Arnold Bocklin
Arnold Böcklin
Arnold Böcklin stands out among contemporary artists because he never felt at ease with the designation. Böcklin submerged himself in the history of painting from the Reformation onward, drawn to mythic imagery and all that was impactful and extravagant, while other artists of his era tinkered with ever more noticeable forms of abstract concepts and aesthetic experiments, turning their backs on the canonical and biographical subject-matter of the past. The resulting corpus of art fuses a huge spectrum of painting styles with what we would term kitsch subject eclecticism. His artwork undoubtedly exhibited the broad, widespread appeal that the word is sometimes used to define. However, they also served as a reference point for many modern painters, notably those drawn to the fusion of odd subject matter and naturalistic representation.
Early life
Named after a figure from Friedrich Schiller's 1804 drama William Tell, Arnold Böcklin was born to Christian Frederick Böcklin and Ursula Lippe in Basel, Switzerland, in 1827. The fact that Böcklin's parents, who both hail from Northern Switzerland, were nomadic silk traders may have contributed to the formation of his later wanderlust. Early on, Böcklin left Switzerland to pursue his art studies at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art from 1845 to 1847 under Johann Wilhelm Schirmer, a landscape painter. Furthermore, Böcklin studied under the Romantic painter Carl Friedrich Lessing and became connected with the Nazarene movement's output. Düsseldorf's cohabitation of Nazarene, Romantic, and Neoclassical influences influenced Böcklin's aesthetic eclecticism. His School teachers and artists like Caspar David Friedrich influenced him while learning in Düsseldorf. He used dramatic techniques of shadow and color to highlight the emotional character of the terrain.
Early Training
Arnold Böcklin's artistic growth reached a critical turning point in 1848 when Schirmer sent him to continue his education in Antwerp, Brussels, and Paris. Romantic painters like Eugène Delacroix and the Pragmatist painters of the Barbizon School, including Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, particularly inspired Böcklin during his journeys. He was also enamored with the Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens. While Susanne Marchand claims that Böcklin's settings were influenced by his teachers Schirmer and Lessing and the Swiss scene painter Alexandre Calame, some of his work from this period demonstrates a turn towards realism. But when Böcklin went to Geneva, he didn't like how cramped Calame's studio was. His 1848 experiences in Paris left him with enduring scars. While many of his colleagues had been inspired by the February Revolution, Böcklin had been horrified by the carnage of the June Days and had spent a great deal of time observing the execution of captives from the window of his tiny flat. After quitting France, Böcklin returned to Basel and completed his enlistment into the Swiss Army between 1848 and 1849. But by 1850, he had left again, this time to Rome, finding the ambiance of his hometown oppressive.
The events that Böcklin encountered in Rome played a significant role in his artistic development. Böcklin departed from the Realist idiom of his childhood when he investigated the city's old ruins and became interested in the sensuality of the Baroque and the sacred imagery of Renaissance art. After his first fiancée passed away after an unsuccessful wedding proposal, Böcklin later met and wed Angela Pascucci, the seventeen-year-old daughter of a Papal Guard, in 1853. Many of Böcklin's female nudes were inspired by his life partner and muse, Angela. Despite their passionate union, Böcklin's parents did not fully embrace his decision, and Angela's Catholic relatives strongly opposed him because of his Protestant lineage. It took until 1862—following the passing of one of Angela's aunts, Böcklin's steadfast foe—for the pair to settle in Rome. The marriage was occasionally emotionally stormy due to this, Angela's fourteen births—five of whom died as infants—ongoing Böcklin's illness (the artist nearly passed away from Typhus in 1859), and Angela's fourteen offspring.
Böcklin and Angela resided in Munich from 1856 to 1860 before traveling back to Basel, where Arnold was recruited on the advice of his friend and collaborator Franz von Lenbach to see above at the Weimar Academy. Böcklin's stay in Rome in the late 1840s, according to critics, played a significant role in defining the direction of his chosen job. Böcklin would never feel completely at ease describing himself as a contemporary artist because he missed out on critical early advancements in modern art, such as the advent of Monet in France, and had instead immersed himself in the work of the Renaissance Masters.
Developed Period
Böcklin spent the majority of his career in Rome starting in the mid-1850s. He steeped himself in the ancient mythology that served as the foundation for Renaissance art, seeing in these stories the morals and ideas that were the basis of human civilization. In 1863, Böcklin examined Raphael's Vatican murals and the features incorporated in Rome's wall paintings. According to Böcklin's student, painter Rudolf Schick, "the influence was so great that he was forced entirely out of his previous path," needing a year to realign himself towards a unique addition. Böcklin's sophisticated paintings from the 1860s to the 1970s, like those of Abstract expressionists and Well before artists from the same period, increased emphasis on retelling mythological narrative regularly in eccentric and unconventional ways. These paintings showed Böcklin's new respect for myth. While many viewers at first found Böcklin's work vulgar in its redefinition of ancient mythology through a personal, even comedic lens, art historian Sherwin Simmons writes that "during the 1880s, German critiques began to extol him as an artist who had pushed away from nature's mere surface texture and trivial historical things to create a poetic art that resounded with the inner fiction and dreams of the German people." Paintings like Battle of the Centaurs (1873), whose theme and structure pay homage to Michelangelo's renowned marble relief from 1492, were initially looked at with suspicion but eventually came to be considered iconic works of art of the time. The popularity of Böcklin also grew due to Fritz Gurlitt, a Berlin-based art dealer, producing etchings of his paintings. The graphic artist Max Klinger, a notable artist in his own right, commissioned these art pieces widely distributed among the German middle and lower classes.
Later Period
Although Böcklin's most creative time started in the 1860s, he would not become popular until much later in life since he and Angela were constrained to lead a comfortable life for most of his work. But when fame did come, it was huge, and at the time of his passing, Böcklin became one of the most well-known artists in Germany. By the end of the 19th century, a new bourgeois class emerged that was less committed to the Neoclassical and academic tastes that controlled much of the old art market. This was partially symbolic of cultural shifts at the time. With this newfound audience base, Böcklin's art did well on the market, usually as copies and prints.
The 1860s through the 1880s were Böcklin's most successful years, but he remained to paint during the next ten years of his life, and a large biennial held in Basel in 1897 cemented his status as a significant figure in the history of European art. Paintings by Böcklin, like Playing in the Waves (1883), the subject of a famous critique by the German art critic Julius Meier-Graefe after the exhibition, were seen to have marked a new aesthetic in German art; they're curiously influenced by two major of the sublime and the ridiculous informing successive painters like Paul Klee, according to art historians Pamela Kort and Sherwin Simmons.
Artwork by Arnold Böcklin
Self-Portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle 1872
Battle of the Centaurs 1873
Isle of the Dead 1883
Playing in the Waves 1883
Odysseus and Kalypso 1883
Diana's Hunt 1896