Isle of the Dead (Third version)

A small rowboat approaches a rocky island, carrying a standing figure draped in white and what appears to be a coffin. Arnold Böcklin, a Swiss painter working in a Symbolist vein, made this scene in 1883, one of several versions he painted of the same haunting subject. Tall cypress trees, long associated with cemeteries and mourning in Mediterranean cultures, rise from the center of the island, hemmed in by pale stone cliffs that have been carved with what look like burial chambers. The whole thing feels less like a real place and more like a dream, or a threshold between worlds.

Böcklin himself never gave the painting its famous name. A dealer came up with "Isle of the Dead," and it stuck. When someone asked him about its meaning, the artist offered little explanation, saying only that it should produce such stillness that a knock at the door would startle you. The image struck a deep chord across Europe. Reproductions hung in countless homes, and it inspired music by Rachmaninoff, writing by August Strindberg, and even caught the attention of Sigmund Freud. Not bad for a picture the painter described in such plain terms.