Isle of the Dead (painting)

Isle of the Dead (German: Die Toteninsel) is the best-known painting of Swiss Symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901). 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".^[1]

Isle of the Dead: "Basel" version, 1880

Isle of the Dead: "New York" version, 1880

Isle of the Dead: Third version, 1883

Isle of the Dead: Fourth version, 1884 (black-and-white photograph)

Isle of the Dead: Fifth version, 1886

Isle of the Dead: Sixth version, 1901

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.^[2] 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".^[3][4] 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.^[5] Not knowing the history of the early versions of the painting (see §Versions), 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

English Cemetery, Florence

Greek island Pontikonisi, near Corfu, was a possible inspiration for the painting

Montenegrin island Saint George near Perast, is another likely contender as the inspiration for the painting

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. (In all, Böcklin lost 8 of his 14 children.)

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,^[6] perhaps in combination with the mysterious rocky island of Strombolicchio near the famous volcano Stromboli, Sicily. (Another less likely candidate is the island of Ponza in the Tyrrhenian Sea.)

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 (widow of financier Georg von Berna (1836–1865) and soon-to-be wife of the German politician Waldemar, Count of Oriola (1854–1910)). She was struck by the first version of this "dream image" (now in the Kunstmuseum Basel), which sat half completed on the easel, so Böcklin painted a smaller version on wood for her (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City). 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 ("Tomb Island").^[7] (Sometimes the Basel version is credited as the first; sometimes the New York version is.) It was acquired by the Gottfried Keller-Stiftung in 1920.^[8]

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.

Isle of Life, 1888

In 1888, Böcklin created a painting called Die Lebensinsel ("Isle of Life"). 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 (General Staff building) in Saint Petersburg. It bears the signatures A. Böcklin invenit ("devised by A. Böcklin") and Carlo Böcklin fecit 1901 ("executed by Carlo Böcklin 1901"),^[9] 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.^[9]

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. (with Carlo Böcklin) 1901—Oil on canvas; Hermitage (General Staff building), 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”.^[10]

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.^[11]
• The Swiss artist H. R. Giger created a version of the picture, Hommage à Böcklin (1977), in his typical biomechanical style.^[11]
• 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.^[12]
• German artist Michael Sowa painted Böcklin 6th version, a parody of the painting in which the boat is capsizing, in 1992.^[13]
• Japanese artist Suguru Tanaka painted Dead Island in 2013, depicting an island made of living flesh.^[14]

Art

• At the OpenArt 2022 exhibit in Örebro, Sweden, a fifteen metre long and seven metre high mixed-media sculpture by artist Henrik Jonsson was exhibited. The sculpture is based upon Böcklin's paintings.^[15]

Drama

Theatre

• August Strindberg's play The Ghost Sonata (1907) ends with the image of Isle of the Dead accompanied by melancholy music. It was one of Strindberg's favourite pictures.

Ballet

• Liam Scarlett’s final work for San Francisco Ballet was Die Toteninsel (2019), inspired by the symphonic poem of Rachmaninoff as well as the painting.^[10]

Film

• The design of Skull Island in King Kong (1933) was influenced by Isle of the Dead.^[16][17]
• Val Lewton, a producer best known for his horror films, used the painting in scene backgrounds for his 1943 I Walked with a Zombie, a Jacques Tourneur film about zombies inhabiting an island.^[11] His 1945 film Isle of the Dead, directed by Mark Robson, was inspired by and named for the painting. The work serves as a backdrop to the picture's title sequence.^[11]
• The painting has inspired two National Film Board of Canada animated shorts. It is the actual backdrop for Norman McLaren's A Little Phantasy on a 19th-century Painting (1946). 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.^[18]
• Design elements from the painting appear in mattes^[19] and sets^[20] in the 1951 film The Tales of Hoffmann.^[11]
• The 1994 horror film Dellamorte Dellamore (aka Cemetery Man) features a fountain sculpture modeled on the painting.
• A large copy of the painting appears on a wall midway through Terry Gilliam's 1995 science fiction movie 12 Monkeys.
• The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes references the painting in its set design and lighting for the villain's personal island.^[21]
• The 2012 American computer-animated horror-comedy film Hotel Transylvania features several copies of the painting (possibly, the third version) on walls around Dracula's castle, including one just inside the door of Mavis's bedroom.
• Alien: Covenant (2017) references the painting during a scene set in the garden.^[22]
• The Boy and the Heron (2023) uses the painting as reference for the gated graveyard.

