Swiss symbolist painter.∼Swiss painter. Was born at Basel (Switzerland). In 1846 he began his studies at the Dusseldorf academy under Schirmer, who recognized in him, a student of exceptional promise, and 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; his Landscape and Ruin reveals at the same time a strong feeling for nature and a dramatic conception of scenery. After serving his time in the army he set out for Rome in March 1850, and the sight of the Eternal City was a fresh stimulus to his mind. So, too, was the influence of Italian nature and that of the dead pagan world. At Rome he married (June 20, 1853) Angela Rosa Lorenza Pascucci. In 1856 he returned to Munich, and remained there four years. He then exhibited the Great Park, one of his earliest works, in which he treated ancient mythology with the stamp of individuality, which was the basis of his reputation. Of this period, too, 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 his 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. He was again at Rome from 1862 to 1866, and there gave his fancy and his taste for violent colour free play in his Portrait of Mme Böcklin, now in the Basel gallery, in An Anchorite in the Wilderness (1863); a Roman Tavern, and Villa on the Sea-shore (1864); this last, one of his best pictures. 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 (1873), was painted after his return again to Munich, where he exhibited his famous Battle of the Centaurs ; Landscape with Moorish Horsemen; and A Farm (1875)
Böcklin was an energetic figure devoid of the languid melancholy of 'decadence'. Italy's light and aura of antiquity were decisive in his early development; his paintings quickly came to be populated with mythological figures, with centaurs and naiads. Not until his fiftieth year did he begin to paint the powerfully atmospheric works associated with his name today. Among the most famous of these is the painting known as The Isle of the Dead which Böcklin himself entitled 'a tranquil place'. It was clearly important to him; he made five different versions of the composition. The new title was suggested by the white-draped coffin on the boat, the funerary presence of the cypresses, and the overwhelming impression of immobility and silence. The white figure vividly lit by a setting sun is contrasted with the dark, vertical forms of the trees, impervious to the slanting rays of the sun. Like a dream, the painting condenses a number of contradictory sensations and emotions. "Böcklin's choice of imagery is not coincidental. A young widow had asked him for an 'image to dream by', and the funereal serenity perhaps echoes something of the artist's own emotions about death. At the age of twenty-five, during one of his stays in Rome, he had married the daughter of a pontifical guard who bore him eleven children between 1855 and 1876; five of them died in infancy, and the Böcklin family was twice (in 1855 and 1873) forced to flee cholera epidemics. Böcklin's art reveals a robust temperament. He showed no reticence towards the new technologies then sweeping the continent. He devoted time to the invention of a flying machine, negotiating with businessmen for its manufacture. His Germanic feeling for nature was expressed, in canonic Romantic fashion, in such paintings as The Sacred Wood (1882), but its most striking expression is The Silence of the Forest (1885) in which a bizarre unicorn, part cow, part camel, emerges from a forest, bearing an equally enigmatic woman on its back.
Arnold Böcklind died in San Domenico di Fiesole (Italy)
Böcklin was an energetic figure devoid of the languid melancholy of 'decadence'. Italy's light and aura of antiquity were decisive in his early development; his paintings quickly came to be populated with mythological figures, with centaurs and naiads. Not until his fiftieth year did he begin to paint the powerfully atmospheric works associated with his name today. Among the most famous of these is the painting known as The Isle of the Dead which Böcklin himself entitled 'a tranquil place'. It was clearly important to him; he made five different versions of the composition. The new title was suggested by the white-draped coffin on the boat, the funerary presence of the cypresses, and the overwhelming impression of immobility and silence. The white figure vividly lit by a setting sun is contrasted with the dark, vertical forms of the trees, impervious to the slanting rays of the sun. Like a dream, the painting condenses a number of contradictory sensations and emotions. "Böcklin's choice of imagery is not coincidental. A young widow had asked him for an 'image to dream by', and the funereal serenity perhaps echoes something of the artist's own emotions about death. At the age of twenty-five, during one of his stays in Rome, he had married the daughter of a pontifical guard who bore him eleven children between 1855 and 1876; five of them died in infancy, and the Böcklin family was twice (in 1855 and 1873) forced to flee cholera epidemics. Böcklin's art reveals a robust temperament. He showed no reticence towards the new technologies then sweeping the continent. He devoted time to the invention of a flying machine, negotiating with businessmen for its manufacture. His Germanic feeling for nature was expressed, in canonic Romantic fashion, in such paintings as The Sacred Wood (1882), but its most striking expression is The Silence of the Forest (1885) in which a bizarre unicorn, part cow, part camel, emerges from a forest, bearing an equally enigmatic woman on its back.
