Arnold Bocklin, “Self Portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle”, 1872, Oil on Canvas, Getty Museum
The Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin studied in Germany, where he became friends with Ludwig Feuerbach, one of the most important philosophers of the 19th century. Later after thirty trips to the Italy, the artist finally decided to live there for ten years uninterruptedly. It is in Rome where Böcklin studied the classical artista and Roman mythology. This experience in Italy transformed Böcklin’s work which slowly changed to a work full of symbols, fantastic worlds and mythical creatures.
After the period in Italy, the artist traveled back to Germany and painted “Self Portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle” in 1872. Here we see the artist untidy, with a long beard and a neckless shirt. Behind him, in shadows, there is a skeleton playing a violin, a symbol used for centuries to represent Death. With a grimace, Death seems to laugh sarcastically, foreseeing the inevitable fate of the artistand us all.
Böcklin exercised an influence on Surrealist painters like Max Ernst and Salvador Dalí, and on Giorgio de Chirico. Otto Weisert designed an Art Nouveau typeface in 1904 and named it “Arnold Böcklin” in his honor. Böcklin’s paintings, especially “The Isle of the Dead”, inspired several late-Romantic composers. Sergei Rachmaninoff and Heinrich Schülz-Beuthen both composed symphonic poems after it.