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As a child, a question or thought can enter your mind that is so unfathomable it becomes a secret obsession.
Exploration of Arnold Böcklin's 'Isle of the Dead' paintings, their symbolism, versions, and cultural impact.
Key Takeaways
- Arnold Böcklin’s 'Isle of the Dead' is a Symbolist masterpiece with deep personal and cultural symbolism.
- There are five distinct versions of the painting, each reflecting different artistic and symbolic nuances.
- The painting’s themes of death, mystery, and the afterlife have influenced various art forms and historical contexts.
- Böcklin’s work bridges romanticism, mythology, and symbolism, reflecting his bi-cultural life and artistic evolution.
- The 'Isle of the Dead' continues to inspire artists and audiences, embodying existential and metaphysical questions.
Summary
- The video begins with a personal reflection on childhood dreams and existential vertigo inspired by the concept of infinity and mysterious dreamscapes.
- The narrator discovers a painting by Arnold Böcklin titled 'Isle of the Dead' that resonates with his recurring dreams, sparking a deep interest in the artwork.
- Arnold Böcklin, a Swiss Symbolist painter, created five versions of 'Isle of the Dead' between 1880 and 1886, each with variations in style, lighting, and details.
- The painting was initially commissioned by Alexander Günther but was kept by Böcklin; later versions were commissioned by Marie Berna Christ and others, adding symbolic elements like the ferryman’s barge.
- Böcklin’s style reflects his life split between Germany and Italy, combining romanticism with ancient art and mythology influences.
- The video discusses the symbolic and mysterious aura of the painting, its evolving elements, and its impact on viewers and other artists.
- The narrator explores the cultural significance of the painting, including its influence on theater, music, and even political symbolism during Nazi Germany.
- The video touches on the painting’s presence in modern media and art, including references by Salvador Dalí and contemporary concept artists.
- The recurring themes of death, immortality, and the afterlife are central to the painting’s enduring fascination.
- The video concludes by emphasizing the lasting emotional and artistic impact of Böcklin’s 'Isle of the Dead' across time and cultures.
Chapters
- 00:00Childhood Obsessions and Existential Vertigo
- 03:04Pursuing Art and Discovering Böcklin’s Painting
- 05:18Böcklin’s Life and Artistic Influences
- 07:41The Creation and Evolution of the Isle of the Dead
- 10:20Symbolism and Cultural Impact of the Painting
- 12:53The Painting’s Influence in Modern Art and Media
- 17:06Legacy and Enduring Fascination with the Isle
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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This happened to me when I learned that the universe was infinite. In my child's mind, accepting the impossible concept that our Earth is surrounded by an endless space was a source of immense vertigo.
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I could imagine that a wall existed somewhere at the edge of space, but then a thousand new problems appeared. How big was this wall? Who built it?
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And most of all—what might lie behind it? It was after this unsolvable enigma that I understood that certain thoughts could plunge us into existential vertigo.
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But it's not the only idea that has troubled me in its implications and its lack of answers.
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My childhood memories remain hazy, but there is a period that I remember clearly. Over approximately two years, I had a recurring dream.
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In this unexceptional dreamlike space, I found myself in a kind of building. It would be impossible for me to describe it to you precisely, but I remember certain emotions, especially the strange aura that stemmed from this place; as if it was
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evolving out of time, or that I was in a parallel dimension. In each dream, I found myself in a new part of the building.
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Some of those parts were in ruins, and others were functional as if a family once lived there, but no one was there anymore.
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It was almost always dark, and in each of my dreams, I heard the crashing of the waves against the surrounding rocks.
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The sound was so distinguishable that I deduced that the house was built on a modest island, surrounded by sea.
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One of those nights, I was even able to walk on the borders of the house, along large hedges that masked the shoreline. This place seemed very peaceful, but I felt uneasy.
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After six or seven of those dreams, an idea struck me as violently as this concept of infinite space: what if dreams were our only window to the true reality, and that life itself was a dream, an illusion, a kind of matrix made to
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hide the odious truth, to mask what dreams are trying to show us? The dreams disappeared as suddenly as they arrived. I grew up, passed my baccalaureate, and after several years on a course I didn’t like, I decided to listen to this strange inner voice that called to me
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for so long towards creation. I finally pursued art school. Despite my passion for creation, I knew nothing about art history, and I needed to improve my knowledge through revision.
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Among the few books I took with me to revise, I found a concise, pocket-size art encyclopaedia that I still own today.
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In the end, I read little of this book, as after a few pages I would leave the words behind to travel from page to page in the images and let myself be amazed by their mysteries.
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When one of those caught my interest, I sometimes read the accompanying text. One day, during one of those ramblings, chance stopped me at page 112.
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In the bottom left corner was a small reproduction, which despite its size seized me immediately.
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In the same way that a simple smell can bring back a vivid memory, this image detonated a recollection in my mind.
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I immediately dived back to the feelings I experienced in my recurrent dream. Since that day, the island never stopped intriguing me. I loved telling myself that I had the same dream as the painter.
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And as you will soon discover, I am far from being the first, and will not be the last.
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My instinct was to learn everything about the painting to understand the story behind its conception.
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From here, things became unusual as I found there is not one unique version, but five.
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Before talking about the paintings, it’s necessary to mention their creator. His name is Arnold Böcklin, and at the time he painted his first Isle of the Dead, he’s 53 years old; it is therefore not a work of youth.
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At this time of his life, the painter is one of the great names of the Symbolist movement, which postulates that the world cannot be grasped using only rational knowledge.
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Symbolists, therefore, use a peculiar, almost magical, pictorial language to present images of a cryptic and sacred character.
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Born in Switzerland, Böcklin will leave to train in Germany at the Fine Arts Academy of Düsseldorf with two pictorial romanticism painters: Schirmer, a landscape painter, and Feuerbach, who was more focused on human forms.
