The island of the dead and backlin's history of creation. Dead island

Arnold Böcklin. "Dead island"

1880 Oil on canvas. 111 x 115 cm Art Museum, Basel
1880 Oil on wood. 111 x 115 cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
1883 Oil on wood. 80 x 150 cm. State museums, Berlin
1886 Wood, tempera. 80 x 150 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig.

Everything in the world should be understood as a riddle.
Giorgio de Chirico

European citizen

Arnold Böcklin can rightly be called a citizen of Europe. He was born in 1827 in Switzerland, in Basel, studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf, and traveled a lot in his youth. He disliked Paris and spent only a year in it, and settled in Rome for seven years. Here, in 1853, he happily married a seventeen-year-old Italian beauty.

Arnold Böcklin. Self-portrait. 1873

Together with his large family (the Böcklins had 14 children, 8 of whom died at an early age), the artist moved many times: from Rome to his native Basel, then to Hanover, to Munich, to Weimar, from there again to Rome, again to Basel , again to Munich, from there to Florence, then to Zurich ... He spent the last nine years of his life in Italy and died in 1901 in his villa near Fiesole.

These endless journeys had good reasons: in youth - the desire to see with my own eyes the monuments of classical Italian art, later - invitations to teaching, large orders (Böcklin not only painted pictures, but also decorated interiors with frescoes), the need to give children a good education, finally , last but not least, lack of money.

(Fame came to Böcklin far from immediately, the opinion of the public, as he frankly admitted, did not bother him much, he did not know how to work to please customers and sometimes quarreled with those people on whom his well-being depended.)

Such mobility allowed Böcklin not only to see a lot and make acquaintance with outstanding contemporaries in different countries, but also to synthesize in his work artistic ideas that excited Europe at that time. He was called a symbolist and neoclassicist, the last romantic and a forerunner of surrealism.

In the world of fauns and nymphs

Böcklin started with romantic landscapes. Characteristic signs of romanticism are often found in his mature works: swirling clouds, mysterious shadows and flashes of light, heaps of rocks, raging waves, picturesque ruins, lonely villas on deserted shores...

The friendly Mediterranean nature, the southern sun, and most importantly, contact with the classical art of Italy, primarily with the ancient Roman frescoes in Pompeii, prompted the artist to new themes: mythological characters appeared on Böcklin's canvases. The artist seemed to have opened a window to a blissful country, where the forest god Pan plays on a pipe in the reeds, the fairy-night showers the peacefully sleeping earth with poppy seeds, Triton blows a sea shell, nereids splash among the waves, and nymphs frolic in flowering meadows.

In his paintings, Böcklin is constantly engaged in a dialogue with the heritage of European art, responding to the great predecessors - the masters of the Middle Ages, the artists of the Renaissance, Baroque, Classicism - with his own "replicas" of their works. So, for example, the plot of "Self-Portrait with Death Singing on the Violin" (1872) goes back to the famous medieval fresco "Dance of Death" in Basel and to the painting by Hans Holbein the Younger.

The later works of the artist stylistically belong to the 20th century. In the series "War" (1896-97) and in the painting "Plague" (1898), classicism and poise give way to open expression: mad horses carry an otherworldly army of non-humans above the ground, a plague descends on a winged dragon on a dying city.

Böcklin clears reality of everything momentary, everyday, concrete. The image is endowed with some kind of magical authenticity and at the same time understatement.

Böcklin's symbolism was not bookish, not theoretical, but heartfelt, natural - he depicted objects and elements in such a way that some mysterious, elusive essence was felt behind the outer shell.

This bewitching ability of Böcklin was fully manifested in his main picture - "Isle of the Dead".

"Painting for Dreams"

Böcklin usually did not give names to his works, but the name "Isle of the Dead" most likely belongs to the artist himself: in April 1880, he wrote from Florence to the customer of the painting, philanthropist Alexander Günther, that "Isle of the Dead" ("Die Toteninsel") would soon will be finished..

The first version of the painting "Isle of the Dead". 1880

The canvas had not yet been completed when Böcklin received a commission from the young widow Maria Berna for a “dream painting” (“Bild zum Träumen”). The customer, who may have seen the unfinished first version of the Island, became the owner of the second. It is interesting that the figure in the white shroud standing in the boat and the sarcophagus in front of it were absent in the first and second versions of the painting and were completed by the artist a little later.

The second version of the painting "Isle of the Dead", 1880

Böcklin completed the third version of The Island in 1883 by order of the Berlin collector and publisher Fritz Gurlitt, and in 1884 financial difficulties prompted the artist to create the fourth version of the painting (lost during the Second World War).

The third version of the painting "Isle of the Dead. 1883

For the fifth time the artist wrote "The Island" in 1886 for the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig.

The fifth version of the painting "Isle of the Dead", 1886

To Böcklin's credit, he did not copy the picture, but each time he developed the plot in a new way, retaining the basis of the composition, but changing the size, technique, color scheme, lighting and finding new shades of mood - from gloomy hopelessness to enlightened tragedy. Taken together, the four versions of The Island that have come down to us appear to be parts of a solemn requiem, in which sublime sorrow is replaced by deep peace, and time recedes before eternity.

