The Artwork of Arnold Bocklin
Title: The Maiden , Merman, and Sea Monster
Title: Isle of the Dead 1880
B�cklin, Arnold
* Basle, 19 Oct 1827; � San Domenico, nr Fiesole, 16 Jan 1901).
Swiss-German painter. He was one of the most celebrated and influential artists in
central Europe, particularly Germany and Switzerland, in the later 19th century,
notable for his imaginative and idiosyncratic interpretation of themes from Classical
mythology.
1. Early landscapes and first mythological works, to 1859.
In Basle, while still at school, B�cklin attended the Zeichenschule of Ludwig Adam
Kelterborn 1811�78). He then trained 1845�7) at the Kunstakademie in
D�sseldorf, where he studied principally in the landscape painting class of Johann
Wilhelm Schirmer. Among B�cklin�s fellow students in D�sseldorf were Carl
Friedrich Lessing and Anselm Feuerbach. B�cklin�s early works were largely
landscapes marked by a strong sense of atmosphere akin to that in the work of
Lessing. This was the case both in daytime scenes, such as the bleak, overcast
Dolmen 1847; Basle, Kstmus.), and also in several dramatic nocturnal subjects,
such as Ruined Castle 1847; Berlin, Tiergarten, N.G.).
After travelling in Belgium, where he was impressed by early Netherlandish
painting in public collections, and working briefly in Switzerland with the Swiss
landscape painter Alexandre Calame, B�cklin went to Paris. He remained for
several months, throughout the turbulence of the February and June revolutions of
1848, studying the work of both Old Masters and contemporary artists. He felt
particular admiration for the bravura and control of Thomas Couture�s large figure
composition Romans of the Decadence 1847; Paris, Mus. d�Orsay) and for the
treatment of light and colour in the landscapes of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. On
his return to Basle B�cklin produced his first works with a distinctive personal
style: a number of landscape scenes going beyond the essentially realist D�sseldorf
tradition to suggest an understanding of nature as the embodiment of unseen
supernatural powers. Typical of this approach are the curiously glowing sky and
rearing silhouettes of the group of trees in Proud Firs 1849; Basle, Kstmus.).
In February 1850 B�cklin travelled to Rome, where he soon came to know
various members of the German artists� group, the Tugendbund, spending the
summer at Olevano in the Alban Hills outside Rome with Heinrich Dreber, Ludwig
Thiersch 1825�1909) and others. Among B�cklin�s first paintings from Italy,
Landscape from the Alban Hills 1851; Karlsruhe, Staatl. Ksthalle) clearly
reveals the influence of Dreber�s landscape style in its combination of careful
attention to detail with a certain lyricism of mood. A work from the next year,
Roman Landscape 1852; New York, Brooklyn Mus.), is bolder in its response
to the lush vegetation of the region and is significant in its addition of the imaginary
figure of a bathing woman, in the manner of Karl Blechen and of B�cklin�s
teacher, Schirmer.
While maintaining strong links with Basle through his friend the historian Jacob
Burckhardt, B�cklin strengthened his ties with Italy in 1853 by marrying an Italian,
Angela Pasucci, the daughter of a papal guard. B�cklin continued to record the
contemporary reality of life in Italy, as in Goatherd in the Campagna 1855;
Winterthur, Stift. Oskar Reinhart), but he turned increasingly to themes from
Classical mythology. From this time the imaginary rather than the observed is the
dominant element in most of his work.
B�cklin�s paintings embrace both specific episodes and anonymous but
characteristic scenes. With the subject from Ovid�s Metamorphoses, Syrinx
Fleeing Pan 1854; Dresden, Gem�ldegal. Neue Meister), an important aspect of
B�cklin�s emerging style is seen in the strong contrast of cool and warm tones and
of light and shadow to underline the theme of sexual conflict. In another erotically
charged composition, Edge of a Wood with a Centaur and Nymph 1855;
Berlin, Alte N.G.), figures and landscape are revealed as alternative embodiments
of the same vital force. Though found shocking on its first exhibition, in Rome, this
subject proved popular enough for B�cklin to produce a second version 1856;
G�teborg, Kstmus.) for a collector in Hannover, Consul Carl Wilhelm Wedekind.