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Based on this teaching, Böcklin will spend his life traveling between romantic Germany he loves so much, and Italy, which captures his passion.
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He settles in Rome with his first wife and visits Naples and Pompeii at length.
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Böcklin will eventually end his days near Florence, at Fiesole in Tuscany. In this country, he can give free rein to his other passions, ancient art, and mythology.
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This great gap between the two artistic countries can be found in Böcklin’s painting style.
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As well as having his heart between two countries, the painter is also between two times. He is part of those artists whose first portraits are found as paintings, but whose last years of life have been immortalised as photographs.
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The very first Isle was commissioned by Alexander Günther, a patron we know little about.
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Despite Böcklin writing to Günther to show his excitement as the painting is about to be completed, Böcklin will end up keeping the painting for himself.
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At this moment, the painting is as we know it today, minus an important detail: the ferryman’s barge.
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This is when a woman named Marie Berna Christ enters the scene. She wished to commission a painting that invites reverie but on visiting Böcklin’s workshop discovers the first version of the Isle on his easel, and falls in love with it.
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This leads to her ordering a new version. A personal event in the life of Marie Berna Christ will change the fate of the painting.
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Fifteen years earlier, she lost her husband to diphtheria, and after a long grieving period, she found love again with the Count of Oriola, who had just asked her to marry him.
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Therefore, she suggested that Böcklin adds a barge to the painting carrying the body of her late husband to symbolise her last farewell.
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On the Isle, the doors lead to the mausoleum, evidenced by the first title of the painting, which is not yet “Die Toteninsel” (The Isle of the Dead) but “Die Gräberinsel” (The Isle of the Tombs).
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On this barge, Marie metaphorically leads the coffin of her late husband on the peaceful waters of his final journey.
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Böcklin seemed fascinated by this idea and added the barge on the first version of the Isle and the three paintings that followed.
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In six years, Böcklin will make a total of five Isles of the Dead. Despite the first two being created in 1880 (almost at the same time), the third one was not painted until 1883 for Fritz Gurlitt, his gallery owner,
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who renamed the painting “Die Toteninsel." The fourth one was produced in 1884 to resolve financial obligations and bought by Baron Thyssen, an industrialist and art lover who exposed it in his subsidiary of the Berliner Bank.
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Unfortunately, the painting did not survive the bombings of Berlin at the end of the war, and the only thing left of it today is a black and white photograph.
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Finally, a fifth version will be commissioned in 1886 by the Fine Arts Museum of Leipzig, where it has remained ever since.
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Böcklin did not copy his first version identically; instead, the representations varied over time. The first two versions show the Isle at the border of dusk and night, while the three other versions offer a daytime sky.
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On the first two canvases, the cypresses rise very high and dominate the island’s rocky structures, while in the third painting, the rocks overshadow the cypresses.
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Tombs also evolve, giving an ever more ancient impression, as if moving from an architectural tomb to a primeval troglodyte cave.
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There are still many details left, but the idea is there—Böcklin took advantage of each new version to perfect his work and modify some elements, adding to the mystery that surrounds the creation of this masterpiece.
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Most people have been seduced by the canvas without knowing abo
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The only external information that we have is its title: “The Isle Of The Dead”.
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This simple evocation of death puts us in a serious relationship with the painting, as death is a difficult and deep topic often accompanied by sadness and dark feelings.
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However, the canvas seizes us by the almost peaceful aspect of its visual. In the last three versions, the quality of the clouds and inclination of the tree tops suggest a light wind, however, the sea remains perfectly peaceful.
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That’s one of the first things that strikes us: since we only see the sky and the sea around the island, we’re struck by a feeling of loneliness and infinity, like sailors who are lost at sea.
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Sea and sky are the two only things in nature which absorb a person’s gaze.
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That’s why these elements, particularly the shades of blue that characterise them, chromatically translate the idea of infinity.
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The island is a powerful concept to which we attach a whole image. Firstly, the idea of being severed from the world, of living in autarchy : it is simultaneously a utopia and a prison where forgotten rituals are carried out by mysterious inhabitants with insular customs.
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Pirate treasures are hidden there, traces of ancient civilizations can be found... Here, the title implies that this island is for the defunct; a place where we come to bury a loved one to offer them a last resting place, protected
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from the outside world. Finally, there is the barge heading toward the Isle. The viewer, forced to look the same way as the barge's passenger, finds themselves invited to the island despite their will.
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This barge, which leads to death, inevitably conveys Charon, the ferryman that allows the deceased to cross the Styx.
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Böcklin delivers a solemn and delicate representation, and yet a strange unreal and fantastic breath emerges from the painting - providing a feeling of appeasement, of reverie.
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The final element that subliminally affects the viewer’s reaction is the cypresses. They form a gigantic dark mass, eating up the inside of the painting, literally sucking the gaze as if the centre of the canvas was a dark vortex
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toward which the barge is heading. The choice of the cypress is not a coincidence, as they are found in cemeteries, which accentuates the metaphor that they are a chasm leading to death.
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All those elements contribute to a unique viewing experience. By combining them, Böcklin touches the sublime, taking us beyond the simple representation.
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But my true deep dive into the mystery of the Isle Of Dead happened later, when I decided to discover everything about the work of one of my favourite painters: Hans Ruedi Giger.
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Whilst compiling Giger's work, I found two versions of the Isle paintings. I was intrigued that one of my favourite artists had made these references, as he had not done this with any other paintings.
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I discovered that Giger created his first version of the Isle in 1975, the same year that he tragically lost his partner.
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The strange form that can be found in the middle of the cypresses is a recurring motif for Giger.
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He was fascinated by the erotic and morbid symbolism of garbage trucks and viewed the mechanism engulfing the waste into the incinerator, as a dark metaphor of our human condition.
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This gives us a better understanding of the ruin and despair which charges Giger’s version of Böcklin’s Island.
