Death is Your Friend

                              Arnold Böcklin: Self-portrait with Death playing the fiddle            1872

         Arnold Böcklin was not sick or old when he painted his portrait so Death did not threat him at all. According to the museum description, a Böcklin scholar, Jean Paul, wrote that on this picture Death is the artist’s inspiration, and not a fearful enemy.

      This theory is much likely true if we look at Böcklin’s art of works, especially at his most famous painting Isle of the Death: Böcklin loved to depict Death. It was the central subject matter in his mind.

      Death’s representation was a custom in medieval arts, they called it memento mori, which means “remember death” in Latin, that is to say never forget that you are going to die some day. I do not think medieval people could ever forget death anyway, since that was the time of the terrible plague and other epidemics, bad hygienic conditions and high children mortality.

      Death was a natural part of the everyday life; people born and died in the same bed, at home and not in hospitals, without tubes and machines, or medicines. Just as they entered this world, they left it in the same way. People actually saw their beloved ones to die. Death was very close to the people, like a family member who lived in their home with them. Although Böcklin did not live in medieval times this memento mori practice influenced him.

      The museum tag points out that Death plays on the fiddle’s only string, the G-string, which is the deepest, most dramatic sound on the violin. I tried to listen to that G-string to feel what Böcklin felt and I found the sound very powerful. When I heard the G –string for a minute or so, I felt my ears holing. I also heard a secondary part, a different but similarly deep and thick sound in my head, which made the experience more fey and distracting.

      Nevertheless Death plays its deadly music into the ear of the artist who seemingly gets inspired from it. Böcklin does not have to be afraid of being forgotten anyway. Böcklin made his mark with his unworldly paintings into the history of art before his beloved subject took him to the Isle of the Death.