Arnold Böcklin

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For the Art Nouveau typeface, see Arnold Böcklin (typeface).
Arnold Böcklin
File:Arnold Böcklin (1827 - 1901), Selbstportrait (1873).jpg
Self-portrait (1872)
Born (1827-10-16)16 October 1827
Basel, Switzerland
Died Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.
Fiesole, Kingdom of Italy
Known for Painting
Notable work Isle of the Dead
Movement Symbolism

Arnold Böcklin (16 October 1827 – 16 January 1901) was a Swiss symbolist painter.

Biography

He was born in Basel. His father, Christian Frederick Böcklin (b. 1802), was descended from an old family of Schaffhausen, and engaged in the silk trade. His mother, Ursula Lippe, was a native of the same city.[1] Arnold studied at the Düsseldorf academy under Schirmer,[1] and became a friend of Anselm Feuerbach. He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting. Schirmer, who recognized in him a student of exceptional promise, sent him to Antwerp and Brussels, where he copied the works of Flemish and Dutch masters. Böcklin then went to Paris, worked at the Louvre, and painted several landscapes.[1]

After serving his time in the army, Böcklin set out for Rome in March 1850. The many sights of Rome were a fresh stimulus to his mind. These new influences brought allegorical and mythological figures into his compositions. In 1856 he returned to Munich, and remained there for four years.

His first fiancé died young. A second woman declined to marry. In Rome, he married Angela Rosa Lorenza Pascucci in 1853. The couple had fourteen children, but five died in childhood and another three died before Böcklin. He himself nearly succumbed to typhoid in 1859.[2]

Career

File:1873 Boecklin Ruggiero und Angelica anagoria.JPG
Roger Freeing Angelica, 1873

He then exhibited the Great Park, one of his earliest works, in which he treated ancient mythology. Of this period are his Nymph and Satyr, Heroic Landscape (Diana Hunting), both of 1858, and Sappho (1859). These works, which were much discussed, together with Lenbach's recommendation, gained him appointment as professor at the Weimar academy. He held the office for two years, painting the Venus and Love, a Portrait of Lenbach, and a Saint Catherine.[1]

He returned to Rome from 1862 to 1866, and there gave his fancy and his taste for violent colour free play in his Portrait of Mme Böcklin, and in An Anchorite in the Wilderness (1863), a Roman Tavern, and Villa on the Seashore (1864). He returned to Basel in 1866 to finish his frescoes in the gallery, and to paint, besides several portraits, The Magdalene with Christ (1868), Anacreon's Muse (1869), and A Castle and Warriors (1871). His Portrait of Myself, with Death playing a violin (1872), was painted after his return again to Munich, where he exhibited Battle of the Centaurs, Landscape with Moorish Horsemen and A Farm (1875). From 1876 to 1885 Böcklin was working at Florence, and painted a Pietà, Ulysses and Calypso, Prometheus, and the Sacred Grove.[1]

From 1886 to 1892 he settled at Zürich, after which he resided at San Domenico, near Florence.[1] From this period are the Naiads at Play, A Sea Idyll, and War.

File:Cimitero degli Allori, Arnold Bocklin.jpg
Grave of Arnold Bocklin, Cimitero degli Allori, Florence, Italy

Böcklin died on 16 January 1901 in Fiesole. He is buried in the Cimitero degli Allori in the southern suburb of Florence, Italy.

Symbolism

File:Arnold Böcklin - Villa by the Sea - Google Art Project.jpg
Villa by the Sea

Influenced by Romanticism, Böcklin's symbolist use of imagery derived from mythology and legend often overlapped with the aesthetic of the Pre-Raphaelites. Many of his paintings are imaginative interpretations of the classical world,[3] or portray mythological subjects in settings involving classical architecture, often allegorically exploring death and mortality in the context of a strange, fantasy world.

Böcklin is best known for his five versions (painted 1880 to 1886) of the Isle of the Dead, which partly evokes the English Cemetery, Florence, which was close to his studio and where his baby daughter Maria had been buried. An early version of the painting was commissioned by a Madame Berna, a widow who wanted a painting with a dreamlike atmosphere.[4]

Clement Greenberg wrote in 1947 that Böcklin's work "is one of the most consummate expressions of all that is now disliked about the latter half of the nineteenth century."[5]

Legacy

File:Arnold Böcklin - Die Toteninsel III (Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin).jpg
Isle of the Dead ("Die Toteninsel")
File:Böcklin - Die Lebensinsel -1888.jpeg
The Island of Life (Die Lebensinsel), 1888

Böcklin influenced Giorgio de Chirico,[6] who said "Each of Böcklin's works is a shock",[3] and other Surrealist painters like Max Ernst and Salvador Dalí. When asked who was his favorite painter, Marcel Duchamp controversially named Arnold Böcklin as having a major influence on his art. Whether Duchamp was serious in this assertion is still debated.

