“Above the piano hung a reproduction of Beklin’s painting “Island of the Dead” in a fantasy frame of dark green polished oak under glass. One corner of the glass had long since flown out, and the naked part of the painting was so decorated with flies that it completely merged with the frame. It was already impossible to find out what was going on in this part of the island of the dead.”

Ilf and Petrov, Twelve chairs

The mistery of Beklin’s painting, which inspired Frued and Hitler, has benn solved.

Arnold Becklin created The Island of the Dead after a personal tragedy: eight of the artist’s fourteen children died in childhood. The first version of the painting was painted in Florence near the English Cemetery where his daughter Maria was buried. Despite the order from collector Gunther Alexander, the work turned out to be so personal that Becklin kept it for himself. Later, four more versions appeared, of which the most famous, created for the Fritz Gurlit Gallery in 1883, is considered canonical.

The painting depicts a rocky island, towards which a boat with a coffin and a figure in white is slowly sailing. This motif refers to ancient Greek mythology – the river Styx and Charon, the carrier of souls. Beklin never explained the symbolism of the work: “I wanted this silence to make a person afraid of his steps,” the artist noted.

The “Island of the Dead” has become the subject of interest to many historical figures. Sigmund Freud called the painting a “metaphor for the unconscious,” Vladimir Lenin hung a copy of it over his bed during his exile, and Adolf Hitler installed a third version in the Reich Chancellery.

Despite the gloomy subject matter, Beklin later created a work of the opposite spirit, The Island of Life (1888), bathed in the sun and full of movement. Nevertheless, it was “Island of the Dead” that became a symbol of reflections on eternity, life and death, remaining relevant and inspiring viewers for more than 140 years.

My comment.

Another stupid thing by an idiot journalist. For there was no mystery either. The painting, on the whole, is mediocre, an obvious display of mediocrity in order to frighten the beholders and inspire them with reverent admiration for the talent of the artist, whose market cheapness is directly “striking”! One might think that the death of any being is something out of the ordinary, the rarest and most intimate, and not the inexorable ordinariness of our world!

The triviality of trivialities!

Admittedly, the artist worked a lot, not conquering his reproductive organ, unlike his brain, as did Leo Tolstoy, who, according to his daughter’s memoirs, after Sofia Andreevna’s next birth, immediately tried to copulate with her. The curiosity of a true psychologist-gynecologist and “engineer of the female birth ways” (ah, sorry, “human souls”).

The double stupidity of both an ordinary house painter and a cretinous pseudo-journalist.

If I’m wrong, let my seniors correct me.

20 X 2025