Despite such success, B�cklin found himself in financial difficulties and was
forced to paint scenes of Classical Roman sites for the tourist market. Encouraged
by the possibility of a commission to decorate the dining-room of Wedekind�s
Hannover house with scenes illustrating the theme of the Relations of Man to Fire
1858; in situ; Hannover, Georgplatz; see Andree, 1977, pp. 230�36, pls
110.1�5), B�cklin left Rome in the summer of 1857. The arrangement with
Wedekind, however, ended in dissatisfaction with the work and disagreement
concerning the fee, and B�cklin moved on to Munich.
At the Munich Kunstverein in 1859 B�cklin exhibited the second version of a
composition started in Rome, Pan in the Reeds 1856�8; Munich, Neue Pin., see
fig. 1). The work encapsulates his approach to the world of Classical mythology in
its compelling physical presence, its hint of melancholy and weariness and its
element of mocking irony, in this case with the inclusion of a group of croaking
frogs in the foreground. The picture was acquired by King Maximilian II of
Bavaria, thus bestowing instant celebrity on the artist. Further reassurance came
with an introduction to the important Munich art collector, Graf Adolf Friedrich
von Schack, and an appointment to teach landscape painting at the Weimar
Kunstschule.
2. Expansion of repertory, 1860�74.
Although not unhappy in the new post and in the company of artists who became
and remained his friends, such as Franz von Lenbach and Reinhold Begas, B�cklin
longed to return to Italy, and in 1862 he left again for Rome. During his second
Italian period he paid less attention to landscape than to the example of the art of
the past, making careful studies of both the Raphael stanze in the Vatican and of
wall paintings at Pompeii, which he visited for the first time in 1863. A portrait of
B�cklin�s wife, Angela B�cklin as a Muse 1863; Basle, Kstmus.), is set against
a refined and sumptuous d�cor clearly influenced by Pompeian examples. The
various versions of the composition Villa by the Sea e.g. 1864; Munich,
Schack-Gal.) combine the D�sseldorf tradition of the atmospheric treatment of
setting with the lessons of balance and simplicity derived from the example of
antiquity and the High Renaissance. The haunting subject, to which B�cklin
continued to return until the late 1870s, anticipates several aspects of his later
composition the Island of the Dead.
B�cklin went back to Basle in 1866 in order to carry out a commission for
fresco and secco decorations for the staircase of the museum in Augustinergasse,
now the Museum f�r Natur- und V�lkerkunde 1868�70; in situ). At the same
period he also carried out several sculptural works, including six sandstone masks
for the Basle Kunsthalle 1871; in situ). A particularly striking work from this time
was B�cklin�s treatment of a religious theme, Mary Magdalene Bewailing the
Dead Christ 1867�8; Basle, Kstmus.), notable for its lack of a sense of
consolation and its relentless objectivity in the treatment of the uncontrolled sorrow
of the woman.
In 1870 B�cklin went briefly to Paris, where his picture Murderer Pursued
by Furies 1870; Munich, Schack-Gal.) was exhibited. It is possible that he was
hoping to establish himself in Paris, but with the advent of the Franco�Prussian
War 1870�71) this idea became far less feasible and he returned to Basle. The
war was reflected in a number of B�cklin�s paintings from this time, both scenes
with a northern setting, such as the Ride of Death 1871; Munich, Schack-Gal.),
and those with a Classical subject, such as Battle of the Centaurs e.g. 1872�3;
Basle, Kstmus.), exhibited to great acclaim at the Weltausstellung in Vienna in
1873.
