Comments on: The Isle of the Dead

The Isle of the Dead

Iridic — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:49:20 -0800

The picture of a boat approaching a wooded island held a strange sway over the early twentieth century imagination. Strindberg closes The Ghost Sonata with the image; Rachmaninoff brought forth a symphonic poem from it; Freud, Lenin, and Clemenceau all owned prints, while Hitler hung one of the original five paintings on his wall. The work's creator, a Swiss Symbolist painter named Arnold Böcklin, never cared to give it a name. It was an art dealer who first called it Die Toteninsel — "The Isle of the Dead."

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:08:49 -0800

You cannot be interested simultaneously in the art of past and present. Well, fuck you too, man.

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:12:11 -0800

I have to wonder if this was part of the inspiration for the Lord of the Rings, too; certainly Rivendell looks similar.

By: StickyCarpet

StickyCarpet — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:12:23 -0800

Nice post, thanks Iridic.

By: George_Spiggott

George_Spiggott — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:14:01 -0800

Here's what appears to be an H.R. Giger version.

By: doubtfulpalace

doubtfulpalace — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:15:48 -0800

Citizen Premier: I don't know whether Tolkien was inspired by it (although it seems plausible), but Roger Zelazny certainly was.

By: Manhasset

Manhasset — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:16:39 -0800

Strindberg's hot tonight! Strindberg's hot tonight! /helium Nice painting. Don't think I've seen that before.

By: codswallop

codswallop — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:34:01 -0800

Can't believe I haven't seen this before. Thanks for a great post, Iridic.

By: exogenous

exogenous — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:52:26 -0800

Citizen Premier, read 2nd and 3rd paragraphs of the article, where the author calls the statement a "tedious cliché" and "rubbish."

By: Potomac Avenue

Potomac Avenue — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:58:34 -0800

The fifth version of The Isle of the Dead is currently lost; it may have disappeared or been destroyed during the World Wars. Coooooooooool. Hello novel idea!

By: Postroad

Postroad — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:01:28 -0800

reminds me that I am due to visit my in-laws soon.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:21:24 -0800

Nice post. I was listening to the Rachmaninoff piece recently and started looking into this. Thanks, Iridic.

By: hanoixan

hanoixan — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:22:20 -0800

<stupid nitpick>I like the painting, but I don't think the boat is approaching, since the rower in the boat is facing the island.</stupid nitpick>

By: echo target

echo target — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:25:45 -0800

Actually, I think I see an Evinrude hanging off the back end of that boat.

By: HighTechUnderpants

HighTechUnderpants — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:37:02 -0800

Very cool.

By: tkchrist

tkchrist — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:39:55 -0800

This maybe a dumb thing to say but i this modeled after a real place? The reason I ask is I have this vague childhood memory of a trip my parents and I took to Greece in the early 1970's. We did this little tour of some of the islands in a tiny little boat. I remember the guide didn't really speak much English and was this older scruffy man who took off his shirt and had gray back hair. The memories are very vivid of the colors and shapes of these islands. I recall one in particular one that looked much like this paining in a way. There were ruins - one of an ancient small amphitheater that opened right up to the water. Most of it was underwater. I remember the guy just dove off off the boat and my dad shrugged and we followed him. Swimming into these little caves that I guess were tombs. Some you had to go underwater to get to. I'm sure you can't do any of that stuff now. Anyway. Probably lots of places like that in those islands.

By: Potomac Avenue

Potomac Avenue — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:41:01 -0800

According to Wikipedia, the painting was based on the English Cemetery in Florence where the Last Descendants of Shakespeare are buried. I swear if any of you jerks steals the brilliant thriller plot device of the Shakespeare Codex™ I'm gonna be livid. DIBS. OFFICIALLY.

By: Potomac Avenue

Potomac Avenue — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:49:09 -0800

Oh but according to this, apparently, it was modeled after the Island of Ponza, or, more likely, Pondikisi. So, very possible you saw this. Spooky.

By: Potomac Avenue

Potomac Avenue — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:53:53 -0800

Pondikonisi I meant. Not too threatening here. Crazy old painters and their pathetic fallacies. I guess that's what happens when you lose a child.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:58:34 -0800

I don't think the boat is approaching, since the rower in the boat is facing the island. I believe he's push-rowing.

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:57:37 -0800

read 2nd and 3rd paragraphs of the article, where the author calls the statement a "tedious cliché" and "rubbish." Ah, my bad. I did read them, but I guess they didn't register since the hook put me off.

By: sneebler

sneebler — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:20:18 -0800

So are you telling me that whoever did the background artwork for Baldur's Gate was channeling Arnold Böcklin?

By: Iridic

Iridic — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:21:08 -0800

This odd little treatise references a theory that the Faraglioni formations off of Capri were the models for the island, but it quickly rejects the idea in favor of a landlocked cave near Gubbio:

Those who said that Böcklin was inspired by the Faraglioni of Capri have never seen that area of Monte Ingino. If they had, they would have been left astounded, as we were that afternoon at the end of summer. The rock, the cypresses, the anxiety generated by the silence of the Umbrian locality, send us back to The Island of the Dead surrounded by a liquid presence that isn't sea, but crystallised silence, total standstill.

Then the authors attempt to link Böcklin to Arianism, a gnostic Magdalene cult, Nicolas Poussin's Bergers d'Arcadie, and "anomalies in the earth's magnetic field."

By: LVdB

LVdB — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:56:01 -0800

This reminds me of Hergé's cover for The Black Island.

By: mr.grum

mr.grum — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:25:45 -0800

The painting also had an influence on the Val Lewton horror films of the forties. One of which was indeed called Isle of the Dead, the painting itself appears in I Walked with a Zombie in the room of the woman suspected of having possibly been zombified. Beautiful films. (Here's a dull screencap I took with the painting in the background.) The Pre-Raphaelites in general, I believe, exerted a strong influence on cinema, David Lynch for one seems to draw quite a bit of inspiration from their works.

By: mr.grum

mr.grum — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:27:52 -0800

Oh, sloppily I lumped the symbolists and Pre-Raphaelites together out of ease of habit, when that isn't entirely accurate. Sorry.

By: BlackLeotardFront

BlackLeotardFront — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 18:53:45 -0800

Lovely.... What a great painting. It actually reminds me of Beksinski.

By: joemax

joemax — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:07:30 -0800

There appears to be wake between the viewer and the boat. I see it as approaching the island. *stupid rehashing of nitpicking over*