The plot of the picture is based on an ancient myth that the souls of heroes and favorites of the gods find their last refuge on a secluded island. The island of the dead is washed by the desert mirror waters of the underground river Acheron, through which the boatman Charon ferries the souls of the dead.

Art historians have, of course, wondered which island Böcklin inspired. The sheer light cliffs of the "Island of the Dead" are very reminiscent of the landscapes of the volcanic Pontine Islands and the Faraglioni reefs off the coast of Capri, which Böcklin could see during his trip to Naples.

Faraglioni rocks off the coast of Capri

It is impossible not to recall the island-cemetery of San Michele near Venice, where the bodies of the dead are transported in gondolas and where the same dark "mourning cypresses" resting against the sky, as in the painting by Böcklin, rise.

Mourning cypresses on the island-cemetery of San Michele near Venice

These trees symbolizing eternal life are traditionally planted in Italy in cemeteries, in monasteries and near churches.

But no matter what island Böcklin was inspired by, he managed to get rid of nature and convey the main thing - this island with crypts carved into the rocks and a small pier does not belong to earthly life, it is located in a different, inaccessible living space.

A boat with a carrier, a figure dressed in a shroud and a sarcophagus does not break the silence of this ghostly world, melancholy and devoid of living breath, but beautiful in its own way.

"Isle of the Dead" in the interior of the era

After the well-known graphic artist Max Klinger created an etching reproducing the third version of The Island in 1855, and the owner of the painting, Fritz Gurlitt, produced this etching in a huge edition, the Isle of the Dead conquered all of Europe.

Max Klinger. Etching after Böcklin's "Isle of the Dead"

Font "Böcklin"

According to a contemporary, at the turn of the century "there was almost no German family where reproductions of Böcklin's paintings would not hang." And not only German. A famous reproduction adorned the office of Sigmund Freud in Vienna, and the father of psychoanalysis mentioned Böcklin in his lectures. It hung over the bed in V. I. Lenin's room in Zurich, as evidenced by an archival photograph (it is not clear whether the etching belonged to the owners of the house or the lodger). In the photograph of the dining room of the outstanding French politician Georges Clemenceau, we see the same etching.

The melancholy of the "Island" exactly reflected the moods in society that were denoted by the word "decadence" - a vague melancholy, gloomy forebodings, an avid interest in the other world, a feeling of fatigue from life, a rejection of rough earthly reality.

In the living rooms where séances were held, the "Isle of the Dead" was quite appropriate. The painting was perceived by contemporaries as a requiem for an entire era, as a farewell to a culture based on humanistic values ​​and receding under the onslaught of industrialization. magical atmosphere"Islands" attracted avant-garde artists. The pioneer of surrealism in poetry, Guillaume Apollinaire, put the "Island" on a par with the Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa and the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel; the creator of metaphysical painting, Giorgio de Chirico, ranked Böcklin among his teachers, Max Ernst recognized Böcklin's influence, and Salvador Dali expressed his respect for him in the painting Arnold Bölin's True Image of the Island of the Dead at the Hour of Evening Prayer (1932).

Salvador Dali. The true image of the Isle of the Dead by Arnold Böhlin at the hour of evening prayer. 1932

Böcklin was also an idol for the Russian intelligentsia. According to Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, reproductions of Böcklin's painting "scattered to our province and hung in the rooms of advanced youth."

Böcklin was quoted by Wassily Kandinsky in his treatise On the Spiritual in Art (1910). “In painting, I love Böcklin the most,” Leonid Andreev admitted. Valentin Serov wrote from Florence in 1887: "The cypress trees sway like Böcklin."

Böcklin was praised in his reviews by Igor Grabar and Maximilian Voloshin, Alexander Benois and Anatoly Lunacharsky. Sergei Rachmaninoff, being deeply impressed by the painting, the fifth version of which he saw in Leipzig, wrote in 1909 the symphonic poem "Isle of the Dead" (in total, five musical works inspired by this painting were created in Europe in the 1890s-1910s ).

Böcklin was, of course, a stranger to Vladimir Mayakovsky: having met the sisters Lilya and Elsa Kagan, he, as Lilya later recalled, "survived from the house" Isle of the Dead "".

But Mayakovsky could not ignore this symbol of the era: “Böcklin, which has grown from the wall to the city // Set up the Island of the Dead with Moscow,” he wrote in the poem “About This” (1923). In the 1920s Böcklin's popularity was already on the wane. The mockers Ilf and Petrov did not miss the opportunity to laugh at the recent idol in The Twelve Chairs, hanging the "Island" in the room of the fortune-teller, to whom Gritsatsuev's widow came: oak, under glass.

One corner of the glass had long since fallen out, and the naked part of the picture was so trimmed with flies that it completely merged with the frame. What was happening in this part of the island of the dead - it was already impossible to know. However, even later the picture had unexpected admirers, one of whom was ... Adolf Hitler.

