Arnold Böcklin

Arnold Böcklin – Studies in Düsseldorf; many travels; Italy as refuge

Arnold Böcklin was born on 18 October 1827 in Basel. The son of a businessman and mother of a prosperous house, he had a carefree childhood, choosing his career as artist early on. He left grammar school prematurely and moved to the Düsseldorf Art Academy where he studied from 1845 to 1847 with the recognised painters and professors Theodor Hildebrandt, Rudolf Wiegmann and Johann Wilhelm Schirmer. With his compatriot Rudolf Koller, Arnold Böcklin visited Belgium, where he devoted himself to the work of Peter Paul Rubens which had made a deep impression on him. In 1848, Böcklin took a short study trip to Paris where he was confronted with the bloody unrest of the February and June revolutions. Traumatised by these experiences, the sensitive artist took the suggestion of his mento Jacob Burckhardt and moved for almost seven years to the light and sun-filled country of Italy – a place which would serve as a refuge his whole life. Arnold Böcklin never found complete peace, however, and regularly travelled.

Economic difficulties; later commercial success

Arnold Böcklin earned his first artistic merits in the studio of the Basel artist Johann Gottfried Steffan as a landscape painter. During his time in Rome, he acquired many important impulses from Franz-Dreber and Gaspard Dughet, as well as becoming acquainted with Anselm Feuerbach who introduced him to the consul and arts patron Karl Wedekind – for whom Böcklin designed the dining room. Adolf Friedrich von Schack proved a further patron in the following years, and mediated Böcklin a post as professor at the art school in Weimar. For Böcklin, who had been married to the model Angela Pascucci since 1853 and had a growing number of children to care for, the longed-for financial improvement seemed finally to have been found. The economic situation remained tense, however, and despite initial successes, the Böcklin family suffered financial hardship for a long time. It was not until the 1890s that the artist gathered widespread recognition, and suddenly his works reached immense prices. Due to increasing infirmity, however, the painter was only able to meet the swelling demand with the help of his son. 

Death as the driving force in Arnold Böcklin’s art and life

Arnold Böcklin created five copies of probably his most famous picture Die Toteninsel (island of death). The gloomy image of a cypress-covered island owes it name to the art dealer Fritz Gurlitt, and has a strong autobiographical character: the death motif ran through the life and work of the artist who lost eight of his fourteen children and who struggled himself with serious illness. The painting was created in the Florentine workshop of Wladimir von Swertschkoff, where Böcklin often spent time. As an artist, he did not live in the real world, but broke rather with the prevailing Realism and took refuge in myth, from whose imaged he created symbolically powerful portraits. 

Arnold Böcklin died on 16 January 1901 in San Domenico near Fiesole in Florence. His death caused great sadness in Germany, Italy, Austria and Switzerland. The Art Nouveau font Böcklin was so named by its creator Otto Weisert in honour of the artist.