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version of Böcklin’s Island. Two years later, Giger paints what he’ll soberly call “Tribute to Arnold Böcklin”, with a second Island whose style has changed, and is now made of the extra-terrestrial matter that characterises him.
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It is like this solitary mass in the water has become a sinister mausoleum, stuck in a dark dimension, and suspended, forgotten behind the wall of reality.
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Noticeable point: there is no barge, suggesting that access to the island is now impossible.
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From looking at those paintings, I dived into the abyss that hid “The Isle of the Dead”.
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By clicking on a hyperlink that archived one of the paintings, I came across a website named ‘TOTENINSEL.NET’.
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Whilst browsing, I was seized by dizziness : there were hundreds of versions of The Isle of Dead.
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What I found on this website marked me so much that the Isle became an obsession for me too.
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I even wrote the basics of a series revolving around the Island, and released a pilot with my own resources.
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With the help of two authors and a producer we developed a series to try and make the story concrete.
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I was passionate about the Isle, and my research, but I needed to skip certain details.
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I didn’t want to spoil the painting’s mystery by embedding myself within it like others had done.
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Knowing everything about a subject can sometimes diminish its mystery and power of evocation. The fact that dozens of artists had represented the Isle was enough to make me fantasise of a story revolving around the island.
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When the series was written I was ready to dive back in and find out more, which is how I came back to TOTENINSEL.NET.
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I realised that I had initially flown over it too quickly, so this time I was careful.
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I had not comprehended the number of tributes, nor had I appreciated the colossal research of someone seemingly obsessed by the Isle and its apparitions.
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The website was active between 1998 and 2014 and has appeared dormant since. So, with little hope, I sought to join the person behind this quest.
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It is written that the site archives the research of a painter who spent 30 years tracking all the images related to Böcklin’s island.
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In the legal notices, one can find a name and a link to his website.
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Luckily, I found a Twitter account and tried to contact him. He appeared to be a painter living in California.
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His work revolves exclusively around the ocean, giving rise to the alias : “Blue Painter”.
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So, with my fingers crossed, I sent him my first message, explaining my approach. I needed to understand what was in the head of someone who spent so much time tracking the Isle.
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‘Blue’ answered me, and it is at this moment that my true quest began. “I think I discovered the Isle Of The Dead when I was about 14.
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I was already a fan of Salvador Dalí, and by looking at a number of picture albums, I came across ‘The True Painting of the "Isle of the Dead" by Arnold Böcklin at the Hour of the Angelus’.
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I tried to research the “Isle of The Dead” but at this time there was not much about it, and we didn't have the internet, so research was done at the library.
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I saw a dictionary about paintings and came across a version of the Isle that I enjoyed very much because...
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it meant several things to me. This was my first introduction to the Isle. I had put it aside in my mind, and each time I found a reference about Böcklin or The Isle of The Dead (although there was
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not a lot at the time), I immediately pictured the painting again in my mind.
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I began to be intrigued when I discovered that Rachmaninov made a symphony about it. It started to tickle my mind and led me to seek what lay behind it, and once I started digging I went into this maze which is inside the Isle,
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with ramifications that completely subjugated me because I was discovering a unique painting in the history of art.” As Giger did with me, it was Salvador Dalí that led Blue on the tracks of the Isle, as if a ferryman was needed to go to that secret location.
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I discussed at length with him, and he explained to me the reasons for the success of the canvas. Although it was not very well known in France, it was popular in Germany.
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This is due to Max Klinger, a talented engraver, who faithfully reproduced the Isle, leading it to become an affordable piece of art in German households.
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Thus, the painting became popular very soon after its creation. Tributes to Böcklin’s canvas arose just after his death in 1901.
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The island then quickly became a secret place in the collective unconscious. Contemporary painters of Böcklin engulfed themselves in his universe almost immediately.
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The first person to have reproduced the canvas is undoubtedly Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach, a Russian symbolist painter with sectarian guru morals.
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Diefenbach was passionate about ancient Egypt, moving there to paint stone colossi in the sands, before finally returning to the island of Capri to end his days.
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He reproduced the Isle of Böcklin almost identically but added an Egyptian portal in front of the cypresses; a culture that already associated the last journey of the soul with a boat sailing into the world of the dead.
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In 1898, Andreas Hallén composed a symphonic poem named “Toteninsel”. In 1908, the illustrious composer Rachmaninov signed a piece of the same name as the painting, whose first musical movements allegedly recall the noise made by the oars in the water, as the barge approaches the Isle.
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Rachmaninov had just a black-and-white reproduction of the painting when composing his work, and later confessed that when he saw the color version in New York, he realised that it did not match his mind’s eye and that his composition
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would have been different had he seen this version first. In 1913, Max Reger composed four symphonic poems after Böcklin.
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Musical tributes to the Isle of the Dead are still going on today, notably in extreme music such as the wonderful eponym track of Alcest.
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In 1908, the same year as the piece by Rachmaninov, August Striendberg, one of the fathers of modern theatre, released “The Ghost Sonata”, a play that ends on a reproduction of the Isle of The Dead while a sad melody plays in the background.
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In 1910, the painter Georg Janni made his version of the Isle and offsets the point of view, changing the ‘camera’s’ location, bringing us another vision of it.
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Although the exterior seems less threatening since we can see islands, and therefore life, in the distance, the islet shows even more frightening and oppressive proportions Indeed, the entrance of the Isle consists of a narrow and dark passage between two
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vertiginous rocky elevations. Janni shows us we can get to the Isle and offers other views of it. As long as certain markers as there, the appearance of the place can be modified at will.
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Although the painting was the first medium where the Isle manifested itself, it will not be long before cinematography enters the scene and invites us to visit the Isle.
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In 1913, Vilhelm Glückstadt, passionate about Böcklin, released a film named “De Dødes Ø” where he reproduced nearly fifteen of Böcklin’s paintings.