B�cklin moved again to Munich in 1871 and was close to artists in the circle
around Wilhelm Leibl, particularly Hans Thoma, on whom his work had a strong
influence. Two self-portraits from this period suggest a new degree of
self-confidence: Self-portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle 1872; Berlin,
Neue N.G.), inspired by a work by Hans Holbein ii) in the Alte Pinakothek but
showing the artist at work and as if attentive to the apparition, and an idealized
Self-portrait 1873; Hamburg, Ksthalle) posed against marble columns and a
laurel bush. With the outbreak of cholera in Munich in 1874, the time seemed ripe
for a return to Italy. B�cklin made his last sale to Graf von Schack, Triton and
Nereid 1873�4; Munich, Schack-Gal.), one of the first of many scenes of
mythological sea creatures in his oeuvre. He then rented a house in Florence and
left Germany.
3. Idealist and Symbolist works, 1875�84.
B�cklin joined the Florentine circle of German artists and scholars that included
the painter Hans von Mar�es, the sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand and the art
historian Hugo von Tschudi. He now increasingly shared with many of this group a
commitment to idealism in art, and his works from the following years reflect this in
their marked element of artifice. This is especially notable in the religious
composition Mourning at the Foot of the Cross 1876; Berlin, Neue N.G.),
with its incongruously neat flowered hilltop setting and stiff figures, and above all in
a large picture commissioned by the Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Elysian Fields
1877�8; untraced; see Andree, 1977, p. 401, pl. 320). The negative criticism
that such works received in some quarters, in particular for their garish colour and
their excess of detail, seems to have been taken into account by B�cklin in view of
his generally more restrained and simpler compositions of the following years.
From the late 1870s B�cklin�s fame drew a great many visitors to his
Florentine studio, including the German Prince William, the future emperor William
II. Among the more advantageous meetings of these years was that with the Berlin
art dealer Fritz Gurlitt 1854�93), whose regular exhibitions of B�cklin�s work
from 1880, in Berlin and then in Dresden, brought an assurance of sales and fame
and thus of freedom from financial or professional insecurity. B�cklin�s marked
independence from contemporary artistic developments was certainly further
encouraged by this arrangement. A notable change in his working methods was
the sharp increase during the 1880s and 1890s in his use of panel rather than
canvas supports for his paintings.
While convalescing on the island of Ischia after contracting influenza on a
sketching trip to Naples, B�cklin seems first to have had the idea on which he
based five versions of the composition the Island of the Dead 1880�86; two
versions 1880, Basle, Kstmus., see fig. 2, and New York, Met.; one version
1883, Berlin, Staatl. Museen, Neue N.G.; 1884, untraced; 1886, Leipzig, Mus.
Bild. Kst.). The composition was initially devised in response to a request from
Marie Berna later Gr�fin von Oriola) for a picture to induce dreams; and the
various versions were made on request from other enthusiasts. The uncertainty as
to the precise subject of the work is as important in achieving its intended effect as
is the anxiety induced by the image of the rocky mausoleum-island or of the figures
in the small boat approaching it. Of all B�cklin�s works, this composition did most
to secure an international revival of his popularity in the late 20th century.
A similar combination of the imprecise and the monumental is found in many
of B�cklin�s compositions from the early 1880s, for example the Coming of
Spring 1880; Zurich, Ksthaus), notable for its paradoxically sombre mood, The
Adventurer 1882; Bremen, Ksthalle), with its figure of the fearless mounted
warrior setting off into the unknown, and the two versions of the Sacred Grove
1882; Basle, Kstmus.; 1886; Hamburg, Ksthalle), with their suggestion of a
secret rite carried out by mysterious, robed figures. Extreme simplicity also adds
to the impact of one of B�cklin�s later treatments of a more specifically Classical
theme, Odysseus and Calypso 1882; Basle, Kstmus.), where the use of tonal
contrast between the male and female elements in the picture is exaggerated to an
almost diagrammatic degree. A good deal of B�cklin�s energy in these years went,
sometimes reluctantly, into reworking earlier compositions to meet market
demand.