In an attempt to build the cultural foundation of Nazi ideology, he "appointed" Böcklin as the artist who most deeply expressed the "German" and "Aryan spirit", just as he chose the philosopher Nietzsche and the composer Wagner for the same purpose. In the "Island" the Fuhrer, obviously, was impressed by the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe choice of heroes, "representatives of a superior race", awarded eternal rest where the souls of the mob have no access.

In 1933, Hitler bought the third version of the painting (in total he owned 16 works by Böcklin), which was first located in his Berghof residence, and from 1940 adorned the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. There is a photograph taken on November 12, 1940, in which Hitler and Molotov are negotiating against the backdrop of a painting by Böcklin.

In this frame of the chronicle, Hitler and Molotov are negotiating against the backdrop of the Berlin version of the "Isle of the Dead"

Of course, there is no reason to really consider Böcklin as a forerunner of the ideology of Nazism, but, nevertheless, high mark painter Fuhrer thoroughly undermined the authority of "Hitler's favorite artist" in the post-war years.

Böcklin finally went out of fashion, but was not ranked among the classics. In books on the history of art published in the second half of the 20th century, only a few lines were usually given to him, and even then they were cool.

Even in the former popularity of the artist, art critics often saw evidence of the low level of his work. The case in the history of European art is not new and is quite understandable: after all, the starting point for the development of painting in the 20th century was the work of the Impressionists - Böcklin's opponents and antagonists.

The coming century rehabilitated the artist: the exhibition dedicated to the centenary of his death was held with triumphant success in 2001-2002. in Basel, Paris and Munich. Solid catalogs and monograph albums were published, serious articles were written about Böcklin and television films were shot. And although the name of Arnold Böcklin is still insufficiently known to today's public, this artist is already returning to us from a long and, I think, undeserved oblivion.

Marina Agranovskaya

".... The moorings of invisible marinas are hidden,


vague shadows of restless ghosts ..".

Imagine, this island is really some kind of mystical. I wrote a post twice, and, approaching the end, both times the posts disappeared without a trace.
Beginning attempt number three!

We continue our journey through the Balkan countries. We are in Montenegro, we are driving along the coast of the Bay of Kotor, heading towards the city from strange name- Perast.
I have already talked about the indescribable beauty of the Bay of Kotor. What to write! All this must be seen with one's own eyes. And I'm incredibly lucky that I ended up in these parts.

We look not at me, but at the beauty around me. In the distance, under the mountain itself is the city of Perast, where we are heading. And right above my head is a small island, which will be my story.

Looking at this island, I had a feeling of something very familiar. Exactly what is now so fashionable to call "déjà vu". But fascinated by the surrounding beauties, somehow forgot about it. But still, this island did not let me go, and as I approached it, it more and more riveted my gaze.

And finally, I realized that it reminds me very much of a famous painting by the Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901). "Dead island." But was the painter here, in the Bay of Kotor?

Having studied the biography of the artist on the Internet, it became clear that he, it seems, had never been to these parts.
An interesting self-portrait. Agree! And very much in line with his famous painting.

The picture, indeed, is famous to this day. Many writers wrote about it, Sergei Rachmaninoff dedicated a very gloomy symphonic poem to the "Isle of the Dead". Many famous artists painted imitations of this painting, such as the Swiss artist Hans Rudi Giger, who is also called the artist of hell. Before you is his painting "Tribute to Böcklin"

I think that you are well aware of the quote from the immortal book: Above the piano hung a reproduction of Böcklin's Isle of the Dead, framed in a dark green polished oak fantasy frame, under glass.
One corner of the glass had long since fallen out, and the naked part of the picture was so trimmed with flies that it completely merged with the frame. What was going on in this part of the island of the dead - it was already impossible to know "
It is also interesting that the artist repeatedly addressed this topic. Five versions of the painting are known. One of them, however, was destroyed. Only the black and white photograph remained. (Photo from Wikipedia).

Arnold Böcklin was Adolf Hitler's favorite painter. He purchased one of the variants of the painting "Isle of the Dead". At this link you can view the painting acquired by Hitler in big size and even find the initials "AG" on one of the rocks.

As you can imagine, I was very interested in the island I saw. Moreover, tourists were categorically not allowed there. Arriving home, I began to collect information about the island, which, alas, turned out to be very scarce.
We managed to find out that since the 12th century there was an ancient Benedictine monastery here. Whether it is currently operational, I don't know.
Photo of the layout taken in the museum neighboring island.

In the 16th century, the church of St. Juraj was built on the island, which was the parish church of Perast. The abbot of the monastery, who is also the rector of the church, was killed under mysterious circumstances shortly after its construction. A little later, the island was raided by pirates - the monastery was plundered and the church set on fire. It was restored, thanks to Andriy Zmaevich (1628-1694), who served as the abbot of the monastery, and since 1671 was appointed bar (city of Bar) archbishop and primate of the Kingdom of Serbia. Let's remember this name. Doctor of theology and philosophy, writer, poet, historian, educator, collector of antiquities and patron of the arts. It is thanks to him that we will be able to admire the art gallery on the neighboring island and admire the most interesting exhibits of the museum.