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The film has totally disappeared, but I managed to find a kind of production booklet from back then, in which we can see a shot of the film showing the Isle.
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So inspiring was Bocklin's work, that he was influencing films less than a decade after his death.
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Another film of which nothing remains, “Die Toteninsel” by Carl Froelich, was made in 1921 with some of the biggest names in expressionism in its cast.
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Even though these films no longer exist, they clearly show that the work of Böcklin fascinated early on.
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and it is with a big name in film production that the Isle was about to gain a wider reach.
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Val Lewton was born just as Böcklin died, and in 1943, he produced Jacques Tourneur’s “I Walked With A Zombie”, for RKO studios.
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This was a free adaptation of the novel “Jane Eyre” from the perspective of voodoo rites, showing the archetype of the dead coming back to life through dark rituals.
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In this movie, Böcklin’s painting keeps coming back as an allegory of the Isle of Haiti where the plot of the film takes place.
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Seeing the painting at this point in majesty, posted as a symbolic manifesto of the afterlife, has with no doubt contributed to the aura that the film possesses.
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It’s hard to know if the idea of displaying the painting to such an extent came from Val Lewton himself, but two years later, he produced a film named “The Isle Of The Dead”, which left little doubt as to his fascination for the artwork.
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This time, Lewton was not only the producer but also the screenwriter, meaning that he could take us to find out what was happening on his Isle.
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There’s a certain emotion in discovering a film showing passengers going to this mythical place as if we were finally going to know what’s behind it.
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Yet, the viewer only sees their version. Lewton seemed to have shared Böcklin’s passion when it comes to placing mythological references mythological references in his works.
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the film includes Cerberus, the three-headed dog guardian of the underworld. Lewton saw the Isle as an antechamber to limbo and imagined the return of an old ruthless Greek general learning that his wife’s grave, located on the Isle, has been desecrated.
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To play this role, Lewton employed Boris Karloff, who is best known for the way he incarnated Frankenstein’s monster.
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All these subliminal and metaphorical touches made this film a subtle and free interpretation of the painting.
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The film played on the ideological confrontation between science and superstition over the question of death, and the Isle of Böcklin was undoubtedly one of the best places to do so.
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Lewton’s film is probably the one that gave us the most direct and complete tour of the Isle.
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At least until a recent cinematographic appearance in “Alien Covenant”, by Ridley Scott. The vision he offered is magnificent and succeeded in capturing the atmosphere of the firsts Isles of Böcklin with their nocturnal and worrying aura, but we’ll come back to this later.
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This list is far from being exhaustive, but we can see that since Böcklin’s death, the Isle has covertly reappeared amongst various mediums.
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A few enthusiasts talked about it now and again, but without people perceiving the extent of the hold that the painting has on the hidden parts of our imagination.
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Once one knows the Isle, he tends to see it everywhere. During my research, and while talking with Blue, I felt that the Isle hides a secret, a code, or at least a message.
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Should the appearance of the Isle be seen as the actions of insider worship who engage here in a form of membership rite? As a hermetic tribute whose access is skilfully guarded?
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“All these artists were certainly unaware that they were part of an ensemble including filmmakers, novelists, poets, and architects who took an interest in this topic.
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If they interpreted this work, it’s because it meant something to them and naturally, with the art history culture they had, they may have referred to this painting to join, even unconsciously, into a kind of brotherhood of The Isle of The Dead that wanted to keep its message alive.”
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Before exploring the nature of this message, we can note that the diversity of media on which the canvas is found is unusual.
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We can find it in Terry Gilliam’s “12 Monkeys” as well as the video game “Animal Crossing”, which added The Isle Of Dead in its last edition, and even in some “Magic The Gathering” trading cards.
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The Isle is often discrete, invisible for those who don’t know it, but reappears throughout time like a strange comet that travels the skies of imagination.
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The representations of the Isle have never really stopped, but there have been periods and artists that have brought it back into focus. One such movement, being Surrealism.
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Max Ernst subliminally quoted the canvas, but it’s without a doubt Salvador Dalí who gave a second youth to Böcklin’s painting.
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The reasons behind this adoration don’t seem to be solely pictorial. “In 1932, the surrealist group was interested in a lot of things and even if this painting was to be part of what they hated - that is, a sponsored and bourgeois art - the subject of the Isle,
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this intriguing aspect, this mystery, this passage to the beyond, interested them. I also reckon the fact that people like Freud or Lenin had reproductions interested the surrealists on an intellectual level, maybe even more than from the artistic perspective.”
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Among the worshippers of this work, we find Sigmund Freud who owned a reproduction in his consulting room, Lenin who is said to have hung a version of it above his bed, and even Georges Clemenceau.
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Even though I couldn’t put my finger on any photo evidence for Freud or Lenin, I traced the Isle in a virtual tour of Clemenceau’s apartment.
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After long minutes of exploring by playing with camera angles, I found it on top of a wardrobe, standing in a room where the politician liked to collect reproductions of marvels of ancient art.
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But one worshipper Böcklin could have done without is none other than Adolf Hitler who, fascinated by the work, acquired the third version.
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Eager to establish Nazi Germany in an antic and mythical perspective, to give substance to his morbid ideology, it’s not so surprising that Hitler put this painting forward.
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There is even a photograph where he can be seen, with the Isle just behind him.
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That undoubtedly participated to give the work a deadly aura for a while, but after the war, the German state recovered the painting, and it can now be admired on the Museum Island of Berlin.
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The Dalí case seems quite complex. By naming the painting and the artist directly in one of his titles, Dalí makes no secret of his fascination for the Isle.
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It is a double quote : Dalí quotes Böcklin, but also The Angelus of Millet.
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The figure of the two peasants can also be found in several of the artist’s paintings.
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It looks like Dalí relies on these two famous paintings to highlight his surrealist approach, by going beyond reality to explore the lands of the creative unconscious.
