Roman Landscape (Römische Landschaft)
Arnold Böcklin
Brooklyn Museum photograph
Object Label
Arnold Böcklin was one of many artists lured to Italy to sketch and paint the light-bathed countryside in and around Rome. Unlike some of his contemporaries who found inspiration in time-worn monuments, Böcklin preferred rustic sites seemingly untouched by humans.
Here, the tiny figure of a bather disrobing in the middle ground underscores the majesty of nature, seen in particular in the ancient trees heavy with moss. Böcklin almost completely removes narrative elements to concentrate his attention on patterns of light and shade, as well as details of foliage and rock formations.
Here, the tiny figure of a bather disrobing in the middle ground underscores the majesty of nature, seen in particular in the ancient trees heavy with moss. Böcklin almost completely removes narrative elements to concentrate his attention on patterns of light and shade, as well as details of foliage and rock formations.
Caption
Arnold Böcklin (Swiss, 1827–1901). Roman Landscape (Römische Landschaft), 1852. Oil on canvas, 29 5/16 x 28 1/2in. (74.5 x 72.4cm) frame: 37 5/8 x 36 7/8 x 3 1/2 in. (95.6 x 93.7 x 8.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of A. Augustus Healy, 21.94. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
Gallery
Not on view
Gallery
Not on view
Artist
Title
Roman Landscape (Römische Landschaft)
Date
1852
Geography
Place made: Switzerland
Medium
Oil on canvas
Classification
Dimensions
29 5/16 x 28 1/2in. (74.5 x 72.4cm) frame: 37 5/8 x 36 7/8 x 3 1/2 in. (95.6 x 93.7 x 8.9 cm)
Signatures
Signed lower left: "A. Böcklin fec"
Credit Line
Bequest of A. Augustus Healy
Accession Number
21.94
Frequent Art Questions
Could you tell me about the artist's background?
Certainly. Arnold Bocklin, was one of the most celebrated and influential artists in central Europe, particularly Germany and Switzerland, in the later 19th century (even though he spent a great deal of time in Italy). He mostly painted scenes from Classical Mythology but depicted them in really imaginative, idiosyncratic and often dark ways. He is associated with Symbolism, a late 19th-century movement in art and literature that rejected the rationalism and materialism of modern life and the realistic description of the natural world in favor of pure subjectivity and the expression of an idea through poetic language, symbolic images, and formal means like color and line. The femme-fatale, death, eroticism, the occult, the diseased and the decadent were popular subjects and themes.What is the meaning of the small-scale human depicted in such an overwhelming landscape?Many visitors and art historians have theorized that it may symbolize the vulnerability of humans and the awesomeness of nature. Although, this was originally intended to be a landscape with the myth of Pan chasing Syrinx Bocklin chose to omit those figures.
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