He doesn’t seem to be looking at anything at all actually, he

seems to be listening to something, and this brings us to the second point, which is, well, there’s

a skeleton playing the violin over his shoulder. Believe it or not, Böcklin isn’t the first artist to

paint a portrait of a man with a skeleton over his shoulder. The portrait of Sir Brian Tuke, made

in 1540, also has a skeleton seemingly conversing with the subject. But I find Böcklin’s version

much more appealing, if not for the simple fact that his skeleton is animated. The fact that it’s

playing the violin gives it life. There’s also the fact that this shows Böcklin listening to the sound

of Death while painting. He could be listening to Death while painting The Isle of The Dead, he

could be listening to Death while painting a portrait of himself. And that’s the most fascinating
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part about this portrait: The fact that he painted it with Death in mind. Böcklin would only die 30

years after completing this painting and, though he did acquaint Death, he wasn’t about to die

behind his easel. However, painting a self-portrait does, in a way, confront you with Death.

When painting an artwork, you are creating something that, if it’s not immortal, will

outlive you decades or even centuries. A self-portrait, transposing your own image onto a

canvas, will allow your image to be immortalized for centuries. And I like to think that, while

painting, Arnold Böcklin paused to think about that. He paused thinking about how, in relation to

his painting, he had relatively little time left. The immortality of his self-portrait confronted him

with his own mortality.

Works Cited:

Youtube, Canvas. Death in Arnold Böcklin's Art. YouTube, YouTube, 25 May 2021,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_la6NB7jBRw&list=WL&index=29. Accessed 21
Sept. 2022.