Isle of the Dead

... originally a Master Work by Swiss artist Arnold Bocklin in the late 1800's. A total of Six were completed. At one time the image was the most popular art work in the world.

Hitler owned an original.

Another held in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Dictator Vladimir Lenin hung a copy above his bed.

Freud had a reproduction commissioned for his office.

Contemporary artists such as Giger, Fabrizio Clerici and Dali, would produce their own versions, and many of our greatest films have used some kind of the Island’s likeness in their movies.

All I knew upon first seeing an image of the 1880 ‘Basel’ version was that it forced me in. A kind of black hole for the mind. - Maybe haunted at it’s edges.

In this version I've emphasized the vastness of 'Death' in that it would penetrate the viewer, immersing them into the openness, as well as the confines, of what I'd feel death is. The Sepulcher like buildings to either side seeming to wall us in as we ‘enter’ the lagoon. Vast space of ritual confinement, but then set free above it.

At the Center of the Canvas, at the Alter, begins the ‘climb into Cyprus’; the spirit on it’s homeward journey, the Cyprus trees signifying life eternal as they spiral upward into alighted skies.

The colors chosen were a preferred palette; earthen tones and burns. Not withstanding the subject matter, these colors were exceptionally well suited for the work, both in how they resonated from one another, as well in how they would represent Earth's body in which we all shall return.