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Is it possible that Böcklin, without being a surrealist as such, was one of the first to encapsulate a call to the unconscious and the mystery in a painting - and this fascinated Dalí. This is just a theory, but it seems
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possible that Dalí was much more obsessed with the Isle than one can believe. When we look at his paintings in chronological order, we can find that the identifiable Dalí style did not arrive immediately.
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That’s the case with almost all artists: one searches themselves, whilst seeking inspiration from other works, to try to define their style.
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Dalí is no exception, and I must confess I’ve been a little surprised by discovering his first works.
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His style, which is well-known today, appears at the beginning of the thirties, and the painting where he quotes the Isle was made in 1932.
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What is curious about this first painting, is that without its title, we never would have recognised the Isle Of The Dead.
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The resemblance is more explicit in Dalí’s two other canvases, made two years later: “West Side of The Isle of The Dead” and “The Isle of the Dead - Centre, Section”.
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In those paintings, Dalí seems to reveal different angles of the Isle, but when compiling the other works the painter made in this period, we find pieces of the Isle in many of them.
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Sometimes it’s the cypress trees that show their presence, other times it’s a rocky islet in the middle of the void.
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It’s like Dalí has deconstructed the Isle, and recovered some patterns to make them elements of his style.
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Finally, one last element seems to show the love Dalí had for the painting: in his museum-theatre in Figueras, there is a large room which houses Dali’s tomb.
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His coffin is placed under a concrete slab at ground level. Right in front of the grave is a gigantic painting that Dalí had produced for the project “Labyrinth”, an opera in which the canvas was part of the set. He chose
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to put this image in front of his grave. And with no surprises, behind the figure that serves as a door, lies The Isle of the Dead welcoming Dalí for his last journey.
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With the Marvel universe, the concept of an extended universe has become a widespread notion.
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One bases themselves on an original work before imagining its continuation, contours, or origins. The superheroes’ universe was not the first to offer such variations, we can find traces of it in other successful sagas.
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By looking at what came from Böcklin’s paintings, we can ask ourselves if a similar phenomenon occurred.
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It leaves so many unanswered questions, that we want to know more. Where is the Isle? In our world, or elsewhere? Where do the dark doors that scar the rocky wall lead? Who’s hiding beneath the white sheet of the mourning figure?
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Who is the ferryman who handles the oars? What do the gigantic cypress trees hide?
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It’s to bring answers to those questions that inspires many artists to offer new views of the Isle - new framings, new horizons...
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and even often, a new mythology. The island must be seen as a matrix, a kind of canvas of the imagination, almost as a template, like a colouring page. A model that could be turned in all directions to paint secret entrances.
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Scriptwriters and authors had a field day : first, in the strange novel of Roger Zelazny with the eponymous name, where the Isle is an artificial dimension created by a quasi-immortal entity in homage to Böcklin’s canvas.
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It’s in this place that he will have to engage in a merciless fight against an enemy whose identity he doesn’t know.
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The novel’s cover will be illustrated by legends, such as Paul Lehr, or even Caza (for the French edition).
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Under the brushes of Florence Magnin, the series about the pirate “Mary La Noire” imagines the Isle as a portal to the beyond - a mythical place of piracy where the dead temporarily stay for varying lengths of time, according to the regrets they keep about
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their life. To join the beyond, they must cross this pass. In an album of the “Dampyr” series, named “Island of The Witch”, the Isle houses the bloody manor of the witch's queen, a building hiding dark rituals tied to the Great Ancients’ cult.
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“Dampyr” is not the only series to make that parallel, since it can also be found in the fantastic comic book of Sorel and Mosdi.
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In that saga, the Isle is portrayed as a purely evil canvas, coveted by occultists.
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The “Toteninsel” here is a spiritual and intangible fortress where we can still go, hiding the secret of the Great Ancients of the Lovecraftian mythos.
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The most fascinating comic book in terms of plot is undoubtedly the Italian saga “Martin Mystery” which, in a double issue, imagines a plot around the Isle of The Dead based on Böcklin’s life, and other tribute work such as
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novels and symphonies. In the story, the canvases contain magical powers and hide the actions of a kind of occult and millennial brotherhood.
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I have only focused on the comic books integrating the Isle in their narrative, but it’ll appear on the boards of masterpieces of the comic book world, like a secret wink. It is the case twice with Schuiten, in the album
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“The Leaning Child” as well as “The Fever In Urbicande”; but also, in the work of Yslaire, Olivier Ledroit, Kent Williams, Moebius, and Richard Corben.
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But in the extended universe of Böcklin, we also find the ghostly figure present on the boat.
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We assume that it’s the widow who, wrapped in a white sheet, carries the remains of her husband.
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But we can also imagine that this white sheet is a shroud and that it’s the corpse itself that stands on the barge, taking his coffin with him.
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Although it is the island that often attracts the eye, this ghost-like figure is shrouded in mystery.
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It’s undoubtedly with the German painter Siegfried Zademack that this figure was the most developed.
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One feels that Zademack has dedicated a cult to the Isle, to the point of staging it multiple times on his canvasses.
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It is often represented at low tide, with him using the pattern of the barge stranded on the shoreline to create an almost apocalyptic side to his paintings.
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But what is the most striking is the recurrence of those spectral figures. Zademack invented a whole world around these presences, and it almost seems like he documents the daily administration of the Isle; the customs of the ferrymen of the beyond.
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Measuring weights and chess pieces are recurring representations in Zademack's work. We get the feeling that beyond Böcklin’s canvas lies a plethora of surrealist rituals, a Kafkaesque hierarchy, and secret mechanisms, allowing the Isle to function.
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Zademack is, without doubt, the painter that dived the deepest into a parallel world, where the Isle is at the centre of everything.
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The island is often synonymous with reverie or melancholy, however some have seen it as a passage to a more frightening dimension; a gateway to limbo or the darkness of the soul.
