Arnold Böcklin - Odysseus and Polyphemus
Summary
Böcklin’s original training as a landscape painter shines through in this unconventional interpretation of an episode from the ancient Greek epic poem the Odyssey. Crashing waves meet jagged rocks in a spray and scurry of foam. Escaping from the island of the Cyclopes—one-eyed, ill-tempered giants—the hero Odysseus calls back to the shore, taunting the Cyclops Polyphemus, who heaves a boulder after the boat. Unlike Academic colleagues who treated ancient mythology with reverence and solemnity, Böcklin often played up strange, grotesque, and even ridiculous elements of these stories, conjuring a pre-Classical world governed by violence and lust.
Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901) was a painter whose moody landscapes and sinister allegories greatly influenced late 19th-century German artists and presaged the symbolism of the 20th-century Metaphysical and Surrealist artists. Although he studied and worked throughout much of northern Europe—Düsseldorf, Antwerp, Brussels, and Paris—Böcklin found his real inspiration in the landscape of Italy, where he returned from time to time and where the last years of his life were spent.
Tags
Date
Source
Copyright info