Arnold Böcklind died in San Domenico di Fiesole (Italy)
Swiss symbolist painter.∼Swiss painter. Was born at Basel (Switzerland). In 1846 he began his studies at the Dusseldorf academy under Schirmer, who recognized in him, a student of exceptional promise, and 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; his Landscape and Ruin reveals at the same time a strong feeling for nature and a dramatic conception of scenery. After serving his time in the army he set out for Rome in March 1850, and the sight of the Eternal City was a fresh stimulus to his mind. So, too, was the influence of Italian nature and that of the dead pagan world. At Rome he married (June 20, 1853) Angela Rosa Lorenza Pascucci. In 1856 he returned to Munich, and remained there four years. He then exhibited the Great Park, one of his earliest works, in which he treated ancient mythology with the stamp of individuality, which was the basis of his reputation. Of this period, too, 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 his 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. He was again at Rome from 1862 to 1866, and there gave his fancy and his taste for violent colour free play in his Portrait of Mme Böcklin, now in the Basel gallery, in An Anchorite in the Wilderness (1863); a Roman Tavern, and Villa on the Sea-shore (1864); this last, one of his best pictures. 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 (1873), was painted after his return again to Munich, where he exhibited his famous Battle of the Centaurs ; Landscape with Moorish Horsemen; and A Farm (1875)
Böcklin was an energetic figure devoid of the languid melancholy of 'decadence'. Italy's light and aura of antiquity were decisive in his early development; his paintings quickly came to be populated with mythological figures, with centaurs and naiads. Not until his fiftieth year did he begin to paint the powerfully atmospheric works associated with his name today. Among the most famous of these is the painting known as The Isle of the Dead which Böcklin himself entitled 'a tranquil place'. It was clearly important to him; he made five different versions of the composition. The new title was suggested by the white-draped coffin on the boat, the funerary presence of the cypresses, and the overwhelming impression of immobility and silence. The white figure vividly lit by a setting sun is contrasted with the dark, vertical forms of the trees, impervious to the slanting rays of the sun. Like a dream, the painting condenses a number of contradictory sensations and emotions. "Böcklin's choice of imagery is not coincidental. A young widow had asked him for an 'image to dream by', and the funereal serenity perhaps echoes something of the artist's own emotions about death. At the age of twenty-five, during one of his stays in Rome, he had married the daughter of a pontifical guard who bore him eleven children between 1855 and 1876; five of them died in infancy, and the Böcklin family was twice (in 1855 and 1873) forced to flee cholera epidemics. Böcklin's art reveals a robust temperament. He showed no reticence towards the new technologies then sweeping the continent. He devoted time to the invention of a flying machine, negotiating with businessmen for its manufacture. His Germanic feeling for nature was expressed, in canonic Romantic fashion, in such paintings as The Sacred Wood (1882), but its most striking expression is The Silence of the Forest (1885) in which a bizarre unicorn, part cow, part camel, emerges from a forest, bearing an equally enigmatic woman on its back.
Arnold Böcklind died in San Domenico di Fiesole (Italy)
Böcklin was an energetic figure devoid of the languid melancholy of 'decadence'. Italy's light and aura of antiquity were decisive in his early development; his paintings quickly came to be populated with mythological figures, with centaurs and naiads. Not until his fiftieth year did he begin to paint the powerfully atmospheric works associated with his name today. Among the most famous of these is the painting known as The Isle of the Dead which Böcklin himself entitled 'a tranquil place'. It was clearly important to him; he made five different versions of the composition. The new title was suggested by the white-draped coffin on the boat, the funerary presence of the cypresses, and the overwhelming impression of immobility and silence. The white figure vividly lit by a setting sun is contrasted with the dark, vertical forms of the trees, impervious to the slanting rays of the sun. Like a dream, the painting condenses a number of contradictory sensations and emotions. "Böcklin's choice of imagery is not coincidental. A young widow had asked him for an 'image to dream by', and the funereal serenity perhaps echoes something of the artist's own emotions about death. At the age of twenty-five, during one of his stays in Rome, he had married the daughter of a pontifical guard who bore him eleven children between 1855 and 1876; five of them died in infancy, and the Böcklin family was twice (in 1855 and 1873) forced to flee cholera epidemics. Böcklin's art reveals a robust temperament. He showed no reticence towards the new technologies then sweeping the continent. He devoted time to the invention of a flying machine, negotiating with businessmen for its manufacture. His Germanic feeling for nature was expressed, in canonic Romantic fashion, in such paintings as The Sacred Wood (1882), but its most striking expression is The Silence of the Forest (1885) in which a bizarre unicorn, part cow, part camel, emerges from a forest, bearing an equally enigmatic woman on its back.
Arnold Böcklind died in San Domenico di Fiesole (Italy)