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“Having those cypresses, that dark incredible mass in the middle of the painting is rather unique in the history of painting. In a way, it sucks you into this kind of black hole, which carries you to another dimension.
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It can be a door to hell or another world. We are entering a world, without knowing much about what’s beyond - all this is stemmed by a canvas, I find it fantastic.” An example of the Isle treated as a gateway to Hell can be found in James Gleason’s
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work, which draws a parallel between the canvas and the entrance to the underworld. In the lyrics of the track “Isle Of The Dead”, by “Manilla Road”, the Isle is described as a gateway to Hell, enthroned in a sea of bubbling blood, and doom.
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Sailors say that in this place the dead come back to life, and are condemned to wander around with no hope of salvation.
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That idea of an isle of the undead is recurring and was present in Lewton’s film, where a woman was buried alive, only to return, in revenge, from the grave.
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That pattern can also be found in the movie “Dellamorte Dellamore”, which depicts a solitary cemetery caretaker who must face the return of the dead who litter his cemetery.
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The Isle appears in this film at the same time that the caretaker’s newly deceased love interest returns from beyond.
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From the film “The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes” by the Quay brothers, to the short movie “How Wings are Attached to the Backs of Angels” by Craig Welch, the Isle has also been home to evil spirits, thirsty for control and consumed by loneliness, eager to
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play gods. Symbolising that when cut off from the world, the spirit can lose its humanity.
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The idea of the Isle as a sanctuary allowing some kind of resurrection finds its most poetic form in a short animated film from 1946 by Norman McLaren, one of the pioneers of experimental cinema.
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It’s called “A Little Phantasy On A Nineteenth Century Painting” and shows the silhouette on the barge metamorphosing on arrival to the Isle, as if undergoing an alchemic process of death and transformation, spinning the metaphor of the phoenix rising from its ashes.
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As the day breaks in the painting, we discover an empty barge on a dry ocean, recalling the visions of Dalí or Zademack.
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One can see that Böcklin participated in a change in the vision of the beyond.
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For centuries death resulted in the binary perspective of a judgment leading to heaven or hell, however, Böcklin uses a complete paradigm shift to make us see death as a final initiation test, a trip to the great unknown.
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By portraying a barge about to land on a reef, as sinister as it is mystical, Böcklin sublimates the excitement of approaching this unknown shore, a place that can reveal to us what lies after the physical death.
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It is an allegory of the modern supernatural, which wants to see the afterlife as a territory that we can explore.
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To be interested in the Isle is to show a desire to believe that death is not the end and that something much deeper and mysterious awaits us.
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To tread its shore is to indulge in the forbidden experience. Creation and imagination are a solution to vertigo caused by the mysteries of existence and its end; it is maybe one of the keys to understanding what led so many artists to these forbidden shores.
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Even if Böcklin just wanted to show an island with tombs, he managed to give us the feeling that this place conceals an immense underground world; that those trees hide something.
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That intense power of suggestion gives a mystical dimension to the canvas, in the purest symbolist tradition.
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Amongst the dozens of works that reproduce or quote the Isle, two groups should be distinguished.
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Some artists reproduce the Isle as a tribute to a work they love. Every artist operates a dialogue; there is not necessarily a hidden meaning other than a simple love for this representation, the urge to make it their own as an emblem.
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Quoting someone’s work is saying that it is a part of our DNA, that it has been a gateway to a certain vision of art.
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Other times, an alternative vision is delivered, by changing some elements. It is sometimes to offer an offbeat version, but often to accentuate the unease of the place.
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Böcklin’s canvas has been reinvented from every angle, in every time and space. But there is another type of artist, who sinks into a kind of magnificent obsession to the point of making the original work an initial ecosystem, literally a backdrop to their creations.
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During his lifetime, Böcklin himself showed a fascination for his canvas, by creating five versions of it, asserting from the outset that this representation did not have a fixed, definitive form.
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Those five versions are in a way an invitation for everyone to imagine their own.
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By talking about this topic with Blue, I realised that he’s no exception. Blue discovered the painting at 14 thanks to Dalí, and as he approaches 60, the Isle has never left him.
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He has painted a dozen variations of the “Toteninsel”, and admits that this is one of the tipping points that pushed him to become an artist.
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Listening to him, one feels that the Isle acts as a call for those who want to hear, that it is a place that can be reached by creating.
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Historically, the Isle was first found among the followers of the Symbolist movement, such as the Lithuanian painter Ciurlionis who, fascinated by the motif, painted several versions of “Serenity”, a canvas he sees as a tribute to Böcklin.
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Among Symbolists, the ability to offer variations of a theme is sometimes more important than originality itself.
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The same principle applied to Boleslas Biegas, for whom the idea of the Isle recurred.
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The childhood of the painter is marked by the death of his parents and brother, which led to a contemplative and morbid atmosphere, indicated by the spectral navy blue of his paintings.
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Once we know how to recognise the makers of the Isle, there is no need to show it in its entirety to feel its presence.
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This is notably striking in the works of painters such as Alessandro Sicioldr. Most of his paintings look like variations on the island’s symbols, as if he could have stayed with his easel inside the Isle.
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Rocky massifs recall those of Böcklin, cypresses are omnipresent, as are figures draped in white.
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There is something imperceptible and puzzling in this secret dedication to the work. It is like an invisible dialogue was taking place without us having the keys to understand it, at a level of communication that only artists master.
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By pulling each thread, I discovered that there were too many artists who have fallen into an obsession for me to name them all.
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There are, however, some notable cases, such as the Rüdisühli clan, a family of Swiss painters whose father, Jacob, will train four of his 14 children to paint.
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Each of those four children will produce a canvas that relates to the Isle of the Dead, with it particularly capturing the imagination of his sons Eduard and Hermann.
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The Isle’s influence permeates countless countries and fascinates many artists throughout the world, notably the Polish ‘school’ with Beksinski or Lewandowski, but even more so with Novak-Zemplinski, who will quote the work more directly.
