Hitler's Favorite Artist and Master of Symbolism: Arnold Böcklin, who inspired great minds to create masterpieces

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

One of the favorite masters of painting by Adolf Hitler. The artist who inspired Rachmaninon himself to create a masterpiece. The great symbolist of the 19th century, who created the unsurpassed "Isle of the Dead" in 5 versions. This is Arnold Böcklin, an artist of Swiss origin, who rejected the naturalistic tendencies of his time and created a new symbolic mythological direction.

Arnold Böcklin (October 16, 1827 - January 16, 1901) is an artist whose landscapes and ominous allegories greatly influenced German artists of the late 19th century and foreshadowed the symbolism of the 20th century. Although the master worked in most of northern Europe - Düsseldorf, Antwerp, Brussels and Paris - Böcklin found his true inspiration in the landscape of Italy, where he returned from time to time and where he spent the last years of his life. In his paintings, Böcklin created a strange, brooding fantasy world inhabited by fantastic figures. His most famous works of art are five versions of The Isle of the Dead (1880-1886).

Dead island

Arnold Böcklin wrote five versions of The Isle of the Dead between 1880 and 1886. One of the works served as the inspiration for Rachmaninoff's symphonic poem, and Hitler acquired the painting of the cycle in 1933, and then hung it in the new Reich Chancellery of Albert Speer. However, the image's enigmatic appeal continues to be popular in post-unification Germany.

Isle of the Dead has become one of Böcklin's most popular paintings. The motives - island, water, castle and villa by the sea - are already familiar from many of his early works. The place in the picture is ominous. The viewer's gaze is focused on the boat. It depicts two figures, a rower and a woman in white, approaching the island in a small rowing boat. The strict symmetry of the island, calm horizontals and verticals, a round island surrounded by high rocky walls, and magical lighting create an atmosphere of solemnity and sublimity. The calm state of the waters and a boat with a coffin behind which a white figure is hidden give the picture some sentimentality. "Isle of the Dead" is made in a romantic style, reminiscent of both Symbolist and Pre-Raphaelite paintings. The "heroine" for the rocky islet was perhaps Pontikonisi, a small, lush island near Corfu that is adorned with a small chapel in the middle of a cypress grove. Another less likely candidate is the island of Ponza in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Advantages of the new print market in Germany have resulted in reproductions of Isle of the Dead and Clash of the Centaurs on the walls of middle-class residential buildings across the country. For example, Vladimir Nabokov in the novel Despair noted that they can be found "in every Berlin home."

Thus, Böcklin was one of the first contemporary artists to successfully work on the mass market. In 1888, Böcklin created a work called The Island of Life, conceived as an antithesis to the Isle of the Dead. In it, he also shows off a small island, but with all the signs of joy and life. Together with the first version of the island of the dead, this painting is included in the collection of the Basel Art Museum.

Self-portrait with death playing the violin

In this early, peculiar self-portrait, the artist looks directly at the viewer. And suddenly he pauses, as if he had just felt the presence of a living skeleton playing the violin behind his left shoulder. In this painting, Böcklin invites viewers to rework the memento mori ("remember that you are mortal") genre that has been popular since the Northern Renaissance.

Heritage

Arnold Böcklin has had a significant impact on famous artists and even world leaders. In particular, he influenced surrealist painters (Max Ernst and Salvador Dali), and Giorgio de Chirico. Otto Weisert designed the Art Nouveau typeface in 1904 and named it after the artist Arnold Böcklin. Böcklin's paintings, especially Isle of the Dead, inspired a number of composers of late Romanticism to create new creations. Sergei Rachmaninoff and Heinrich Schülz-Beuten created symphonic poems, and in 1913 Max Reger wrote a series of four-tone poems (the third part of which is named after Böcklin's painting - "Isle of the Dead"). The second symphony by Hans Huber is also named after the master of painting "Böcklin-Symphony". Rachmaninoff was also inspired by Böcklin's painting The Return, when he wrote his prelude in B minor. Of course, Böcklin was loved, he was worshiped, but his popularity could have made him an object of ridicule: Arseny Tarkovsky mentions the famous painting in the list of irrevocably gone signs of pre-revolutionary times: Where is "Isle of the Dead" in a decadent frame? Where are plush red sofas? Where are photographs of men with whiskers, where are the reed airplanes?

Regarding Adolf Hitler, it is important to note that he was not particularly fond of painting, preferring more architecture and sculpture. For him, painting was a sphere too ephemeral and therefore was the last. However, despite his views, for some artists of the past and some works, he made an exception, and Böcklin was one of them. Adolf Hitler considered Böcklin one of his favorite masters, having bought 11 works of the artist. Hitler generally loved Böcklin, after the war his "Isle of the Dead" moved to the National Gallery in Berlin, where it remains to this day. When Marcel Duchamp was asked who his favorite artist was, he replied - Arnold Böcklin as a master with a great influence on his art. Böcklin was one of the most successful contemporary artists of the late 19th century in terms of his popularity among the general public.