03 — ARTWORK
Island of the Dead (second version)
- MEDIUM
- Oil on wood, 74 x 122 cm
- TYPE
- Landscape
PALETTE
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- FILE
- 2100 × 1251 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
Böcklin's patron Marie Berna commissioned this painting in 1880 as a memorial to her late husband. It is based on an unfinished canvasA woven cloth used as a support for painting. The best-quality canvas is made of linen; other materials used are cotton, hemp, and jute. It is now so familiar a material that the word 'canvas' has become almost a synonym for an oil painting, but it was not until around 1500 that it began to rival the wooden panel (which was more expensive and took longer to prepare) as the standard support for movable paintings (the transition came later in Northern Europe than in Italy). Canvas is not suitable for painting on until it has been coated with a ground, which isolates the fabric from the paint; otherwise it will absorb too much paint, only very rough effects will be obtainable, and parts of the fabric may be rotted by the pigments. It must also be made taut on a stretcher or by some other means. that she saw in the artist's studio in Florence; at her request, he added the draped coffin and the shrouded figure to the rowboat in the foreground. Böcklin later wrote to her, "you will be able to dream yourself into the world of dark shadows." Between 1883 and 1886, he painted three additional versions of the subject, each slightly different. The five versions of the painting are the following.
First version: 1880, oil on canvas, 111 x 155 cm, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel.
Second version: 1880, oil on wood, 74 x 122 cm, Metropolitan Museum, New York.
Third version: 1883, oil on wood, 80 x 150 cm, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin.
Fourth version: 1884; oil on zinc, 81 x 151 cm, destroyed in 1945.
Fifth version: 1886, oil on wood, 80 x 150 cm, Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig.
The scene was widely reproduced and inspired numerous artists, including the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff and the Surrealist painter Salvador Dalí.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-r603a926cd42dc1,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Island of the Dead (second version) by BÖCKLIN, Arnold},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-09},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/bcklin-arnold-rb29e9ff5ecefe6/island-of-the-dead-second-version-r603a926cd42dc1},
urldate = {2026-09-09},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-09. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
