The Island of the Dead

Arnold Böcklin painted five versions of 'The Isle of the Dead' between 1880 and 1886, each showing a cloaked white figure standing before a coffin in a small rowing boat that approaches a desolate, cypress-covered island. The eerie stillness and the suspension between life and the underworld made the image one of the most influential Symbolist paintings in Europe — hung in Freud's study, bought by Hitler, and chosen by Rachmaninov as the programme for his 1908 symphonic poem 'Die Toteninsel'. The version in Berlin's Alte Nationalgalerie is the third, painted in 1883.

Exhibition Venue

Alte Nationalgalerie

Bezirk Mitte, Germany