Until 1886, there was a cemetery here, where they buried, mainly, sailors - residents of Perast. Therefore, obviously, the second name appeared - the Island of the Dead.

I'm telling interesting story and maybe a legend.
At the entrance to the church there are two graves, one of them dates back to 1813, in it rests a young girl named Katitsa, in the other - a soldier of the Napoleonic army.
In 1813, a detachment of the French expeditionary force occupied the fortress of the Holy Cross. The inhabitants of Perst drove the French out of there. The detachment settled on the island of St. Yuray and periodically fired at the city of Perast from cannons. And it must happen that the core of one of the cannons hit the house where the beloved soldier lived, who fired from this cannon. The girl died. The unfortunate soldier remained on the island of St. Jura and every day the sound of a funeral bell rang over the area. So the soldier mourned the death of his bride, who united them forever and ever under the mournful cypresses of the Isle of the Dead.

Dear Dmitry Shalaev added to this legend: a bike with a Napoleonic artilleryman missed an important detail. Pushkar was a local - Perastyan. This makes a big difference! H a man thrashed from a cannon at his native city, at relatives, acquaintances, friends ... It is not surprising that he slammed his lady of the heart.

I want to finish the post about the island so memorable to me with a poem by Yeremey Parnov, which he dedicated to Böcklin's "Isle of the Dead".
"There in the ocean, shrouded in secrets,
melting in the abyss of misty space,
Island, deceptively uninhabited,
scary and strange, like a mummy in a shroud.
Time on the Island froze in a stupor,
curled up in a vague, mysterious cocoon,
the sky is starless with a ghostly dome,
as if woven from unknown threads ...(I hide the rest under the spoiler)
The waves are viscous, boring, dark
rolling towards the shore with foamy rosters,
roll slowly, submissive to the wind,
littering the beach with mortal remains -
slippery logs, slippery boards,
ashes of ships and broken oars...
Marine debris and whale skeletons
locked up the fairways of the Island.

The moorings of invisible marinas are hidden,
hidden paths deep into cypress groves,
only in caves, like sparks-signs -
vague shadows of restless ghosts.
The ghosts of those who in past centuries
did not fulfill the destiny of a mortal,
those who are in pursuit of pseudo-immortality
closed the soul with eternal deadness ...

Those who with a dagger, noose and hemlock
fell into temptation in the battle against time,
tightly bound by invisible fetters
with the Isle of the Dead, the vale of oblivion.
Life is short and not much is done.
Time is short - to Paradise, to Hell?
Let it be better for God to remain divine -
we are inappropriate. No need. Shouldn't...

P.S. This time I was more prudent and copied what was written all the time. Therefore, the attempt seemed to be a success. But the most amazing thing is that I succeeded, like a famous hero - he did not sleep all night and composed a letter to his beloved. And in the morning I discovered that these lines had been written by A.S. Pushkin a long time ago. So do I. Looking for details about the painting "Isle of the Dead" and its creator, and about to upload the finished post to the magazine, I found an interesting article by a wonderful

Congratulations to the great five, of which in Latvia on this moment only two live, if I'm not mistaken!

First, a story about the paintings, and then about the place for which the guessing game was conceived. Especially impressionable people should not look under the cut ... By the way, to the question of how much we remember about the events that took place less than a hundred years ago.

Before giving an answer to the guessing game, I want to show what logical series the photographs offered at that time formed, what thoughts they should have suggested.

Photos #3 and 4 in the guessing post were like this:

Many have found out where it is located - in Russia, in Vyborg, in the Mon Repos park.
The Ludwigsburg Chapel was built between 1822 and 1830 by the English architect C.H. Thetama. Since that time, the island has become a family necropolis of the barons Nicholas and was named Ludwigstein. The island on the lithograph by J. Jacotte (1840):

The official name of the place is Ludwigstein Island and the Ludwigsburg Chapel. Unofficially, the island is called the Island of the Dead:

Now there is no land road to the Vyborg Island of the Dead, which surrounds the necropolis with an additional veil of secrecy:

Paintings No. 6 and 7 in the guessing post are Arnold Böcklin, the paintings "Isle of the Dead", the most notable works Swiss painter, graphic artist, sculptor; one of the outstanding representatives of symbolism in the European fine arts of the 19th century:

The artist created five (possibly six) versions of the painting on this theme. All of them were painted in Italy over the course of several years and differed from each other in details in composition and in color, four have survived to this day, which are now in Basel, New York, Berlin and Leipzig.