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Mangakas are not left out, and we find the Isle in an urbanised version in the manga “Biomega”, by Tsutomu Nihei, and also in some emblematic works by Mahuro, like “Panorama Island” or “Tomino The Damned”.
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In Ukraine, it’s the painter Evgeni Gordiets who will make the Isle his obsession. Although his landscapes are summery and peaceful, the omnipresence of the Toteninsel’s motives spreads a subtle unease.
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But it’s undoubtedly in Italy, the heart land of Böcklin, that we’ll find the artist most deeply obsessed with the Isle.
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We could mention Fabrizio Clerici, who in addition to directly quoting the Isle several times, conceals certain elements of it in several of his paintings.
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But this is nothing compared to Antonio Nunziante. Passionate about metaphysics, symbolism, and romanticism, the painter will produce more than a hundred canvases, capturing all or part of Böcklin’s Isle.
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Nunziante does not only faithfully reproduce the Isle, but also adds multiple elements of his own symbolism.
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Other times, Nunziante plays on the “mise en abyme” between the paintings, which further reinforces the obsessive aspect of his adoration.
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The Isle is everywhere. I discovered his work rather late in my research, and I confess that it almost brought me to the borders of unease, as if the subject would suddenly become too vast to deliver a synthesis of it.
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In seeking to document Nunziante’s fascination, I only found this statement where he says he sees the island as, and I quote, "an ideal place for the mind".
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This sentence from the Italian will later resonate with something Blue told me in confidence during a discussion : “The canvas is, at least for me today and for some years, a refuge; I find something there.
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For a few years now, I have been preoccupied, professionally and otherwise, which means that I have a lot on my mind; and in order to rest and try to find some calm in the evening, I take refuge in the Isle.
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It's a bit weird, isn't it? I take refuge in one of these tombs and imagine myself living there, getting to it by going through a tree trunk, being careful that nobody sees me by not lighting any fires, while trying to survive.
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I don't know what I'm looking for there, but it allows me to calm down and relax a little bit.” The island is perhaps a refuge for these artists; a secret destination where one goes several times, where peaceful solitude is guaranteed,
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away from the chaos of reality. What is it about this strange island that so obsesses the humans who make art and images?
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Maybe it is the grief that is present on the horizon. The unexpected addition of the barge is the result of a sad accident, the death of a loved one.
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By suggesting this idea to Böcklin, Marie Berna Christ added an almost supernatural dimension, by immortalising a memory.
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From this act of love and respect, Böcklin managed to offer a canvas so deep and melancholic that he created a kind of typical image of mourning.
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He has given a universal dimension to an intimate gesture. Böcklin himself had his fair share of travels on this boat he painted.
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The moment he fades away, Böcklin will have faced the death of his wife and mourned eight of his 14 children.
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He will have looked death in the face as he narrowly escaped typhoid in 1859.
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All the pain and peace that Böcklin had to seek through art can be found in his Isle, no matter which version.
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Perhaps the magic of the painting is that it can be interpreted as the work of a painter haunted by death.
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Isle embodies that moment of acceptance when we let go of the ones we love.
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It is maybe what can explain the continuing presence of the canvas in the film “Hotel Transylvania”, by Genndy Tartakovsky.
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When I learned from a forum that the painting was used in this film, , I decided to watch it to determine the significance, initially thinking that the island was going to be a cosmetic addition among other great masterpieces.
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But watching the film frame-by-frame, we realise that its presence is beyond abnormal. Indeed, the painting is omnipresent, almost to the point of being worrisome.
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We can find it almost a dozen times in distinct places in the castle and, even stranger, the Isle is hidden subliminally in shots so accelerated that it is almost impossible to see them without slowing down the image.
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One can even find two different versions of the Isle in Dracula’s daughter’s room Such an expensive and time-consuming animated film leaves nothing to chance, and Tartakovsky does not seem the kind to neglect such references.
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The island was omnipresent for a reason. At first, I believed that the canvas symbolised Dracula’s wife’s death since one can tell from the film that she has left this world.
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But in researching the director's life, I discovered that he lost his father when he was only 16 and that he described him as a stern and old-fashioned character, but with whom he had a special relationship, just as Dracula
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was portrayed in the film. I then wondered if Tartakovsky had not, through the implementation of the Isle, offered a last tribute to this father who left too soon.
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As the director's name appears at the very end of the film, we see a drawing of Dracula staring at his son's name with a look of mixed love and pride, as if Tartakovsky was trying to convince himself that his father would
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have been proud of him. This film is like his own Island of The Dead, the vessel through which he could say goodbye to his father.
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There is another appearance of the Isle that we have mentioned, which still keeps its mystery: “Alien: Covenant” by Ridley Scott.
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Intrigued by the Isle’s presence, I’ve managed to contact Wayne Haag, an incredible concept artist notably responsible for Covenant’s visuals.
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He replied that the idea came from Ridley Scott himself and that he had not explained this choice to the team.
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There might be several reasons for its presence: the android on this island explains that he’s responsible for the death of the planet’s inhabitants, turning the island into a metaphor for the harm he has caused.
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Above all, the dialogue on the island takes place between two virtually immortal androids, which further supports the feeling of eternity that emanates from the Isle.
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More importantly, it is in this place that we find the tomb of Elizabeth Shaw, the heroin of the first film, “Prometheus”.
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As the actress didn’t want to star in the sequel, Scott had to mourn the loss of her character and rethink the film; it's a subtle and almost poetic way to symbolise the artistic grief that Scott experienced.
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But above all, the appearance of the Isle is undoubtedly a tribute to the one who gave the “Alien” saga a unique aesthetic, and it is once again Hans Ruedi Giger.
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As we saw, Giger made two Isles, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Ridley Scott had wanted to make a mausoleum for the master of bio-mechanical terrors.
