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Light is reflected in the water, sparkles through a canopy of leaves and you can literally feel the breeze gently tipping the reeds aside. The paintings of the Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin are so powerfully and masterfully expressed that one would like to sit in front of his masterpieces for hours. Restrained yet expressive, that was his strength and it is not without reason that he is considered one of the founders of Symbolism.
Arnold Böcklin was born in Basel in 1827 and was already as a young man caught up in an uninterrupted urge to travel, which would not leave him until his death. After his training in Düsseldorf, he spent extended periods of time in Belgium and the Netherlands, in Paris at the Louvre or in ancient Rome. Each stay left a lasting impression and had a particular impact on his works of art. While his first paintings were characterized by peaceful landscape painting, in which muted colors, gentle breezes and winking sunbeams predominate, his style later changed to the over-compensatory ideal of antique-mythological art. Instead of green hills and colourful trees, dark motifs such as ruins, wars, death and the plague increasingly came to the fore.
Böcklin was influenced, among other things, by his travels and numerous moves from one vibrant European city to another, which was expressed above all in his love of landscape painting. However, the paradigm shift in Europe at that time towards growing nationalism and imperialism combined with wars and epidemics and personal strokes of fate also had a decisive influence on Böcklin. Together with his wife and muse Angela Pascucci, he gave birth to fourteen children, eight of whom died in infancy. Pictures such as his work "Self-Portrait with Fiddling Death" bear witness to his grief and the depression of these losses. On top of this came financial problems, impending poverty and artistic setbacks.
With "Pan in the Reeds" in 1859, he finally made his first breakthrough and marked the beginning of his transformation from landscape impressionism to mythical symbolism, which he decisively influenced with his works during his creative period. Whether it be idyllic landscapes or stormy mythical and religious motifs, Böcklin loved the play of light and shadow, of light and dark between plants, trees, waters and rocks. He processed social and political events in Europe at the time in expressions of deep mythology such as in "A Murderer Persecuted by Furies" or "Centaur Fight" in 1873, which is interpreted as his emblematic contemporary expression of the Franco-Prussian War. Böcklin's works were not popular with everyone at the time, many critics found his paintings too "loud" or "shouting" or were shocked by the "offensive" motifs. Nevertheless, Böcklin managed during his lifetime to gain attention and recognition throughout Europe with his works of art and he was able to settle at the age of 68 in the Italian city of Florence, where he died on 18 January 1901.
Light is reflected in the water, sparkles through a canopy of leaves and you can literally feel the breeze gently tipping the reeds aside. The paintings of the Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin are so powerfully and masterfully expressed that one would like to sit in front of his masterpieces for hours. Restrained yet expressive, that was his strength and it is not without reason that he is considered one of the founders of Symbolism.
Arnold Böcklin was born in Basel in 1827 and was already as a young man caught up in an uninterrupted urge to travel, which would not leave him until his death. After his training in Düsseldorf, he spent extended periods of time in Belgium and the Netherlands, in Paris at the Louvre or in ancient Rome. Each stay left a lasting impression and had a particular impact on his works of art. While his first paintings were characterized by peaceful landscape painting, in which muted colors, gentle breezes and winking sunbeams predominate, his style later changed to the over-compensatory ideal of antique-mythological art. Instead of green hills and colourful trees, dark motifs such as ruins, wars, death and the plague increasingly came to the fore.
Böcklin was influenced, among other things, by his travels and numerous moves from one vibrant European city to another, which was expressed above all in his love of landscape painting. However, the paradigm shift in Europe at that time towards growing nationalism and imperialism combined with wars and epidemics and personal strokes of fate also had a decisive influence on Böcklin. Together with his wife and muse Angela Pascucci, he gave birth to fourteen children, eight of whom died in infancy. Pictures such as his work "Self-Portrait with Fiddling Death" bear witness to his grief and the depression of these losses. On top of this came financial problems, impending poverty and artistic setbacks.
With "Pan in the Reeds" in 1859, he finally made his first breakthrough and marked the beginning of his transformation from landscape impressionism to mythical symbolism, which he decisively influenced with his works during his creative period. Whether it be idyllic landscapes or stormy mythical and religious motifs, Böcklin loved the play of light and shadow, of light and dark between plants, trees, waters and rocks. He processed social and political events in Europe at the time in expressions of deep mythology such as in "A Murderer Persecuted by Furies" or "Centaur Fight" in 1873, which is interpreted as his emblematic contemporary expression of the Franco-Prussian War. Böcklin's works were not popular with everyone at the time, many critics found his paintings too "loud" or "shouting" or were shocked by the "offensive" motifs. Nevertheless, Böcklin managed during his lifetime to gain attention and recognition throughout Europe with his works of art and he was able to settle at the age of 68 in the Italian city of Florence, where he died on 18 January 1901.