Television

• The painting was used in season 5 episode 3 of Pretty Little Liars ("Surfing the Aftershocks"), mysteriously affecting one of the main characters.
• The painting is featured in the Netflix comedy anime 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 beings (one of them the alter-ego of the protagonist, Francis Sandow) in his novel Isle of the Dead (1969).^[11] In-universe, Sandow references the painting as he recollects having created the world where it lies.
• Bernard Cornwell's The Warlord Chronicles (1995–1997) 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 (including the criminally insane) from crossing the Fleet and escaping back into Britain.
• Graphic novel Ile des morts (text: Thomas Mosdi, drawings: Guillaume Sorel) has the pictures playing a key role in its gothic, Lovecraftian story.
• Gerhard Meier's 1979 novel Isle of the Dead (Toteninsel) references Böcklin's painting.
• Marek S. Huberath's 2006 novella Balsam długiego pożegnania (Balm of Long Farewell) is partially set on fictional mediterranean island modeled after Böcklin's works, and presented as sort of - Asphodel Meadows'/Elysian Fields' like - underworld.

Music

Classical composers

• The Island of the Dead (1890) is a symphonic poem by Romantic composer Heinrich Schulz-Beuthen evoking the painting.
• Andreas Hallén, a Swedish Romantic composer, wrote a symphonic poem "Die Toteninsel" in 1898.
• Dezso d'Antalffy, a Hungarian Romantic composer, wrote a symphonic poem "Die Toteninsel" in 1907.^[23]
• Sergei Rachmaninoff also composed a symphonic poem Isle of the Dead, Op. 29 (1909), 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.^[24]
• Felix Woyrsch composed 3 Böcklin Phantasies (Die Toteninsel, Der Eremit, Im Spiel der Wellen), Op. 53 (1910).
• One of the four tone poems of German composer Max Reger's Vier Tondichtungen nach A. Böcklin (Op. 128, 1913) is "Die Toteninsel" (No. 3), based on the painting.
• In the same year, Reger's disciple Fritz Lubrich, Junior [1888–1971] composed Drei Romantische Tonstücke nach Böcklinschen Bildern (Three Romantic Tonstücke after Böcklin's Pictures; Op. 37), an organ work of which No. 3 is also The Dead Island.
• Visit on the Island of the Dead (2009–2010)^[25] is a symphonic poem for orchestra, composed by the Norwegian composer Kristian Oma Rønnes.

Pop music

• The Swedish neoclassical band Arcana used an image of Isle of the Dead on the cover of their debut album Dark Age of Reason (1996).
• An album by Harald Blüchel was named after the painting – Die Toteninsel (Zauberberg-Trilogie Teil 1) (2006). The third version of the painting is shown on the cover of this album.
• The heavy metal band Atlantean Kodex used Die Toteninsel (Version III) as a cover for their first full-length album, The Golden Bough (October 2010).
• American songwriter and singer Rykarda Parasol wrote her song "Island of the Dead (Oh Mi, Oh My)" for the Amsterdam Van Gogh Museum's exhibition Dreams of nature (2012), 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.^[26] The song is on Parasol's 2013 album Against the Sun.^[27]
• French blackgaze band Alcest recorded a song, "L'Île Des Morts," inspired by the paintings, for their album Spiritual Instinct, released October 25, 2019. As a bonus track for the same album, a single was released: a version of the song "Sapphire" by Perturbator. The single's cover refers to the original painting.
• The Spanish/American rock band Alfonso Cronopio Trio (also known as A.C.T.) led by Alfonso Cronopio (founder of the Spanish 80s hardcore band TDeK) released the song "Pagando al barquero" in 2015. The song itself as well as the music video, are inspired in the Die Toteninsel painting.
• Flowers by Hana Hope for the Fate/Grand Order Memorial Movie has a depiction of the titular isle as part of the intro.

Video games

The German survival horror video game "SIGNALIS" by rose-engine studio references all versions of the painting^[28] several times, as it plays a crucial role in understanding the relationship between the main character and her lover.

"Destiny 2: The Witch Queen" developed by Bungie features an alien depiction of the Isle of the Dead in both a cinematic appearance as well as a playable location during a fight in the throne of Savathûn, goddess of trickery (voiced by Debra Wilson).^[29]

In a promotional video for the Japanese mobile role-playing game "Fate/Grand Order", a depiction of the Isle of the Dead can be seen alongside Artoria Pendragon.^[30]

A demo version of the Japanese indie game Brutal Complex features the painting among other pieces, such as those by Salvador Dalí and Leonardo da Vinci, as part of its environments.

In Kentucky Route Zero, the mushroom-picking island in the Echo River uses the painting as a visual reference.

The painting is featured in the 2024 remake of Silent Hill 2 by Bloober Team as an environment prop.

In Doom: The Dark Ages a representation of the island and the boat is present in the landscape of the level "the Kar'Thul Marshes".

In Gwent: The Witcher Card Game, the artwork of the Skellige faction card "Funeral Boat" by artist Lorenzo Mastroianni pays deliberate homage to the painting.

See also

• List of paintings by Arnold Böcklin