"Isle of the Dead" - the most famous and mysterious painting by Böcklin, which has become an icon of symbolism. Mysterious Island with an entrance resembling a cemetery gate, as if growing out of a dark surface sea ​​water. The composition of the canvas is strictly thought out: the rhythmic verticals of cypresses and marble rocks with narrow caves are opposed to the horizontal of the sea. A boat with a rower and a figure wrapped in white is slowly approaching the island.
Perhaps the picture goes back to the ancient tradition described by Nietzsche's friend, the philologist E. Rode: the favorites of the gods and heroes are buried on the islands, and the masses get the underworld. One thing is indisputable - "Isle of the Dead" is a poetic reflection on the historical course of time, its transience, on the loneliness of man in the world.

The picture shows a boat in which a coffin is placed. Ahead, beyond the River Styx, is a huge gloomy island. Giant elms hang over the boat as it slowly sails towards a small pier, roughly hewn in a small natural bay. On both sides of the island rise grave crypts, carved out of solid rock. Even the lonely figure of Charon, standing in the boat, looks like a corpse covered with a shroud, and it is she who first of all attracts the attention of the viewer. The location of a straight figure in the center of the picture inevitably draws the eye to the trees and back again, in an ongoing circular motion. A mosaic fragment from this painting has been preserved at the Vvedensky cemetery (colonnade on the grave of George Lion and Alexandra Ivanovna Rozhnova, 1910s, workshop "Rob. Guidi St. Petersburg"). Once upon a time, a double mosaic adorned the Smolensk Lutheran Cemetery (the tombstone of a member of the German community of St. Petersburg, Gustav Beiermeister).

At the beginning of the 20th century, the German artist Max Klinger performed the famous engraving based on the painting “Isle of the Dead”, which made this Böcklin story world-famous:

In 1908 S.V. Rachmaninov wrote a symphonic poem for the painting "Isle of the Dead" ("Isle of the Dead" Op. 39.). Later, still under the influence of Böcklin's paintings, he bought his villa "Senar" in Switzerland only because of the resemblance to the painting. The composer even ordered to blow up the rocks on the shore of the lake in order to further enhance the similarity of the real landscape with the Böcklin painting. One of the reproductions hung over Lenin's bed in Zurich.

Pictures 8 and 9 are the work of Hans Rudy Giger, a Swiss fantasy realist artist best known for his design work for the film Alien. The guessing game included two of his works based on the same Böcklin painting:

So, six pictures in the guessing game are called "Isle of the Dead", and, it would seem, the Latvian place should also be called that. But...

This logical line was broken by photo #5 in that row:

This is also an island, but this time in Minsk. And it's called like this:

It was equipped for the following reason (see paragraph 3):

If the previous photos are just necropolises, then here is a memorial of military glory:

And from here we return to photo No. 2 - a logical series led us to the fact that this is an island thematically associated with death and, presumably, military glory:

So it is - this is the Island of Death on the Daugava River (Western Dvina) in Latvia. Do you notice anything in this fragment?

At maximum magnification, when shooting from the opposite bank of the river, an obelisk on the shore of Death Island becomes noticeable:

In Latvian, the island is called Naaves sala:

Photos of the obelisk on the island, taken in the late 1920s and in 1934. In the foreground is a monument to the Unknown Rifleman, erected by scouts in 1930:

You have already understood that this obelisk is somehow connected with the First World War. Obelisk to the fallen soldiers on the Island of Death.
The front line in 1914-1917. Death Island is located in the upper part of the front line, about 20 km along the river from Riga:

During the First World War, during the retreat of the Russian troops, the so-called. The Iskulsky bridgehead (from Dole Island to the mouth of the Ogre River) or the "Island of Death" - became the site of the feat of two companies of the Russian army, blocking the enemy's path to the crossing, then it was held for two years, and both sides suffered heavy losses. In those days, the island was actually still a peninsula.

The defense by Russian troops and Latvian riflemen of a fortified area on the left bank of the Daugava opposite Ikskile ("Island of Death"), while the main forces were on its right bank:

Scheme in Latvian. I am translating the captions to it:
- trenches of Russian troops
- trenches of the German army
- barbed wire fence
- temporary bridge
- boat crossing
- place of crossing on the boat:

The site of the battles of the First World War - a peninsula with an area of ​​\u200b\u200b2 square kilometers - 3.5 km west of railway station Ikskile. From March 1916, the 3rd Kurzeme and 2nd Latvian rifle battalions helped the Russian units defend this small bridgehead, which the Russian army, when retreating to the right bank of the Daugava in the fall of 1915, retained on the left bank of the river. The fortifications were heavily shelled day and night. Parts of the defenders were replaced almost every three weeks. The shelling of the place in the photo of that time:

Pedestrian bridge from Death Island during its shelling by German artillery in the summer of 1916:

A telephone cable connecting the defenders of the bridgehead with the opposite bank. In the background is a floating wooden bridge:

Russian soldiers in the left sector of the defense of Death Island in November 1916:

Burial at the Fraternal Cemetery in Vetspelshi of the soldiers of the 3rd Kurzeme Latvian Rifle Battalion who fell in the night battle on July 4-5, 1916 on the Island of Death:

We come to the most important thing, which is why the island got its name. See in the photo below that the soldiers in the trenches are wearing gas masks?