4. Large-scale religious and mythological polyptychs, 1885�1901.
In 1885, concerned for the education of his now large family, B�cklin returned to
Switzerland, settling in Zurich where he had a studio built. While the title, the local
setting and the emotive use of colour in a work such as Homecoming 1887; priv.
col., see Andree, 1977, p. 477, pl. 406) suggest a positive response to this move,
B�cklin�s most significant compositions from this time are more ambiguous. Look,
the Meadow is Smiling 1887; Darmstadt, Hess. Landesmus.) quotes from the
libretto of Richard Wagner�s music drama Parsifal in its title but sets female
figures, recalling the work of Veronese, against a Tuscan landscape. The
monumental Vita Somnium Breve �Life is but a short dream�, 1888; Basle,
Kstmus.) combines figures from a northern Dance of Death with those from a
classical idyll.
B�cklin�s enduring technical prowess was evident in his ability to convey the
sensual reality of increasingly bizarre imaginary worlds, as in his sumptuously
coloured scene of mythological sea-creatures at rest, Calm Sea 1887; Berne,
Kstmus.); but his preoccupations and his ambitions were clearly changing. An
unassuaged longing for commissions for large-scale fresco work found an outlet in
a series of large polyptychs on religious and mythological themes, the first of
which, Legends of the Virgin Mary untraced; see Andree, 1977, p. 492, pl.
424), was completed in 1890. Despite generous and enthusiastic recognition of his
achievements from the authorities in Zurich, B�cklin longed to return again to Italy.
At the end of 1890, with the onset of a period of illness which culminated in a
stroke in 1892), he left Switzerland, going first to Viareggio and then moving
south.
While working on his second polyptych, Venus Genetrix 1891�5; Zurich,
Ksthaus), a work notable for its serenity, B�cklin produced a number of paintings
marked by irony and despair. In the Arbour 1891; Zurich, Ksthaus) shows an
aged couple at the end of a walled garden, which they have entirely deadened in
their zeal for symmetry. With the figures from Dante�s Divina Commedia, Paolo
and Francesca 1893; Winterthur, Stift. Oskar Reinhart), B�cklin eschews the
familiar love scene in favour of the medieval iconography of the subject and shows
the couple drifting through the dark void of the Inferno.
In a Self-portrait of 1893 commissioned by the Kunstmuseum in Basle in
situ) B�cklin affirms his return to good health, showing himself at his easel, brush
in hand, wearing fashionable, brightly coloured clothes. His popularity throughout
German-speaking Europe reached an unprecedented level during the last ten years
of his life, partly due to the publication of four volumes of reproductions of his
works by Bruckmann in Munich. It was also during these years that Heinrich
Alfred Schmid 1863�1951) embarked on the first catalogue raisonn� of
B�cklin�s work.
In 1894 B�cklin acquired the Villa Bellagio in San Domenico near Fiesole.
After repairs and some rebuilding, B�cklin and his son Carlo b 1870) carried out
wall decorations in the style of those at Pompeii 1896; in situ; see Andree, 1977,
pp. 514�15, pls 450.1�3), using the encaustic technique, in which they were
instructed by ernest Berger b 1857). While B�cklin�s fame reached a peak with
his 70th birthday celebrations in Switzerland and Germany, he himself expressed
little enthusiasm for these. The works from this period, notably the two versions of
War 1896; Dresden, Gem�ldegal. Neue Meister; 1897; Zurich, Ksthaus) and the
horrifying vision of universal destruction, The Plague 1898; Basle, Kstmus.),
suggest a mind overcome with the prospect of imminent extinction.