H. R. Giger has created a picture called Homage to Boecklin, based upon Isle of the Dead.[citation needed]

Several of his works are part of the collection of the Kunstmuseum Basel and exhibited there. There is currently[when?] also a room in the Kunsthaus Zürich dedicated to his work.

In music

Böcklin's paintings, especially Isle of the Dead, inspired several late-Romantic composers.

Other

Otto Weisert designed an Art Nouveau typeface in 1904 and named it "Arnold Böcklin" in his honor.

Adolf Hitler was fond of Böcklin's work, at one time owning 11 of his paintings.[9]

Roger Zelazny titled one of his novels Isle of the Dead after Böcklin's paintings, and an Ace books edition featured a cover painting by Dean Ellis that was deliberately reminiscent of Böcklin's work.[10]

Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, opened his 1942 laudatory article on Dmitry Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony with an allusion to Böcklin's painting "War".[11]

Works

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Main article: List of paintings by Arnold Böcklin
  • Böcklin 1846 Bildnis Alexander Michelis (2).jpg

    Alexander Michelis, 1846

  • Arnold Böcklin - Mondscheinlandschaft mit Ruine.jpg

    Moonlit Landscape, 1849

  • Arnold Böcklin - Campagna Landscape - WGA3026.jpg

    Campania Landscape, 1851

  • Arnold Böcklin (11)Italien Landschaft.JPG

    Italian Landscape, 1858

  • Böcklin, Arnold - Die Klage des Hirten - 1866.jpg

    The Shepherd's Lament, 1866

  • Arnold Böcklin – Idyll.jpg

    Idyll, 1866

  • Böcklin Mädchen und Jüngling beim Blumenpflücken 1866.jpg

    Boy and Girl Picking Flowers, c.1866

  • Arnold Boecklin-fiedelnder Tod.jpg

    Self-portrait with Death playing the fiddle, 1872

  • Arnold Böcklin - Venus Anadyomene.jpg

    Venus Anadyomene, 1872

  • The Muse Euterpe by Arnold Böcklin.jpg

    The Muse Euterpe, 1872

  • Arnold Böcklin - The Deposition - WGA03027.jpg

    Mourning under the Cross , 1876

  • Arnold Böcklin - Die Gefilde der Seligen.jpg

    The Elysian Fields, 1877

  • Arnold Böcklin - Hochzeitsreise.jpg

    Honey Moon, 1878

  • Arnold Böcklin (15)Meeresbrandung.JPG

    Ocean Breakers (The Sound), 1879

  • Arnold Böcklin - Summer Day - Google Art Project.jpg

    Summer Day, 1881

  • Odysseus and Calypso, 1882

  • Arnold Böcklin - Das Irrlicht -1882.jpeg

    Will-o'-the-Wisp, 1882

  • Arnold Boecklin Spiel der Wellen 1883.jpg

    Playing in the Waves, 1883

  • Böcklin Einsiedler.jpg

    The Hermit, 1884

  • Arnold Böcklin - Das Heiligtum des Herkules (1884).jpg

    The Sanctuary of Hercules, 1884

  • Arnold Böcklin (3)Selbsbildnis m Weinglas.JPG

    Self-portrait with the wine glass, 1885

  • Böcklin Die Heimkehr 1887.jpg

    The Homecoming, 1887

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. This cites:
    • His life, written by Henri Mendelssohn
    • F. Hermann, Gazette des Beaux Arts (Paris, 1893)
    • Max Lehrs, Arnold Böcklin, Ein Leitfaden sum Verständniss seiner Kunst (Munich, 1897)
    • W. Ritter, Arnold Böcklin (Gand, 1895)
    • Katalog der Böcklin Jubiläums Ausstellung (Basel, 1897).
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Burroughs, Bryson. "The Island of the Dead by Arnold Böcklin." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 21, No. 6 (Jun., 1926), pp. 146–148.
  5. ↑ Greenberg, Clement. Nation. 3/22/1947, Vol. 164 Issue 12, p340–342.
  6. ↑ Holzhey, Magdalena (2005). Giorgio de Chirico, 1888–1978: the Modern Myth. Köln: Taschen. p. 11. ISBN 3822841528.
  7. ↑ Jonathan Yungkans: Liner notes to the complete Benno Moiseiwitsch Rachmaninoff recordings 1937–43 Archived March 15, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  8. ↑ Ates Orga: Liner notes to Demidenko plays Rachmaninov
  9. ↑ Vinocur, John. "The Burlesque, and Rigor, of Arnold Böcklin." New York Times. 12 January 2002.
  10. ↑ "...And Call Me Roger"": The Literary Life of Roger Zelazny, Part 2, by Christopher S. Kovacs. In: The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Volume 2: Power & Light, NESFA Press, 2009.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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