"ISLE OF THE DEAD"
Sir-Permit me to add a note that may be of interest for your readers, to G.M.’s review of the picture The Isle of the Dead, in a recent issue. The setting, but not the story, of this picture is based on a-series of oil paintings by Arnold Béocklin, a Swiss-born artist whose work is better known on the Continent than in English-speaking countries. Because his influence on German art was so considerable, he has been practically claimed as a German artist, and undoubtedly he has been held in the highest regard in Germany since at least the beginning of the century. The Galleries of Miinich, Karlsruhe, Leipzig, and Basle (the city of his birth) in Switzerland are proud of specimens from his brush. For a widowed lady he painted "Die Toteninsel"-the Island of the Deadwhich evoked such admiration that he "was called on to repeat it five times, each version differing slightly from the others, but all characterised by the. mystic, sombre but elusive atmosphere that is reproduced in the main sets of the film in question. Bécklin seems to have derived his inspiration for this picture from islands in the north Italian lakes, where the formation of tall rock faces fronted by the shapely funereal cypress is frequent. The picture represents fairly obviously the mysterious bourne of all human souls; the best known originals were at Worms and Leipzig. It is to be hoped they survived the hazards of the war. Bécklin specialised in landscape and mythological subjects, and many of his pictures have elements of mystery and solemnity-the Sacred Grove, the Villa by the Sea, Vita Somnium breve, the Pan, to name a few. They are usually relieved by bright light or soft colouring, and few can study them without the feeling that the secret of life can never be finally plumbed, but that somewhere on his canvas the artist has disclosed some of the key thereto. It has been claimed that his knowledge and use of colour were unsurpassed by any painter of the later 19th Century, to which period he belongs. He was much influenced by Italy and Italian art, and died in Italy in 1901.
C. R. H.
TAYLOR
(Wellington).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19470411.2.51.2
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 407, 11 April 1947, Page 25
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369"ISLE OF THE DEAD" New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 407, 11 April 1947, Page 25
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