Isle of the Dead is the best-known painting of SwissSymbolist 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 mysterious painting between 1880 and 1901, which today are exhibited in Basel, New York City, Berlin and Leipzig.
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 behind 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. Michael Webber says it was painted in the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro, and that it inspired the composer Rachmaninoff. This claim is supported by the similarity between the painting and the island of St. George near Perast, which is lined by cypress groves and houses a church dedicated to Saint George.
Versions
Böcklin completed the first version of the painting in May 1880 for his patron Alexander Günther, but kept it himself. In April 1880, while the painting was in progress, Böcklin's Florence studio had been visited by Marie Berna, née Christ. 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, in 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 own initials: "A.B.". 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.
The Swiss artist H. R. Giger created a version of the picture, Hommage à Böcklin, in his typical biomechanical style.
Fabrizio Clerici, the noted Italian Surrealist painter, paraphrased Böcklin's seminal painting in two of his works: Le Presenze, dating from 1974, and Latitudine Böcklin, completed in 1979.
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.
August Strindberg's play The Ghost Sonata ends with the image of Isle of the Dead accompanied by melancholy music. It was one of Strindberg's favourite pictures.
* It is the explicit backdrop for Norman McLaren's short animated film A Little Phantasy on a 19th-century Painting.
* Animator Craig Welch has stated that both the painting and McLaren's film were inspirations for his 1996 short How Wings Are Attached to the Backs of Angels.
Design elements from the painting appear in mattes and sets in the 1951 film The Tales of Hoffmann.
The 2012 American computer-animated horror-comedy film "Hotel Transylvania" features several copies of the painting on walls around Dracula's castle, including just inside the door of Mavis' bedroom.
' references the painting during a scene set in the garden
Television'
Böcklin's painting was used in season 5 episode 3 of
Pretty Little Liars, mysteriously affecting one of the main characters.
In the manga and anime series
Kuroshitsuji, is shown a place called "Island of Death", described as a sanctuary for demons. It is also the designated area to commence a formal duel between individuals of the said race.
The painting is featured in the Netflix comedy anime series
Neo Yokio'', in which the characters briefly magically enter the painting itself.
Literature
In J. G. Ballard's 1966 novel The Crystal World, Böcklin's second version of the painting is invoked to describe the gloom of the opening scene at Port Matarre.
Roger Zelazny used the picture as an inspiration for the meeting place of two mythological antagonists in his novel Isle of the Dead.
Bernard Cornwell's The Warlord Chronicles associates Dorset's Isle of Portland with the painting's isle. It is described as a place of internal exile and damnation. The causeway that almost links the real-life island to the mainland was supposed to be guarded to keep the dead from crossing the Fleet and escaping back into Britain.
Graphic novel Ile des morts has the pictures playing a key role in its gothic, Lovecraftian story.
Sergei Rachmaninoff also composed a symphonic poem Isle of the Dead, Op. 29, inspired by a black-and-white print of the painting. He said that had he seen the colour original, he probably would not have written the music.
Felix Woyrsch composed 3 Böcklin Phantasies, Op. 53.
One of the four tone poems of German composer Max Reger’s Vier Tondichtungen nach A. Böcklin is “Die Totensel”, based on the painting.
The heavy metal band Atlantean Kodex used Die Toteninsel as a cover for their first full-length album, The Golden Bough.
American songwriter and singer Rykarda Parasol wrote her song "Island of the Dead " for the Amsterdam Van Gogh Museum's exhibition Dreams of nature, where the fifth version of the painting was on show. The song, together with Rachmaninoff's piece, was possible to listen to while watching the painting. The song is on Parasol's 2013 album Against the Sun.
French blackgaze band Alcest recorded a song, "L'Île Des Morts," inspired by the paintings, for its album Spiritual Instinct, released October 25, 2019.
