Böcklin, Arnold

Böcklin, Arnold (b Basle, 19 Oct. 1827; d San Domenico, nr. Fiesole, 16 Jan. 1901). Swiss painter. With Hodler he ranks as the most important Swiss painter of the 19th century, and in the 1880s and 1890s he was the most influential artist of the German-speaking world, even though from 1850 he had spent most of his time in Italy. He established his reputation with Pan in the Reeds (1857, Neue Pin., Munich), the beginning of his preoccupation with the world of nymphs and satyrs, naiads, and tritons, the results of which are sometimes slightly absurd. Later his style became more sombre and charged with mystical feeling, bringing him into the orbit of Symbolism, as in his best-known picture, The Island of the Dead, of which he painted five versions between 1880 and 1886 (an example of 1880 is in the Met. Mus., New York). This haunting work, which inspired a symphonic poem by Rachmaninov (1909), shows a rocky mausoleum-island approached by a boat carrying spectral figures; such morbid imagery appealed to the Surrealists. A curious aspect of Böcklin's career is that like Leonardo—whom he disliked—he spent much of his time experimenting with flying machines.