Island of the Dead (fifth version)

This is the last of five versions of a painting commissioned from B�cklin; it was purchased by the museum immediately after its completion. The artist works here with metaphors that symbolize the sublimity of nature compared to the existence of humans. The rocky island protrudes monumentally from the calm sea. It seems to be a cemetery created by nature and stands for something lasting. In the middle of the symmetrically arranged composition, dark cypress trees tower up, the tops of which move slightly in the cloudy sky. A boat with a person wrapped in a white cloth standing in front of a coffin is gliding towards the island. With the signature on the lintel bar of a grave opening on the right in the picture, B�cklin created his imaginary grave during his lifetime. This ambiguous main work of symbolism has been artistically reshaped in “afterimages” by artists such as Max Klinger, Salvador Dali and Max Ernst.

The five versions of the painting are the following.

First version: 1880, oil on canvas, 111 x 155 cm, �ffentliche 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 K�nste, Leipzig.