On September 25 (October 8, New Style), 1916, when Russian units were in position, German troops carried out a gas attack on the Island of Death, which was the first large-scale use of such weapons in Latvia during the First World War. About 1,400 soldiers and officers were poisoned (according to other sources, around 2000), who did not have gas masks. The Kamenetsky Infantry Regiment, which was almost completely located in this place, died, the fighters of which suffered a terrible painful death from poison gas.

Latvian riflemen were urgently sent to help. Although they had gas masks, they did not completely save them from poisoning. 120 riflemen from the 2nd Riga Battalion were poisoned with gas, which for 8 days withstood German attacks on the Island. Defending this bridgehead, most of the Latvian soldiers fell (both battalions lost 167 people), so the arrows called this place the Island of Death (Nāves sala).

From a school textbook:
In 1916, on the left bank of the Daugava, near Ikskile, the Latvian Riflemen defended a piece of land for several months, which they called the "Island of Death". At night, ammunition was delivered across the Daugava by boats, and the wounded and the dead were taken back. The Germans constantly fired at the trenches of the shooters from cannons and mortars, and used military poison gases.
G. Kurlovich, A. Tomashun "History of Latvia", Grade 5. Riga, "Zvaigzne", 1992

In the photo - 240 Russian soldiers from the 173rd Kamenets Infantry Regiment, who died from a German gas attack, in a short time before being buried near the Karamursky manor in September 1916:

Photos of the destruction on Death Island:

Especially bloody battles unfolded in 1916, when Russian troops, in order to alleviate the position of the French army near Verdun and on the Somme, launched an offensive on the Northern Front. On land, the greatest burden fell on the divisions of the 43rd Corps of General V.G. Boldyrev, who defended the Ikskul bridgehead. In the steep bend of the Dvina, opposite Ikshkile, from April to September 1916, on the left bank of the river, Siberian and Latvian riflemen steadfastly held fortifications in front of the bridge crossing. They were hit with shells, poisoned with gases. They stood to the death. The fighters nicknamed this place: "The Island of Death", and the mass graves of its defenders remind today of those terrible losses that the Russian army then suffered.

The Latvian riflemen took part in the defense of the bridgehead until October 1916, and the Russian troops until July 1917, when, by decision of the higher authorities, they retreated and surrendered the bridgehead that had been defended for so long to the enemy.
Not far from Ikskile, in the middle of the field, there is a large hill - which became the final resting place of the officers and soldiers of this regiment. There's a big group mass graves, in each of which 75 or 50 people are buried.

On July 27, 1924, the President of the Republic of Latvia Janis Čakste unveiled a monument to the defenders of the Island of Death (author - architect Eižen Laube). Another source says that this is a monument to the fallen Latvian riflemen (get the difference?):

Actually, the three Latvian stars on the monument are talking about this ...

Like the inscriptions about the sons of Latvia who defended the Fatherland:

Monument in September 1937:

After the Second World War, the monument was damaged, then restored.

Before the construction of the reservoir of the Riga hydroelectric power station, there was a peninsula here, now it is an island, which can only be reached by boat. The obelisk is visible to the left of the red dot:

Rare boat trips are also found in the rest of the island, where trenches, old burial sites and gypsum stone quarries were located. They say that back in the sixties of the 20th century in his sand dunes it was enough to dig once or twice to collect a handful of shell casings, rusty bayonets, cartridge belts, helmets from the First World War, rifle bolts ... The place around the obelisk was not as overgrown as it is now:

On the left bank of the river there is a sign to the place, but the island can only be reached by boat:

By the way, many are confusing that it is written everywhere that you can only look at the island from the side of Ikskile. So, on this satellite map the number 1 shows the Island of Death, the red dot is the approximate location of the obelisk. Ikskile - number 3 on the map, which clearly shows that the obelisk is not visible from the side of the city. It is visible from the side of number 2 - this is the village of Saulkalne:

And so, having studied the map, we went straight to Saulkalne. To the right of the local kindergarten there is a road to the bank of the Daugava. Actually, here it is, the Island of Death visible on the horizon. If you look closely, even the place of the obelisk is noticeable:

The same road, if you look back from the Daugava:

It would seem, where does Böcklin from the guessing game have to do with it?

After the incredible success of the painting "Isle of the Dead" among contemporaries, no one seemed to doubt the immortality of Böcklin's work.
Two of Arnold Böcklin's most famous late paintings, The War (1896) and The Plague (1898), seemed to anticipate the turbulent and dramatic history of the 20th century. The theme of death in them takes on a truly dramatic sound. The illustrations below show two variants of "War".

Arnold Böcklin (German Arnold Böcklin; October 16, 1827, Basel, Switzerland - January 16, 1901, San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy) - Swiss painter, graphic artist, sculptor; one of the outstanding representatives of symbolism in the European fine arts of the 19th century.
Böcklin's paintings, bright and sharp in color, were painted mainly in tempera. In the paintings of Böcklin, a fictional world appears, often deliberately mysterious. At first, Böcklin painted romantic landscapes with mythological figures, then - fantastic scenes with nymphs, sea monsters, etc. ("Triton and Nereid", 1873-1874).
Late compositions (“Isle of the Dead”, 1880, Art Museum, Basel; at the beginning of the 20th century, reproductions from it were very popular), where fantastic symbolism is combined with naturalistic authenticity of details, influenced the formation of German symbolism and Jugendstil.

