Isle of the Dead (Basel version)

A tiny boat glides toward a rocky island, carrying a figure draped in white and what appears to be a coffin. Tall cypress trees, long linked with mourning and cemeteries, rise from the island's center, walled in by pale stone tombs carved into the cliffs. Arnold Böcklin, a Swiss artist working in the 1880s, painted several versions of this scene. This one, from 1880, is the first and lives in Basel. He never fully explained what it meant, which is part of why it has fascinated people for over a century.

Böcklin called it simply "a picture for dreaming," and the title "Isle of the Dead" was actually coined later by his art dealer. The painting became wildly popular across Europe, with reproductions hung in countless homes. It inspired music by Rachmaninoff, was admired by writers and filmmakers, and even hung in the offices of both Sigmund Freud and Adolf Hitler. The mix of still water, dark trees, and that solitary white figure taps into something about death and the journey toward it that viewers have read in their own way ever since.