On B�cklin�s death in 1901 his work was celebrated as distinctly German in
spirit, but his reputation declined swiftly after compelling negative criticism from the
modernist and anti-nationalist Julius Meier-Graefe, writing in 1905. While
appreciated for incidental qualities by the Surrealists and in particular by Giorgio
de Chirico, and celebrated once more as a national asset in both Switzerland and
Germany on the centenary of his birth, B�cklin did not again receive serious
consideration until the 1960s and 1970s.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
H. A. Schmid: Arnold B�cklin: Eine Auswahl der hervoragendsten Werke
des K�nstlers in Photograv�re, 4 vols Munich, 1892�1901)
��: B�cklins Leben und Schaffen Munich, 1902)
��: Verzeichnis der Werke Arnold B�cklins Munich, 1903)
��: �Meier-Graefe contra B�cklin�, Die Kunst: Mhft. Freie & Angewandte
Kst, xi 1904�5), pp. 432�6
A. J. Meier-Graefe: Der Fall B�cklin und die Lehre von den Einheiten
Stuttgart, 1905)
H. Thode: B�cklin und Thoma Heidelberg, 1905)
E. Berger: B�cklins Technik Munich, 1906)
A. Grabowsky: Der Kampf um B�cklin Berlin, 1906)
H. A. Schmid: �B�cklin und die Alten Meister�, Die Kunst: Mhft. Freie &
Angewandte Kst, xxxvii 1918), pp. 126�37, 237�49
G. de Chirico: �Arnold Boecklin�, Il Convegno, iv 1920), pp. 47�53
H. A. Schmid: Arnold B�cklins Handzeichnungen Munich, 1921)
H. Floerke: B�cklin und das Wesen der Kunst Munich, 1927)
H. A. Schmid: �Der junge B�cklin�, Ernte: Schweizer. Jb., viii 1927), pp. 49�72
Arnold B�cklin 1827�1901): Ausstellung zur Feier des 100. Geburtsjahres
exh. cat., Basle, Kstmus., 1927)
Gem�lde und Zeichnungen von Arnold B�cklin, ausgestellt zur Feier seines
100. Geburtstages exh. cat., Berlin, N.G., 1927�8)
M. Bryner-Bender: Arnold B�cklins Stellung zum Portr�t diss., U. Basle,
1952)
R. Andree: Arnold B�cklin: Beitr�ge zur Analyse seiner Bildgestalltung
D�sseldorf, 1962)
J. Wissmann: Arnold B�cklin und das Nachleben seiner Malerei: Studien
zur Kunst der Jahrhundertwende diss., Westf�lische Wilhelms-U., M�nster,
1968)
G. Kleineberg: Die Entwicklung der Naturpersonifizierung im Werk Arnold
B�cklins 1827�1901) diss., U. G�ttingen, 1971)
Arnold B�cklin, 1827�1901 exh. cat., London, Hayward Gal., 1971)
Arnold B�cklin, 1827�1901 exh. cat., D�sseldorf, Kstmus., 1974)
P. Betthausen: Arnold B�cklin Dresden, 1975)
R. Andree: Arnold B�cklin: Die Gem�lde Basle and Munich, 1977)
[catalogue raisonn�]
Arnold B�cklin, 1827�1901 exh. cat., Darmstadt, Ausstellhallen
Mathildenh�he, 1977)
Arnold B�cklin 1827�1901: Gem�lde, Zeichnungen, Plastiken exh. cat.,
Basle, Kstmus., 1977)
E. B. Putz: Classical Antiquity in the Painting of Arnold B�cklin diss., U.
CA, 1979)
W. Ranke: �Le �Cas Boecklin�: Un �pisode toujours actuel de l�art en
Allemagne�, Rev. A., xlv 1979), pp. 37�49
Arnold B�cklin e la cultura artistica in Toscana exh. cat., Fiesole, Pal.
Mangani, 1980)
Henry Fuselli
Boleslas beigas
Samuel Bak
William Blake
Jorgan Elbang
Arnold Bocklin
Zdzislaw bekinski
Bill Ellsworth
Arik Brauer
Max Ernest
Paolo Grimaldi
Lauretta Hogin
Judson Huss
Wolfgang Hutter
Philip Rubenov-Jacobsen
Gage Taylor
Fransiscus Johfra
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