Death-horsewoman against the backdrop of an autumn landscape.

Dead island

Island of St. George (Island of St. George), or the Island of the Dead (Island of the Dead), is located near the small town of the Bay of Kotor Perast (Perast), famous for its nautical school, to which the Russian emperor Peter the Great sent the sons of Russian nobles to study maritime affairs . The island of the dead with its cypress grove is very picturesque. It is of natural origin, in contrast to the famous neighboring Island of Our Lady of Rock, which was artificially created.
On the Isle of the Dead is the Benedictine Abbey of St. George, after which the island was named. The abbey was first mentioned in 1166 in documents describing the illumination of the church of St. Tryphon (St Tryphon) in Kotor. However, according to historians, the ornament on the Abbey Church testifies to its earlier origin - the 9th century. Old Church of St. George is little preserved. The island was constantly under fire from invaders. An earthquake in 1667 destroyed the ceiling and apse. Later, a simple church was built. The tombstones in the church cemetery are a unique collection of heraldic emblems. Famous captains of Perast were buried here. The cemetery remained a burial place until 1866, when a new cemetery was built in the northern part of the city.
At one time, paintings dated 1327–1457 were kept in the church; the last canvases were painted by Lovro Marinov Dobricevic, a famous painter from Kotor. In the 14th-16th centuries, the Abbey of St. George was under the jurisdiction of Kotor. In 1535, a group of Perastians killed the abbot of the island appointed by Kotor, thereby achieving independence for the city from Kotor domination and excommunication from the Catholic Church. In 1571, the pirate Karadoz burned the city to the ground along with the Abbey of the island. In 1603, the inhabitants of Perast restored the church. In 1634, the patronage of the island was transferred to the Senate of Venice. It was under Venetian control that Perast reached its highest point of prosperity. In 1812 the Abbey was occupied by the French, and in 1814 by the Austrians. George was inspired by the German romanticist and painter Alfred Bocklin to paint his famous painting "Isle of the Dead"¹. The masterpiece depicts a funeral boat sailing towards the island.
A sad legend is associated with the island of the dead, according to which a French soldier, firing from a cannon in the direction of Perast, got into the house of his beloved and killed her, and then lay down with her in a coffin. The island of the dead is closed for official visits, however, it is often possible to visit it see local residents or tourists who want to touch the old walls or wander around the ancient cemetery.


________________
Böcklin has at least six versions of this painting.
The picture shows a boat in which a coffin is placed. Ahead, across the River Six, is a huge, gloomy island. Giant elms hang over the boat as it slowly sails towards a small pier, roughly hewn in a small natural bay. On both sides of the island rise grave crypts, carved out of solid rock. Even the lonely figure of Charon, standing in the boat, looks like a corpse covered with a shroud, and it is she who first of all attracts the attention of the viewer. The location of a straight figure in the center of the picture inevitably draws the eye to the trees and back again, in an incessant angular movement.(Robert Walker)

Salvador Dali - Arnold Böcklin's True Image of the Isle of the Dead at the Hour of Evening Prayer

Toteninsel Max Klinger

Giger

* In cemeteries

Mayakovsky" About it":
Wallpaper,
___walls
_______faded...
____________ faded...
They drowned in gray tones of etchings.
From the wall
_____on the city has grown
_______________________ Becklin
Moscow placed the "Isle of the Dead".

There is a 1945 film of the same name.

This picture, in turn, inspired Rachmaninov to write an opera. "Dead island".
The symphonic poem appeared under the impression of a black-and-white reproduction of the painting by the Swiss symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin "Isle of the Dead", located in the Leipzig Art Gallery. The composer later recalled: “For the first time I saw in Dresden only a copy of the wonderful painting by Böcklin. The massive composition and mystical plot of this picture made a great impression on me, and it determined the atmosphere of the poem. Later in Berlin I saw the original painting. In colors, she did not particularly excite me. If I had seen the original first, I might not have composed my Isle of the Dead. I like the picture better in black and white.
The poem "Isle of the Dead" was written during a stay in Dresden and completed in 1909. The main motives of the poem are the inevitability of death and the lust for life. In order to convey the feeling of the movement of the waves, Rachmaninoff used a rare size - five eighths. The approximate duration of the poem is 20-25 minutes. This work is considered a classic example of late Russian romanticism of the early 20th century.

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This version of the painting by Arnold Böcklin is kept in the Hermitage

Rumors that the Hermitage holds a trophy painting from Hitler's collection are exaggerated.

There are mysteries over which one has to puzzle over from century to century. There are quite a few of them in the Hermitage, but even among them stands out the story associated with the painting by the famous Swiss symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin “Isle of the Dead” - one of the favorite works of Salvador Dali, Sergei Rachmaninov and ... Adolf Hitler.

