714. Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901),

Swiss, Self-Portrait with Death as a Fiddler,

c. 1871-1874. Oil on canvas, 75 x 61 cm.

Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz,

Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Symbolism.

 

 

Arnold Böcklin

(1827 Basel – 1901 San Domenico di Fiesole)

 

The son of a Swiss merchant, Böcklin was born in Basel, “one of the most prosaic towns in Europe”. At nineteen he entered the art school at Düsseldorf, but was advised by his master to proceed to Brussels and Paris and, later, to Rome where he copied the Old Masters. In this way he learned the art of painting, which, in Germany, had been neglected for some time. There the subject of the painting was held to be of more importance than the method of representing it. Though he returned for a time to Germany and after 1886, lived in Zurich until his death, the country which affected Böcklin’s life most deeply, where he lived during the period in which his particular genius unfolded, was Italy. It was from the Roman Campagna, sad and grand, where the Anio plunges down in cataracts, that he drew the inspiration for his landscapes.

He was, in fact, a Greek in his healthy love of nature and his instinct for giving visible expression to her voices; a modern in his feeling for the moods of nature; and in his union of the two, unique. Moreover, he was a great colourist. “At the very time,” writes Muther, “when Richard Wagner lured the colours of sound from music, with a glow of light such as no master had kindled before, Böcklin’s symphonies of colour streamed forth like a crashing orchestra. Many of his pictures have such an ensnaring brilliancy that the eye is never weary of feasting upon their floating splendour. Indeed, later generations have honoured him as one of the greatest colour-poets of the century.”