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Indeed, Giger passed away two years after the release of “Prometheus”, and just before “Covenant” production.
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Like Böcklin and the rest, Scott uses the Isle of the Dead so that his ghosts may rest in peace.
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One can find multiple references to the Isle throughout the history of art. Twice in his career, the great Philippe Druillet will travel to the Isle.
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In the comic “Gail”, one of the adventures of his hero, Lone Sloane, goes to the Isle of the Dead - a gothic monastery where the entities that rule the world are hiding.
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But it’s undoubtedly his other version of the Isle of the Dead that has been remembered for delivering a unique and terrifying vision – an infernal fortress with demonic architecture.
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The idea that the tops of the cypress trees form the teeth of a menacing mouth is a stroke of genius.
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By looking at this fateful depiction, I couldn't help but relate his love for the island to the terrible introduction of his most cult work entitled "La Nuit", where Druillet cries out his anger and despair over the death of his wife.
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The final clue that the painting is an allegory of grief is the inspiration of the island itself.
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Some theories claim that the island is a combination of Pontikonisi, near Corfu, and the island of Strombolicchio in Sicily.
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Others will see the Sveti ?or?e island as the main inspiration for the Isle, but Böcklin was never explicit about his inspirations.
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However, Böcklin lived near San Michele, a cemetery island near Venice during the creation of the first three versions of the painting.
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It is in this floating sanctuary that he will visit the tomb of one of his daughters.
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The gigantic cypress trees overlooking the cemetery, and the access to the place by boat are all elements that could have inspired Böcklin.
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The Isle is a sanctuary where all those who defy time gather. it is therefore not surprising that it is a place of meetings and confrontations for the demigods, the entities that are close to eternity. This is the case for
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Zelazny’s entities, Ridley Scott's androids, the crane demon in “Neo Yokio” or even the demons in “Black Butler”.
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Illustrator Mino Manara supports this theory in his work “To See the Stars”, the eighth volume of his saga Giuseppe Bergman.
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Here, the heroine travels inside several famous paintings, and on her way to the Isle of the Dead, she will meet all of Manara’s idols who live peacefully in this pantheon of heart and inspiration.
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Among others, we find Groucho Marx, Picasso, and Dante. To see the Isle as a symbol of eternity is not unreasonable.
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It is known that Böcklin, as a mythology enthusiast, knew how to handle ancient symbolism and that he had an interest in the eternal dimension of artists.
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In one of his portraits, Böcklin even paints himself next to a marble column and laurels: both symbols of immortality.
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Moreover, the dominant presence of the cypresses also carries this subtext of immortality. its foliage is always green, its wood gives off an incense smell, and above all it is almost rot-proof, withstanding the ravages of time better than others.
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It is for this reason that it is preferred for making the coffins of popes.
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Böcklin confers a precise symbolism as if he were attempting a mystical invocation to prevent death.
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In trying to find peace in this artistic act, Böcklin imagines a passage to eternity for the souls of those he has loved.
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Perhaps this is where Böcklin's real secret lies: what if he had made his canvas a tomb for himself and his family?
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Several elements support this theory. Among the island's obsessives, I have not yet introduced you to one of the very first.
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His name is Ferdinand Keller, and shortly after the death of his idol, he painted a canvas entitled "The Tomb of Böcklin".
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The place depicted on the canvas is reminiscent of the original work, but its title suggests that Böcklin resides on his own island for eternity.
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The same idea can be found in a painting made in homage to Böcklin in 1910 and signed by Kilpin, entitled "The Gateway to Infinity", where a spectral figure can be seen entering from behind the rocky mass.
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But the clue that most convinced me of this possibility is the way Böcklin signed his canvases.
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On the very first one his signature, consisting of his initials 'AB' in capital letters, is at the bottom left of the image, in the darkness of the ocean, as if he were still outside the island.
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On the second canvas, his signature draws near and can be found hidden among the rocks.
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Finally, the last two existing paintings show the signature in a position that leaves no room for doubt: just above the tomb on the right of the island.
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Like he had clearly designated the location of his eternal grave. When you are an artist, it is not uncommon to feel that when one of your productions is out of the ordinary, you have suddenly reached a form of grace. And when
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Böcklin was able to see the effect the Isle had on people, he probably realised that this was a work of art in its own right that would have a lasting effect.
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By placing his initials on one of the tombs, he buried himself with his masterpiece.
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“We’re not in Böcklin's head, but it's a seductive interpretation, indeed. The painter exists, you see, Arnold Böcklin is in our memory, he hasn't disappeared and he lives on because we talk about him.
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You only really die when no one thinks of you anymore. For me Böcklin is there, he exists.” This painting shows the power of images, the mystery of art, and the unconscious language that artists use, sometimes despite themselves.
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It proves that by assembling shapes, colors, and representations in a certain way, one can stimulate a little-known part of the human brain capable of accessing a place that transcends physical reality.
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Through the medium of the imagination, one can indulge in visions or questioning that they would not have otherwise had.
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“It's common to humans, to always try to find something, , maybe a parallel universe that exists. There are a number of them that are physically present, but we can't see them even though they exist in theory.
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We are surrounded by a certain number of things, it is certain that when we look at them, we can feel dizzy, but we can also dive into the unknown, the dream, the imagination, the creation.” Creation. Direct access to a magic that reality does not make accessible.
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This is undoubtedly what links all the artists on our planet. It is one of the things that has defined us as humans.
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Our need for images has been with us since the dawn of humanity. In his own way, by wanting to paint an image that invites reverie, Böcklin succeeded in revealing an archetypal representation from the depths of dreams and putting it before our eyes.
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With the Island of the Dead, the painter has offered us a portal image, a hidden passage to the labyrinth of the imagination.
Topics:Arnold BöcklinIsle of the DeadSymbolismArt historySymbolist paintingExistentialismArt analysisCultural impactDream interpretation19th century art