The plot is based on an ancient myth that the souls of heroes and favorites of the gods find their last refuge on a secluded island washed by the waters of the Styx. The souls of mere mortals are not honored with such an honor.

The canvas depicts the mythological helmsman Charon, who transports the souls of the dead across the river of death. The island where his boat is heading is a semicircular, amphitheater-like rock, where only graveyard cypresses grow among the crypts. Actually, that's all. Except for the fact that this gloomy-beautiful picture prompted Salvador Dali to write his own canvas “The True Image of the “Isle of the Dead” by Arnold Böcklin at the hour of evening prayer”, our great composer Rachmaninov was inspired by the symphonic poem “Isle of the Dead”, and the American science fiction writer Roger Zelazny is a novel of the same name.

Böcklin's painting was repeatedly reflected in cinema, but this was later, and at the beginning of the twentieth century, beautiful German reproductions of the "Island of the Dead" became an obligatory decoration not only for European houses, but, according to the apt testimony of the artist Petrov-Vodkin, "scattered to our province and hung out in the rooms of advanced youth. Arseny Tarkovsky writes about the painting as an irretrievably bygone sign of pre-revolutionary times: “Where is the Isle of the Dead in a decadent frame? / Where are the plush red sofas? / Where are the photographs of men with mustaches? / Where are the reed airplanes?”

As a standard interior detail with pretensions to sophistication, a reproduction is present in the works of Vladimir Nabokov, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Teffi, Ilya Ehrenburg, and in The Twelve Chairs it appears next to the pretentious Madame Gritsatsuyeva. This is the insanity of the enlightened minds of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. one could, following Ilf and Petrov, be considered kitsch, self-parody, if not for the big names of the most zealous fans of the sinister "Island". It decorated the study of Sigmund Freud in Vienna, hung over the bed in Lenin's room in Zurich, and was the subject of Trotsky's admiration. Finally, Hitler was so fascinated by this mystical story that the picture found a place in his Reich Chancellery. (By the way, nothing like this happened to Stalin. He had a simpler taste, he preferred classical opera to symbolist delights).

Hitler generally loved Böcklin, having collected almost two dozen of his paintings. After the war, his "Isle of the Dead" moved to the National Gallery in Berlin, where it remains to this day. This is not a reproduction. The fact is that Böcklin painted the picture from 1880 to 1886 in several versions, each time changing the plot, size, technique, color scheme of the image, but retaining the basis of the composition. The first version is kept in the Basel Museum, the second in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the third, "Hitler" in Berlin, the fourth was bought by Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, but they say it was lost during the Second World War, the fifth kept in the Museum of Leipzig, and finally the sixth - in our Hermitage.

But there is another view. Thus Boris Asvarishch, head of the 19th-20th century painting and sculpture section of the State Hermitage’s Department of Western European Fine Art, whom we met in his office with a wonderful view of the Neva, believes that there were not six, but five paintings. When I ask him to comment on the rumor that in the Hermitage there is just a painting from Hitler's personal collection that came here as a trophy, he gets very angry, calls it "bullshit."

In this frame of the chronicle, Hitler and Molotov are negotiating against the backdrop of the Berlin version of the "Isle of the Dead"

“About 1900, the painting “Isle of the Dead” was wildly popular,” explains the art historian. Böcklin wrote four versions of it. The fifth was painted jointly with the artist's son. In the office, Hitler had one of five options - I think the third. This painting is kept in National Gallery in Berlin. The picture, which is in the Hermitage, has nothing to do with Hitler. Obviously, she was brought here by the very son of Böcklin, who was related to Russia (Carlo Böcklin married the daughter of the publisher of Moskovskie Vedomosti, Vladimir Gringmuth. - Trud), and here she stayed. It was in private hands, and these people handed it over to the Hermitage "for long-term storage with the right to exhibit" - there is such a museum term. Therefore, we expose it. That's the whole story."

To my question about the reasons for the mega-popularity of Böcklin’s painting, Boris Asvarishch replied: “When people live well, they are very fond of talking about death and similar matters. On this interest, the "Isle of the Dead" surfaced. In his article on Böcklin’s painting, Boris Asvarishch writes as follows: “In European life, there was no other author who at first caused so much misunderstanding and irritation, then was deified literally by the entire continent, and immediately after death almost instantly forgotten.”

Böcklin died in 1901. Meanwhile, a documentary frame has been preserved in which Adolf Hitler and Vyacheslav Molotov are negotiating on November 12, 1940 against the backdrop of the "Isle of the Dead". Behind the Fuhrer, a figure in a white chiton in a boat is visible, gaps above the silhouettes of the mountain, the tops of cypresses ...

It is interesting that now the famous painting cannot be seen in St. Petersburg. “Exposition of Western European Painting of the 19th-20th Centuries. moves to the Hermitage headquarters,” said Asvarish. “Part of it has already moved and is open.” The curator promised that the exposition would be fully open during the summer.